Once again, Bill O'Reilly lies to save face for a lie
Rob Switzer
Issue date: 7/18/06 Section: Perspectives
He brought up the events in Malmedy, France in World War II. According to his story, in that location a group of American soldiers rounded up a collection of unarmed German prisoners and slaughtered all of them in cold blood.
He didn't offer a number of how many prisoners were killed. Perhaps that's because not a single German prisoner was killed in that incident. On the contrary, at least 84 American servicemen were killed. They were unarmed, their hands were up in the air, and their German S.S. captors took it upon themselves to lodge a bullet in each and every one of their heads.
For some reason, Clark didn't call him on his facts. Perhaps he's not familiar with the incident himself. Regardless, as Olberman admitted, O'Reilly made a mistake. That's OK; everyone makes them. However, the general protocol after making such a terrible mistake is to offer a retraction and an apology.
O'Reilly's move, however, was to try to ignore the matter and then proceed to make the same mistake again several months later. Just a couple of months ago, following the Haditha massacre in Iraq in which many Iraqi citizens were killed by marines, O'Reilly invited General Clark onto his show again and once again, he broached the Malmedy massacre.
Even though he was bombarded by objections and corrections following last October, he proceeded to tell the same fib again in an attempt to downplay the Haditha killings as an insignificant incident. He barked out the same lies to Clark and exclaimed, "You know that. That's on the record; it's been documented!"
Unfortunately, Clark once again failed to call him out on his bull. Thankfully, some concerned viewers picked up the slack, and O'Reilly even read one of their letters on the air on his program. The letter read, "Bill, you mentioned Malmedy as the site of an American massacre during World War II. It was the other way around, the S.S. shot down U.S. prisoners."
Bill's defense was, of course, to cover up his old lie with a fresh new lie. He retorted that he never actually said that, but that he was talking about some incident that happened later on in Normandy. He then quickly moved on to the next topic.
He didn't offer a number of how many prisoners were killed. Perhaps that's because not a single German prisoner was killed in that incident. On the contrary, at least 84 American servicemen were killed. They were unarmed, their hands were up in the air, and their German S.S. captors took it upon themselves to lodge a bullet in each and every one of their heads.
For some reason, Clark didn't call him on his facts. Perhaps he's not familiar with the incident himself. Regardless, as Olberman admitted, O'Reilly made a mistake. That's OK; everyone makes them. However, the general protocol after making such a terrible mistake is to offer a retraction and an apology.
O'Reilly's move, however, was to try to ignore the matter and then proceed to make the same mistake again several months later. Just a couple of months ago, following the Haditha massacre in Iraq in which many Iraqi citizens were killed by marines, O'Reilly invited General Clark onto his show again and once again, he broached the Malmedy massacre.
Even though he was bombarded by objections and corrections following last October, he proceeded to tell the same fib again in an attempt to downplay the Haditha killings as an insignificant incident. He barked out the same lies to Clark and exclaimed, "You know that. That's on the record; it's been documented!"
Unfortunately, Clark once again failed to call him out on his bull. Thankfully, some concerned viewers picked up the slack, and O'Reilly even read one of their letters on the air on his program. The letter read, "Bill, you mentioned Malmedy as the site of an American massacre during World War II. It was the other way around, the S.S. shot down U.S. prisoners."
Bill's defense was, of course, to cover up his old lie with a fresh new lie. He retorted that he never actually said that, but that he was talking about some incident that happened later on in Normandy. He then quickly moved on to the next topic.
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Anonymous
posted 7/19/06 @ 1:49 AM EST
Fantastical prose; give that man the Peabody.
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