Political Correctness: Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann (AKA, Osama bin Olbermann), News Busters, and Col. Ralph Peters

 

First Day Contrast: Olbermann Called Tiller Shooting 'Terrorism' and a 'Jihad,' But Avoided Those Terms for Fort Hood

By Tim Graham | November 10, 2009

On June 1 of this year, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann devoted most of his hour of Countdown to his withering outrage at the shooting of late-term abortionist George Tiller in Kansas (and how it was caused by Fox News).

The tone was dramatically different than his tone on November 5, the night of the Islamic terrorist shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas. Here’s Olbermann’s very dry opening: "Nightmare at Fort Hood: How could a soldier kill at least 12 other soldiers and wounded at least 31 more? And why?"

Here are words that Olbermann did not use on that first night last week: jihad, fundamentalist, crusaders, extremists, terrorism, zealot, Taliban, Hamas, al-Qaeda. All of these, however, were used in the first seconds of the Tiller show in June. That began this way:

Domestic terrorism: Dr. George Tiller -- women’s health physician, performer of legal abortions -- is assassinated in his church. And in the very same sentence, anti-choice zealots wash their hands of his murder and say he had it coming.

After all the promotional lingo, Olbermann grew even hotter:

A religious jihad by fundamentalist crusaders who believe that murder is justified, their acts of violence having the intended effect of changing behavior. Our fifth story on the Countdown: Not the Taliban, not Hamas, not al Qaeda. If the brutal murder of Dr. George Tiller -- the Wichita OB/GYN who, among many other things, provided abortions -- does not qualify as an act domestic terrorism, what does?

When comparing the two programs, it’s quite apparent that Olbermann has a lot more ardor and distaste for conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Bachmann than he does for Major Hasan. In fact, the Fort Hood shooting was demoted to story number four (it also got second billing in the show's introduction), so he could lead with the conservative-bashing:

An elected Republican official today is leading a protest on the west steps of the Capitol that compared health care reform to Nazi death camps and encouraged mindless harassment of and possibly violence against the government. Not tea baggers anymore, not demagogic commentators, an actual congresswoman inciting a hateful rebellion against the rule of law and order. Her name is Michele Bachmann.

In other words, he had more outrage for the alleged violence against the government that may some day be spurred by the rhetoric of Bachmann than the actual violence committed on federal property by Major Hasan.

His single segment on Fort Hood (as opposed to several on Tiller on the first night) made no ridiculous detours to blame cable-news networks -- even al-Jazeera.

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