Latest O'Reilly whopper: Holder is "worst" AG in history
On The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly attacked Eric Holder as the worst attorney general in history, claiming that he has taken the mantle" from Janet Reno. This is just the latest in a litany of attacks O'Reilly has leveled at Reno and Holder.One can understand why O'Liar loves America - for him this nation is the land of gullible rubes where he makes millions shoveling lies to right-wing conservative nuts. It's the decadent welfare of conservatism.
O'Reilly has repeatedly attacked Reno and Holder with falsehoods and distortions. For instance, O'Reilly falsely claimed that "Eric Holder and Janet Reno put the wall between the FBI and the CIA," which led to the 9-11 attacks. Further, he falsely claimed that "Holder was second in command to Janet Reno" at the time the "wall" was created. He made similar false claims about Holder and Reno previously.
And just last week, O'Reilly criticized Holder for not pursuing criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party. Referencing the decision not to press criminal charges, O'Reilly said that Holder "did it" because "his ideology comes into every decision." But as Media Matters has repeatedly pointed out, it was Bush's DOJ that decided to file a civil, not criminal, complaint.
Even if O'Reilly's attacks on Holder were true -- which they clearly are not -- they would be far outstripped by Nixon Attorney General and Watergate criminal John Mitchell. As The Washington Post notes of Mitchell:
Nixon's former law partner served as attorney general before resigning in 1972 to head the Committee for the Re-election of the President. He stood trial in 1974 and was convicted on charges of conspiracy, perjury and obstruction of justice. He served 19 months in a minimum-security prison in Alabama before being released on parole for medical reasons.
In September 1972, stories by The Washington Post linked Mitchell to a secret campaign fund that paid for the Watergate burglary. When Post reporter Carl Bemstein called for a comment, Mitchell directed his response at the Post's publisher:"Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's ever published." According to later testimony, Mitchell approved $250,000 for the break-in.
Nevada Senate Candidate Sharron Angle flummoxes local press with "stimulus" non-sequitor
Here's the latest out of Nevada: Sharron Angle is getting attention for flubbing an answer involving job creation in a manner that raises questions about whether she grasps an enormously important local issue.It would be letting Angle off the hook to say she suffers from some kind of mental disorder. As much as it appears that she is a wacko. No, Angle is maliciously and stubbornly stupid, oblivious to the plight of average working Americans. In other words a typical conservative.
This is not going to get the sort of national coverage that attended her "slush fund" or "Second Amemdment Remedies" claims. But in a sense this kind of thing can actually be more important, since it more directly concerns a major local issue directly afflicting Nevada residents.
What happened was this: Angle, under fire for saying she disagreed with something Harry Reid did that saved a project involving thousands of local jobs, claimed that what she'd really meant to say was that she opposed the stimulus. The problem, as a flummoxed local reporter pointed out, is that the stimulus had nothing to do with the project in question.
The mess started last week when Angle was asked if she would have intervened in order to save MGM Resorts' City Center complex. The center suffered serious financial struggles last year during construction, and looked like it was about to go belly up. But Reid called several banks and got them to extend loans, helping the project avert bankruptcy.
Angle subsequently said on the radio that she wouldn't have stepped in. And later, she added that so doing would be "kind of like shifting the chairs on the Titanic." Given that Angle is already under fire for claiming that job creation isn't in a U.S. Senator's job description, these comments were obviously less than helpful.
Now Angle has tried to clarify these comments in an interview with the local Fox affiliate. She said:
"What I said on the radio is that I would not have voted for the stimulus for the City Center. And the reason is because what happened there was Harry Reid rewarded some friends at the expense of other businesses in town. Stimulus does not work and we've seen that with the unemployment rate going up."
But this project wasn't collecting any stimulus dollars. "There were no public dollars used for City Center," the Fox reporter rejoined, adding that what Reid "actually did was just pick up the phone and ask the banks to go ahead and loan some money that was needed in order to finish the construction [with] 22,000 jobs on the line."
Again, this kind of thing won't gain the national traction of her more lurid claims. But this sort of stuff is likely to get more attention from Nevada voters who might fairly ask themselves whether Angle grasps the basics of this hugely important local issue.
