Friday, October 31, 2008

Hooray for Geraldo! He takes O'Reilly to task

FOXNEWS' Geraldo Rivera heroically, emotionally and intelligently took Bill O'Reilly to task tonight for featuring video on Hispanic voters showing them as vagrants congregating on the corner.

O'Reilly in return told Rivera he was being too emotional and said the controversial TV journalist he was only half-Hispanic. Rivera retorted that he was fully Hispanic and as well fully Jewish.

Rivera told O'Reilly that McCain will lose key states in the West because of the conservative hate campaign against immigrants. Sen. Dole also be a key casualty for the hate campaign she has waged against immigrants in North Carolina.

Rivera also called out the right-wing haters in radio and in the media such as Lou Dobbs, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck. Rivera, however, held off in putting O'Reilly and his radio show in that category. He should have. Malkin is the most disgusting of that group. Her dark heart and writing are most menacing.


I realize that Rivera causes some people to roll their eyes because of his checkered, nose-breaking, Iraq-mistaking past. But with his public and celebrity status, he has vigorously taken haters such as Ann Coulter to task face to face.

So to him, I am appreciative of his courage and for speaking up instead of falling into line on FOXNEWS.

1 comment:

Chris1974 said...

Sorry, I know this post is a week old. I just stumbled across it. I remember you from your days at the Tennessean, where I didn't always agree with you, especially regarding Bush, but you are intellectually honest. Regarding this post, these two have a history. There is a famous You Tube video of the two of them shouting on O'Reilly's show, about immigration of course. I recently read Geraldo's recent book HisPanic, which was a well argued, cogent argument about the benefits Latinos, and others, have brought to the national fabric. But here in Tennessee, with a new majority of conservatives in both houses statewide, we are probably going to see some no-nothing legislation pretty soon. And of course, here in deep blue Davidson county, there is a January ballot initiative to make English the official language. But it seems that the anti-immigration craziness has faded, at least temporarily, nationwide, which is a good thing. We'll see how the national Democrats handle it if and when it comes up again.