Joan Walsh Spars with Bill O'Reilly

Salon.com columnist, Joan Walsh got Bill O'Reilly pretty angry when she wrote this last Wednesday:

If there's a through-line between any of these acts of terrorism and the right-wing rhetoric that abets it, of course, it's the one linking Bill O'Reilly to Scott Roeder, the man who murdered Tiller. O'Reilly more than demonized Tiller; night after night he called him a baby killer, compared him to the Nazis, and suggested that he must be stopped. Roeder stopped him, all right. If I were O'Reilly I'd feel terrible for putting a private figure in my public sights night after night, simply for doing his lawful job. But O'Reilly has no conscience, so he's proud of it.

So, O'Reilly invited Walsh on his show and Walsh agreed to go on. Here is the segment below:



What a mess! Things start out calmly enough but quickly devolve to a level that everyone knew we would get to eventually. O'Reilly is his normal bullying self (telling Walsh to "stop talking" at one point) raising his voice to yell at his guest and delivering this amazing statement:

"My constitutional rights say I can say what I say, you can say what you say, as vile as you say it, you can say it, and I would never condemn you for saying it. You are misguided, you have blood on your hands because you portrayed this man as a hero."

Of course he would never condemn her for what she says...except when he calls her vile and says that she has blood on her hands.

Now Walsh did get in some good points although the middle portion where they go back and forth about who has blood on their hands wasn't her finest moment, but it is clear that O'Reilly never had any intention of having an actual discussion with Walsh on this matter. He first states "you're wrong by the way" at 1:19 seconds into the clip and things go downhill from there. For those who are interested, Walsh posted a piece about her experience on the program that you can find here. Here is a portion:

His producers also helped by doing that thing they do: "Hey, Bill really respects you for coming on the show! He wants to have a conversation! It'll be fine!" (And they promoted my appearance on the show by identifying me on the Web site as "Joan Walsh of Slate.com.")

Well, it was so not fine. I think the high or low point was when he shrieked at me, "You have blood on your hands!" At one point he also either told me to "Shut up" or "Be quiet," I can't remember. (If I'm wrong about that, when I see the clip, I'll correct it. UPDATE: Actually, he shouted "Stop talking!") He called me "vile." I think I said he was vile, too. There were a couple of "I know you are but what am I?" moments that I'm not totally proud of. It was a kaleidoscopic nightmare, a TV acid trip, and I don't do acid. It almost seems like O'Reilly does, but I don't think so. The man is driven by demons. God bless him and save him.

White Supremacist Opens Fire at Holocaust Museum in Washington

There are reports streaming in to all the news outlets stating that James W. von Brunn, an 89 year-old white supremacist, walked into Washington's Holocaust Museum and opened fire injuring two. From the Times article I linked to above:

Von Brunn, who claims on his own website to have been a decorated PT-boat captain and lieutenant in the US Navy during World War II, has written a book entitled ‘Kill the Best Gentiles!” According to its preface, its purpose it “to present WHITE YOUTH” with factual information to explain that an “age old CONSPIRACY does exist to destroy Western Civilisation.”

Von Brunn also has a Wikipedia user profile in which he champions the virtues of Western culture and the practice of eugenics. In another article he claims that Holocaust history is destroying Western civilization.

[...]

In 1981, von Brunn entered the Federal Reserve in Washington with a shotgun to make a citizens arrest, he later said, to protest about high interest rates. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail.

On his website, he claims he was convicted by a “Negro jury, Jew /Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge. A Jew/Negro/White Court of Appeals denied his appeal.”

While details are still emerging my thoughts once again are turned toward the Department of Homeland Security report that was released a few months ago and outlined the possibility of a rise in right-wing extremist violence. Again, not that all conservatives or people who hold right-wing viewpoints are extremists who want to commit violent acts, but with the election of President Obama we have seen rhetoric that began during the campaign escalate into a very angry opposition. An opposition that is angered by policies and fueled by rhetoric that we must stop Obama at all costs in order to save our Democracy from Fascism.

On a somewhat related note, I was recently criticized in the comments section of a recent post for writing, "to an almost obsessive degree", on an instance of right-wing terrorism (the death of Dr. Tiller) while ignoring "a left-wing political murder". This "left-wing political murder" that this poster referred to was this incident:

Muslim convert charged with fatally shooting an American soldier at a military recruiting center said Tuesday that he doesn't consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.

"I do feel I'm not guilty," Abdulhakim Muhammad told The Associated Press in a collect call from the Pulaski County jail. "I don't think it was murder, because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason."

Obviously my lack of posting on that story does not mean that don't find that shooting any less disturbing, it is very disturbing and should also be labeled as domestic terrorism. What I don't accept is the broad labeling of this as a "left-wing" incident. Are there members on the fringe of the left that demonize military recruiters? Yes. Is there a left-wing movement that advocated violence on military recruiters that Muhammad was a part of? No. In fact, much of what we know in this story paints Muhammad as an American who was converted to radical Islam while he spent time in a prison in Yemen. Scott Roeder, however, has a much different background that includes participation with radical right-wing anti-abortion groups and various offenses for damaging abortion clinics.

There are also two other differences. There is no one that I am aware of on the left, who is attempting to justify the murder of the military recruiters. No one is saying that justice was served or that people were saved because of this shooting. Secondly, there was not a presence of cable television hosts who continually targeted these military recruiters as "killers" or suggesting that they ran a "death mill". There was no talk of "stopping" these recruiters and mentioning that anyone who didn't stop them would have blood on their hands.

While both of these scenarios are domestic terrorism, there are notable differences that complicate these scenarios more than putting them in neat little boxes of "right-wing terrorism" and "left-wing terrorism".

Will Scott Roeder be Waterboarded?

I am sure that many of you have heard this piece of news from the weekend:

The man charged with murdering a high-profile abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell Sunday that similar violence was planned around the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal, a threat that comes days after a federal investigation launched into his possible accomplices.

A Justice Department spokesman said the threat was being taken seriously and additional protection had been ordered for abortion clinics last week. But a leader of the anti-abortion movement derided the accused shooter as "a fruit and a lunatic."

Scott Roeder called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail, where he's being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller one week ago.

"I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal," Roeder said. He would not elaborate.

As several other bloggers have pointed out, according to the Bush Administration and those who defend so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques", why shouldn't we use these techniques on Scott Roeder? He has connections to radical organizations and has hinted that he has knowledge of other "similar" events that are planned around the country that could target doctors. Should we put Roeder in a box with an insect? Put him is stress positions? Use sleep deprivation? Strip him naked and expose him to sensory deprivation? Waterboard him? If torture provides such valuable and accurate information and we are involved in a ticking-timebomb scenario, then what are we waiting for?

More Details Emerge on the Murder of Dr. Tiller

Scott Roeder, the man who is charged with gunning down Dr. George Tiller as he attended a church service on Sunday, has had a pattern of vandalizing abortion clinics and even had FBI complaints filed against him.

In a piece written yesterday, Amy Goodman explains:

George Tiller did not have to die. He was assassinated while in church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, targeted for legally performing abortions. His death might have been prevented simply through enforcement of existing laws. His alleged killer was seen vandalizing a Kansas City clinic, Aid for Women, both the week before and the day before the murder, putting glue into its door locks. The manager of that clinic, who calls himself “Jeff Pederson” to protect his identity, told me he called the FBI and local police both times, but the vandal, the alleged killer Scott Roeder, was not arrested. Pederson had Roeder’s first name and his license-plate number. He had images of him on the security video. He recognized him from previous protests.

[...]

Roeder was picked up shortly after the shooting Sunday in his Ford Taurus. On Tuesday, he was charged with first-degree murder.

I asked Pederson if he thought Tiller’s murder could have been prevented if the authorities had simply arrested Roeder after he vandalized the Kansas City clinic. Pederson paused. “I don’t know,” he said.

But Dr. Susan Robinson was adamant. She flies to Wichita every month to perform abortions in Tiller’s clinic. She said, “It is generally regarded amongst those who do clinic security, if local authorities are not responsive, if they don’t show up or they don’t vigilantly enforce the law, that it encourages the anti-abortion people to push it further and further.”

She said: “In Wichita, Dr. Tiller was constantly dealing with the same lack of enforcement. Wichita prohibits placing signs on city property. But they allow the anti-abortion protesters to set up dozens of crosses and leave them all day. Dr. Tiller went to the city attorney over the crosses, and complained that people block the clinic driveway. He told me that the city attorney said, ‘I would rather be sued by George Tiller than the anti-abortion folks.’ ”

Interesting since damaging the property of facilities that provided reproductive health services is a federal crime. Rachel Maddow expands on this and also exposes an interesting connection between Roeder and the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue last night on her program:

Rachel Maddow on Those Who Continue to Justify the Murder of Dr. Tiller

On her show last night, Rachel Maddow turned her focus on those who continue to justify and praise the killing of Dr. George Tiller. Here is the clip:



As I was driving around Cincinnati today, I saw a truck that was driving down the street completely decked out with signs and posters while flying a big American flag on the roof. On these signs were pictures of the late doctor in addition to images of aborted fetuses with proclamations that justice was served and that had Tiller "sold his soul". These statements of support for the murder of a licensed doctor in his place of worship by a domestic terrorist are not only disturbing, but should be an indication why so many doctors are hesitant to perform these procedures in this country. They know that they will be harassed, threatened, and targeted by people like Roeder and organizations that support him who feel that murder is a justifiable action.