O'Reilly's Factor Fix-Up against GE.

Bill O'Reilly is known for sending out Jesse Waters, his little "producer" to events where the presence of Bill O himself would bring up red flags.  So, O'Reilly sent the producer to cover GE's shareholder meeting.

It was not hard to find shareholders at the meeting who disapprove of GE conducting any business in Iran, although GE has not done business directly with the country's rulers.  GE's customers have been European oil and gas companies with operations in Iran.

Also at that meeting, an investor in GE, Dr Tom Borelli of the Free Enterprise Action Fund (US ticker symbol FEAOX) confronted GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt about doing business in Iran.  Please note, you only heard the confrontation on O'Reilly's show, you couldn't see it, because, just as at so many other shareholder meetings, no recording devices are allowed, so Fox News broke that rule.

But The Factor didn't tell you everything about Dr Tom Borelli, who also was O'Reilly's guest on the segment.  From doing a little research, it turns out that Dr Tom Borelli has some very interesting history.  Back in 1990, he was Director of Corporate Scientific Affairs at Philip Morris, the tobacco company.  He was amongst the group of people who were constantly trying to tell us that smoking wasn't bad for us, and there was no danger from second hand smoke. 

Tom Borelli also writes for some conservative political websites, such as TownHall.com and Human Events.  In other words, Dr Tom Borelli is a political animal with more than a little interest in doing business with Fox News and Bill O'Reilly against GE.

The segment is embedded below.

 

'Gobby' Gibson vs Bath-tub boy: Gobby spins out!

Olbermann Watch is a 'conservative' blog which focuses it's attention on deriding Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. OW recently posted on YouTube a video piece which they cobbled together mixing audio from John Gibson's Fox News Talk radio show, and added some still pictures.

The clip is pure anti-Olbermann propoganda, so bare that in mind, as I post it here.



But I have checked the official MSNBC transcripts for the 'offending' edition of Countdown, which aired on Monday 10th September 2007. This is the question that Keith Olbermann was asking, in full...

"One egregious thing that happened that did not involve the Petraeus per se, that I wanted to ask you about. Instead of weighing the merits of the Petraeus testimony, the presidential candidates put out statements criticizing moveon.org for its General Petraeus or general “betray us” ad today. The ranking Republicans in their opening statements at the joint hearing this afternoon did the same thing. Congressman Hunter saying attacking the messenger was outrageous, not to defend that phraseology.

But has anybody noticed that the administration and Republicans in Congress and specifically Mr. Hunter of California have spent the length of this war doing nothing but attacking the messenger when they did not like the messenger‘s message about Iraq?"

It's funny. John Gibson, or 'Gobby' as I like to call him, because he is 100% mouth with no brains, no trousers and it seems, no sense at all, was claiming that Olbermann was say he, Keith Olbermann, wasn't defending a phrase that had appeared as a chyron some weeks earlier, yet it clearly reads like a quote. The question was pointing out the hypocrisy of others who have attacked the messenger in the past, yet are telling others not to attack the messenger now. Of course, it all depends on the message.

But basically, Gobby clipped the piece, to make it seem that KO was being a liar and a hypocrite, when in fact, the question read rather differently when read in full.

This is one of the tricks that the unscrupulous parts of the media do. Take small clips out of context in order to demonstrate a point that they want to put forward. Gobby's anti-Olbermann agenda is well known and rather obvious. It also seems not to be based on fact but on some personal grieveance.

As with many such pieces, the TruthSeeker finds that the only truths here are the tiny pieces of 'evidence' which is then used to come up with a ridiculous conclusion, based less on facts and more on personal opinion. Gobby's show seems more to be about how brash and abrasive he can be, and how much of an ego he can have. This was purely propoganda, against a competing anchor at a competitior's network, a network the host used to work for.