that was bill O, not rush.

Oops. Thanks, Brandon. Fixed.

"Lynching party" Nice choice of words there, fucko.

Someone's Freud is showing, I'd say...

What about McCain's "dealings" with a female lobbyist? Interesting, hmmm? I bet Cindy starts up the pill popping again . . .

This is way, way worse than what Don Imus said. this needs to be the story. Bill O says Michelle Obama should be lynched if she isn't sufficiently nationalistic? Damn that is some insane shit right there

I don't want to saw off Bill O'Reilly's balls with a rusty old fishing knife, not until the report is in from the state-appointed pyschiatrist.

For previous peeks into this man's skull, see:

http://www.liberapedia.com/index.php?title=Bill_O'Reilly_Insane_Fantasy_Collection

voodoo is right. that is some crazy fucking shit.

Spoken like a douchebag who really, really needs to get his ass kicked on TV - preferably by an 8 year old girl.

I've known Don Imus since the early 70s. Here's the difference between him and Bill O'Reilly: Don is a smart-ass who frequently engages his mouth before engaging his brain. O'Reilly, on the other hand, means every fucking word of what he says.

poor choice of words, for sure. but for a guy who's built his entire career trashing people by taking their comments out of context, his restraint on this matter is rather commendable. i'm amazed by his ability to do something quasi-honorable and patently offensive at the same time.

he is pulling a bellevue ave; commendable messasge with questionably offensive delivery.

Bill O is quickly becoming Ann Coulter, but uglier. I don't think anyone who would have supported Obama is going to be swayed by this and the more virulent the attacks against either candidate/candidate's family, the stronger they'll grow. This is a pretty easy one for Obama to nail. He should turn it into a fundraising cause.

Oh my God, Bill O'Reilly used a metaphor that he knew would elicit an emotionally charged reaction. SHOCKED.

It's actually an uncharacteristically rational sentiment, word choice notwithstanding. He's saying "let's figure out if she just misspoke before we attack her," which is a more charitable approach than many of the commenters here have adopted towards him.

Ann Coulter is hilarious. Bill O'Reilly is not.

Poe, you obviously have forget about his horny phone calls to his interns.

Have forget. oi.

OMGAWDZZ THAT SHIT WAS HILARIOUSIZZIZ

Dumb. So we can't use this metaphor when taking about black people. Next thing you know, I won't be able to call Italians stupid wop fucks.

Thats still ok, right??

@18: Are you serious about the lynching term? Trust me, as a black man who grew up in the South, the word makes me ill.

on the pride in America thing.

One of Obama's strengths is when he talks about hope he wraps in:
the colonialists fighting the British Empire
all men are created equal
FDR we have nothing to fear except ....
MLK fighting for civil rights
JFK reaching for the moon.

He gets lots of Americans united and excited by evoking pride in our country anid including everyone and all our heros.

Now we all now that the colonialists were also a bunch of slaveholders, as was Jefferson, and that in many ways our nation ain't so great. But it's cool that he doesn't focus on that. In his speeches.

Smart: why give up the flag, patriotism and hope and other unifying themes to the right wing?

Now we have a mis-step by Michelle saying she wasn't proud of America until her hubby became a viable pres. candidate...that's a bad quote.
Obama has been tardy in addressing it.

What a wonderful opportunity for him and her to say they are proud, he's been constantly addressing this, pride relates to hope, and using the whole incident to reinforce his message with free media. Imagine a him and her response like Bill and Hillary back when they addressed G. Flowers. And have Michelle talk about being working class African American and her personal story and feeling pride and hope and fear and doubt that is so African American and so American really for anyone struggling -- that's why her parents worked so hard and that's what drove her and she knows America can succeed in overcoming past hateful legacies and she was always hopeful and believed in America that's why she worked hard etc. that's why they're both involved in this effort and just freaking reclaim hope and wrap it into pride and patriotism and unity all over again.

I hate this sliming you are a traitor you hate the USA shit the GOP pulls every time and I think it's rather patsy-ish fo the progressives to just shut up and act like yes, indeedy, they do hate American too we're eveil and bad and such.

Staying silent confirms the charge, just like Kerry did.

You all do realize he said he wants to take Michelle Obama and hang her by the neck from a tree right? Why don't they just put the white hood on him during his show? Oh and fire his racist ass.

On the bright side, in eleven months, the Secret Service will haul him away and we'll never see him again, if he keeps this up.

:)

Maybe we should start sending Bill O white hoods. What Racist shit!

What about Cindy McCain's unconditional reply of "I just wanted to make the statement that I have and always will be proud of my country." What's more scary? Conditional pride (remember Michelle used the word "really") versus unconditional worship, which is exactly the sort of unquestioned patriotism that got us and U.S. in this current mess...

Here's an interesting fact:"Tuskeegee Institute records of lynchings between the years 1880 and 1951 show 3437 African-American victims, as well as 1293 white victims, nearly all of whom were registered Republicans".

Now I'm not suggesting that lynching was not used to specifically terrorize african americans in the south. It should be noted that lynching was used to string up all kinds of people. There are more than a few Irish and Italians that were lynched in the north in the late 1800's (And who wouldn't mind a few more lynched republicans?).

I just find interesting that using this term in the same sentence as Mrs. Obama somehow makes you a racist.

Would he lynch her while eating middle eastern food products though with that intern he paid off? Isn't that what we all are wondering.

Oh yeah, I can only hope he says some shit like that after January 20th...I would love to watch Fox security protect Bill O from the secret service.

I'm skeptical that someone who has shown such good political instincts as Michele Obama would all of a sudden antagonize conservative patriots in such an obvious way.

Twice.

One gets the sense that Obama campaign is getting good at giving morons like Bill O'Reilly or the inept Clinton campaign enough rope to hang themselves with.

@25 - don't you hate it when people won't say what they mean? instead, they hide behind finding things "interesting" or saying things like "now i'm not suggesting that..." when *that* is exactly what they are in fact suggesting. this is a blog fer cryin out loud. say what you mean.

Good call elenchos. This shit would have stuck a few years ago but it looks like asshole blowhards aren't getting the free pass they used to.

O'REILLY: You know, I have a lot of sympathy for Michelle Obama, for Bill Clinton, for all of these people. Bill Clinton, I have sympathy for him, because they're thrown into a hopper where everybody is waiting for them to make a mistake, so that they can just go and bludgeon them. And, you know, Bill Clinton and I don't agree on a lot of things, and I think I've made that clear over the years, but he's trying to stick up for his wife, and every time the guy turns around, there's another demagogue or another ideologue in his face trying to humiliate him because they're rooting for Obama.

That's wrong. And I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down.
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/02/20/oreilly-producer-defends-lynching-remark

"We'll track it down."???
What he's ignorant mostly about is, this IS a flawed nation and as such, it has a history of LYNCHINGS. And no one is ready to forget that. Maybe HE is, but there are many more who will not forget.

Unconditional pride/love is such bullshit. Who would you rather be with, someone who loves you for who you are even taking your flaws into account or someone who's so stupid or in so much denial that they can't see that you have any flaws? Call me crazy, but I'll go with the former. I'll also only trust people who accept that the U.S. is not perfect and could stand for some improvement. Shit. Isn't that what we want from a leader, to make things better?

What's sad is that it looks like he was actually TRYING to be semi-reasonable about the whole thing (though I'm not sure what would constitute evidence of insufficient patriotism. Burned flag remnants?) Even when he's trying to be fair, he's a total ass.

I want to know more about what a "legit" lynching party is.

Bill? Bill?

Okay, I'll play the devil here.

You know, Ghetto was a pretty powerful word too. Ghettos where the name given to the prison camps used by Hitler to eradicate the Jews. Ghetto is almost common English now.

.... however, I don't think "Lynching" will ever go into the English lexicon meaning anything but "hang the blacks to keep them powerless". His statement is pretty fucked up. He is either horrible with words, which is clearly not the case, or he is a racist troll.

That said. The "republican machine" has been given all the rope in the world. After decades of power, it seems they are finally starting to hang themselves on it. Good on them.

hilary would probably get some political mileage out of making a statement deploring this kind of statement and the 'media' types who make them, linking it to what was said about chelsea...

O´Reilly´s fake compassion for Bill Clinton is a rhetorical move to set up the Obamas and the Obama campaign as some kind of sliming-machine on Hillary, who is no longer the target-of-choice because she has lost the nomination already.

> What's more scary?

The people who come listen to them speak. I have learned tons about each candidate just watching their audience.

PS: Notice how only Obama downplays his name on the placards he gives out. McCain has his name plastered behind him when he speaks. Hillary has everybody holding Hillary cards. Obama has "Change. Yes We Can (ps: www.barackobama.com)".

@34 The word "ghetto" is much, much older than the holocaust. I've actually been to the original Ghetto: the neighborhood in Venice where the Jews were required to live, established in the 1500s.

The meaning of the term ghetto has expanded and changed over the years, and now includes neighborhoods where a certain group of people are forced to live through social or economic pressures.

"Ghetto" is a negative word with a connotation of oppression, but it is not akin to lynching. "Concentration Camp" would be more akin to lynching, in its implication of targeting a specific group with violence.

I agree with Jersey. Couldn't of said it better myself.

So, in other words, if there is "hard evidence" that Mrs. Obama actually feels this way, then he DOES want to organize a lynching party?

And some people don't see why that statement is offensive?

O'Reilly needs to be taken out and shot, I'm sorry, but that's all there is to it. Take him out behind the building and put a bullet in his head.

Uh Bill O.... hate to wake you from your delusion, but WE ARE A FLAWD NATION! Else, why would so much our population be calling for CHANGE???

I thought about it a little more, and to be "fair" to Bill O'Reilly, we have to take into account what kind of nut he is:

Above all, he is an authoritarian, bullying kind of nut. We could be an all-white, all-Christian (to include suitably conservative Catholics, of course) nation, and he'd still want to lynch those he considered traitors.

Does this mean he's not a racist to boot? Nah. In fact, it's kinda hard to find authoritarian, violent, bullying (borderline fascistic) hypernationalist types who aren't that, too.

If it were 1917 and I were standing up and saying, "Don't buy war bonds", or "this war really is Europe's problem", he'd have been just the type to want to lynch my tiny white ass, then, too.

Okay, that's enough of my being fair. Where's that rusty old fishing knife?