He has to be doing this deliberetly. "lynch" has become a "buzzword" for them now and O'Rielly's ratings have been going down steadily for years. Not that this should be ignored but it's attention he wants and he's using a word he knows will get a reaction.

I don’t like Bill, but he’s going to have a program about the Duke Team lawsuit against all those horrible Duke U. Officials and the infamous Duke88 for hurting those boys barely out of high school. I’m not a fan of Nancy Grace for her public conviction and persecution of those innocent boys. Those boys went through hell for over a year, and people like Nancy Grace and Wendy Murphy just made it all the more worse as they made up stories about how the rape actually happened – even when there were no evidence available, those two women just kept making things up. That’s why I watch Bill. At least he tries to remain unbias.

*snerk*
Bill O'Reilly? Unbiased?
You're joking, yes?

He's practically the defining example of blatant bias.

Also: What, exactly, does his use of "lynch" with regards to Michelle Obama have to do with the Duke case?

Ah! Right! Nothing!

Roy, Suzie was around yesterday doing a little concern trolling about the validity of feminist statistics etc. She's a real riot.

If Bill-O is unbiased, then I'm the Queen of England.

Longtime reader, firstime poster. I hate everything about the mainstream media. Bunch of asshats. Sad to say, but I think the most unbiased news comes from Stewart and Colbert. Those two tell it like it is, regardless of who's gonna get pissed off at them. And although the Duke comment was kind of random, it reminded me of this gem:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/14/the-daily-show-will-nancy-grace-apologize-to-duke-lacrosse-players/

Stewart at his finest.

Bwahahaha! Thanks for the laugh, Suzie. I listened to Bill O'Reilly purely out of curiosity for two years when I was working afternoons at a shipping company and some days I was surprised the bias didn't ooze out of the speakers.

Well Billo is certainly unbiased about which stories he checks his facts on......none of them.

The fact that anyone takes him seriously anymore makes me die, not just a little, but a lot on the inside. He so blatantly lies for his ratings that calling him "news" even in this day and age is an utter insult to the rest of the Ted Baxters. Look at some of his most recent gems. He went on about how he's never seen homeless vets. And if there were any that they should introduced themselves to him. A bunch of them came knocking on his door the next day, and he blew them off. Then there was that whole "Malmedie" incident where he claimed, not once but multiple times that American soldiers killed a bunch of Nazi soldiers who had surrendered, when it was actually the other way around. What the fuck is this guy still doing on TV? Dan Rather misreported one set of documents, which were totally factual, but were copies instead of the originals. And he gets crucified.

Bill O'Reilly is a disgrace to the idea of "truth" get the jackass out of the public eye.

I love how he manages to sound so reasonable and understanding, like, hey, I want to get both sides of this, I want to be fair to everyone -- sounds like a totally legitimate, responsible thing to do, right?

Um, except that he wants to be fair to "both sides" about the question of whether Michelle Obama is an angry, militant woman. There is no being fair about that question. Asking it is inherently unfair already. Trying to play it off like he's being fair makes it even more despicable. I personally didn't love the comment (and am not an Obama supporter), but come on people. Everyone makes slips of the tongue. I'm sure she did not mean "the US is a terrible place and it's finally done something right." Of course she doesn't feel that way. To suggest that she does is hyperbolic and absurd.

Let us not forget that this is the same man who was shocked that Sylvia's in Harlem was clean and that the (predominantly black) patrons were well-behaved and quiet.

You forget MLEmac, Dan Rather was attacking the President's honor when he misreported those documents. :-) I'm sure that's probably a huge reason as to why he was crucified for the mistake he made. I've never understood why Billo gets away with all the mistakes he makes time and time again...

I personally could care less whether or not Michelle Obama is an angry woman. Heaven forbid a black woman, or any woman for that matter, be angry. He really should know better than to use the term "lynching party" when speaking about any black person though, that's just wrong.

The Bill O'Reilly hate is awesome.

When I need a reminder of what is wrong with our country, I just watch him and I remember.

On a scale of the offensive and idiotic things Bill O'Reilly has said, this doesn't rank that high. Obviously, it was a monumentally, incredibly, unbelievable stupid choice of words, but I don't think he was referring to what we think he was referring to. I think he just used the word in the more metaphorical sense, I don't think he was making any specific references on Michelle Obama's race.

Also, the insistence on gathering the facts before judging anyone is quite un-Bill-like and unusual. I guess this is part of the Boy Who Cried Hate-speech story; coming from someone else, this would be horrifying, but O'Reilly has said so many offensive and hateful things before that this barely registers for me.

Falafel O'LIE-ly being a racist schuck? What a surprise! This guy went into a black-owned restaurant and on his radio show said he was pleasantly surprised that the patrons weren't shouting "More tea, motherfucker!" (bowdlerizing the last word, of course). I think this bit about "lynching" Michelle Obama is worse than his pro-Nazi Holocaust revisionism about Malmedy. I think it's worse than Don Imus calling the basketball players "nappy-headed ho's". But since Faux News is the Typhoid Mary of journalism, don't expect any kind of reprimand.

what an irresponsible human being...

fuck.

bill o'reilly...GO AWAY! i am all for free speech, but bill, go somewhere where the only person who can hear you...is YOU!

Marshall, I was waiting for a loofah/ falafel reference. It totally made my day.
Bill O'Reilly is such a freak and is fully aware of the meaning behind the term "lynch." He is just that big of an asshole.

I agree that his use of the word lynching has to be deliberate. It couldn't possibly be a slip of the tongue. If it was he would have stopped mid-sentence. He knew exactly what he was saying, and exactly how it would come across, and he knew it would be appallingly inappropriate. Ewww.

I love how this whole thing took place in the context of a discussion that appears to be nothing more than "MICHELLE OBAMA: ANGRY MILITANT WOMAN? YOU DECIDE!"

Seriously, what is so terrifying to people like this about women being angry that calling someone an ANGRY WOMAN is so damning? They act like it's this bizarre, mystical force that women must take great care to restrain lest we misfire and destroy whole cities with it.

"Comforting, isn't it, that he wants to wait for the "evidence"?"

Ah, sarcasm from the glass house.

"Lynch" has become this sort of code word among conservatives or something. Bill O. didn't utter it by mistake.

For a great explanation of why this is so offensive check out the excerpt from Coutdown with Keith Olberman at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

Wtf. So defend the white guy (in this case Bill Clinton), but the black wife of a political candidate, lets hear the evidence on whether or not she is a angry bitch, before sending out a "lynching party"????? I am glad to know the punishment for being an opinionated woman, should be hanging, literally or figuratively. How is this guy still on the air? Fair and balanced, no spin my ass.

"Seriously, what is so terrifying to people like this about women being angry that calling someone an ANGRY WOMAN is so damning?"

Well, the fact that she's black certainly doesn't help.

Every once in a while I think "oh it'll be funny to watch O RLY for a few minutes and get really mad at him" and then I make it minute or two in and I realize that there's nothing fun about feeling like I need to scream like a banshee while hurling furniture across my apt and then I turn him off.

On a more general note, I'm happy to see feministing taking an interest in some of the more outrageous media attention that the Obamas have garnered of late. Feministe had an interesting recent post about the "wingnut media machine" starting to pay more attention to Obama now that he's looking more and more like a serious threat.

Relatedly, the folks at the Corner have decided that Obama must be the offspring of Jewish commie pinko miscegenists (hide your children!):

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmM2NDQ3ZWQ1YWM0Y2QyZTUxMDdkY2M2OTJlNGE5MWE=

Bill O'Reilly holds several sexist, racist and homophobic ideas so dear to his heart that he doesn't even realize it when he's being a bigot, it just comes naturally.

Honestly, right now, all I want is for Fox to switch hands, and to be run by a black lesbian (extra points if she's an atheist, and/or if she has a Jewish or Muslim partner). We could all join in watching, on live TV, as Bill O'Reilly eats a whole buffet of his own words.

I find myself getting a tad irritated at Bill every once in a while. However, I do think that some of you could use a little lesson in the value of sarcasm. I watch the o'reilly factor on a fairly regular basis and Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don't. Fortunately, I am able to appreciate the sarcasm in some of his commentary. He is EXTREMELY biased, I am aware of that. This makes his show that much more entertaining. I watched the episode where he talked about Michelle Obama and I, personally, felt that he was much more kind to her than many of the other reporters and commentators have been. Maybe I missed something, but to me there was no problem with what he said.
Also, I feel like picking one word out of his rhetoric is a little unfair. This is just as unfair as taking Michelle Obama's comment out of context.