O'Reilly and Beck know why evil liberal bloggers criticize their fearmongering: it's jealousy

-- by Dave

Bill O'Reilly is unhappy that evil liberal bloggers are connecting the hateful, violent, and paranoid rhetoric coming from the likes of himself and Glenn Beck to actual incidents of violence.

So he and Beck sat down to talk about it last night. And of course, much unintentional hilarity ensued:

O'Reilly: As you may know, the Factor and the Glenn Beck Program are enjoying huge ratings. ... On the flip side, CNN and NBC, their cable networks are doing very poorly. In the first quarter of the month, Fox News had 10 of the Top 10 cable news programs. That means the others didn't have any. We had all 10.

That's causing anger and desperation on the left. And now some of these haters are accusing Beck, me and others of inciting violence. As we reported last night on Policing the Net, these despicable people are now using murder to attack people with whom they disagree.

With us now to respond is Glenn Beck. So you understand that this is just the jealousy factor.

Beck: Oh yeah. ... [Nattering about ratings]

O'Reilly: Now, you had actually addressed -- for the folks that don't know what we're talking about, the tragedies in Binghamton and Pittsburgh, where 14 people were killed in Binghamton and three police officers in Pittsburgh, were driven by madmen. People who flip and they go in and they do this. And then these commentators, if you want to call them that, Internet fanatics, whatever word you wanna use, say, 'Oh no, O'Reilly and Beck, because they are complaining about the state of the union right now, they're responsible.'

It's absurd. It is hateful, obviously. I tend to ignore it. But you actually did something on it, on your show.

Actually, Bill, the connections to violent incidents we pointed out had nothing to do with you "complaining about the state of the union right now." They had to to with mainstream conservative commentators like you and Mr. Beck irresponsibly promulgating conspiracy theories and political beliefs systems that are both paranoiac and bereft of any factual basis in the real world, such as the notion of a looming One World Government or the claims that the government is building concentration camps and that Obama wants to take our guns away.

Because all three of these claims, as we saw this weekend, play out in horrific ways in real life. It's classic fearmongering, and the fact that it produces violent behavior should not surprise anyone.

Not that these guys care about that. They're too giddy about those most excellent ratings.

Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.