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Why Is Bill O'Reilly Attacking Me for Highlighting His Rape Comments?
By Amanda Terkel, ThinkProgress
Posted on March 24, 2009, Printed on May 26, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/133120/why_is_bill_o%27reilly_attacking_me_for_highlighting_his_rape_comments
As promised, tonight, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly aired his segment alleging that ThinkProgress caused “pain and suffering” to rape victims. Our unspeakable offense was contained in a March 1 blog post, which reported that O’Reilly had been invited to speak at a fundraising dinner for the Alexa Foundation, which supports rape survivors. Our post highlighted the fact that in the past, O’Reilly has implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped. Here is what he said on his radio show on Aug. 2, 2006, about Jennifer Moore, an 18-year-old woman who was raped and murdered: Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.
Our postnever criticized the Alexa Foundation. Nevertheless, tonight on his show, O’Reilly claimed that ThinkProgress — working with NBC News — deliberately tried to cause pain and suffering for these rape victims. To make his point, he aired ahighly-edited ambush interviewwith me from this past Saturday and concluded, “While Ms. Terkel is certainly a villain, she was obviously used by NBC News.”
Amanda Terkel is Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Deputy Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.
© 2012 ThinkProgress All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/133120/
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