As we promised you Thursday night, we took a hard look at the media this morning to see who was sanitizing the London (search) terror attack or terrorism in general. And here's what we saw:
The New York Times, which called the murderous terrorist al Zarqawi (search) a Jordanian fighter a few days ago, today ran a page one article about Al Qaeda (search) executing an Egyptian diplomat in Iraq and referred to the terrorist group as the "insurgent group Al Qaeda." So I guess The New York Times is now a terrorist-free zone. More on that in a moment.
The Washington Post also playing this game, today described Al Qaeda in Iraq as an "insurgent group" as well.
CNN called Al Zarqawi an "Islamic militant."
But the absolute worst appeared in The Boston Globe. And op-ed written by Derrick Jackson compared the dead in London to those killed in Iraq by coalition forces.
Jackson writes, "Yet ever invoking of the innocents (in London) also reminds us of our despicable, cowardly killing of innocent Iraqi civilians."
The Boston Globe must be very proud. Even in a liberal state like Massachusetts, that kind of moral equivalency is simply unacceptable to decent people.
To be fair, some liberal editorial pages, like The Houston Chronicle wrote strong condemnations of terror. And some op-ed columnists, like Thomas Friedman, really understand what's going on.
Friedman, who writes for the aforementioned New York Times, made a brilliant point Friday. He said, "The Muslim (world) has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day, no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwah condemning Usama bin Laden." Well, that's about as revealing as it gets.
Now back to this Jordanian fighter deal. The editor of The New York Times, Friedman's boss, Bill Keller, wrote me today stating that his paper isn't sanitizing terrorism. We posted the entire letter on www.billoreilly.com. But here's a sample.
"Dear Mr. O'Reilly, As a rule, I assume that those of your viewers who read The New York Times understand that often your remarks about the paper bear little relations to what we actually print. Perhaps you would prefer that every time we mention a terrorist we be required to use the word 'terrorist,' lest our readers mistake him for a member of the Rotary Club.our well informed readership does not need to be reminded in every single reference that a man who kidnaps and kills for the purpose of terrorizing a populace is a terrorist."
Well, I appreciate your letter, Mr. Keller, but I stand by my point. Zarqawi is not a Jordanian fighter. That is inaccurate. Serial killers are not fighters, sir, with all due respect.
Once again, we posted Mr. Keller's letter on billoreilly.com. Let us know what you think. And that's "The Memo."
The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day
In the early days of "The Factor," I often gave interviews to the print press and spoke frankly, but now I no longer do that. That's because I've been treated unfairly far more often than not.
But last week, Robert Hilburn, the music writer for The Los Angeles Times, called wanting to talk to me about Bono and his Africa project. Now, I like Bono. He's a good man, and I agreed to talk on one condition: Hilburn was not to put an adjective in front of my name, you know, like "bombastic," "fascist," that kind of thing. They always do that.
Hilburn agreed to those terms. But he lied. When the article appeared, I was labeled an ultraconservative by this guy.
Now, do I care? No, I don't. But you should know how dishonorable people like Robert Hilburn are, and there are legions of them in the print industry.
On the plus side, I want to thank reporter Sherry Owens of the Orlando Sentinel for doing a fair piece on the Jessica Lunsford-Brad King situation. It was a pleasure to see some honest reporting after all the St. Petersburg Times nonsense, which of course, was ridiculous. And we're still on the Lunsford story, believe me.
—You can watch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" and "Most Ridiculous Item" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the FOX News Channel. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com
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