WASHINGTON – Multiple programs on Fox News have been questioning the coverage of the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream Speech” this month, with Bill O’Reilly notably asking “what all the fuss was about.”
On “Fox and Friends,” Steve Doocy referred to Dr. King as a “controversial rabble rouser,” and said that the speech would “surely go down as the least memorable in history, along with that one by the guy with the big hat.” Brian Kilmeade then asked if Doocy meant the man with the yellow hat from “Curious George.”
On “Hannity,” Sean Hannity noted that “At one point, King invoked faith in God in helping negroes “go to jail together” which encapsulates the fundamental problem with coloreds in America: they just want to spend time with their friends at the taxpayer’s expense!” Hannity admitted that he was also personally annoyed at King for using the phrase “Let Freedom Ring” 39 years before Hannity could title his book that.
Later, Bill O’Reilly questioned the content of the speech itself in a “Talking Points Memo” segment on his show, arguing that King “advocated black children forcefully grabbing white children, although liberals will tell you that the phrase “in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls” is a call for racial harmony rather than the call for violence it so clearly is.”
O’Reilly continued: “It was named the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” but we all know it was really about handouts, and oppressing white people. If it really was about freedom, why did Dr. King and his acolytes keep complaining about the freedom of upstanding men like Eugene “Bull” Connor to set dogs and fire hoses on protesters?”
Meanwhile, Neil Cavuto on Fox Business dove into questions regarding the number of people who actually attended the march, stating “Although official reports say that between 200,000 and 300,00 were in attendance, after looking carefully at photographs of the time, and knowing numbers as I do, I’m pretty confident in saying that there were only 30,000 people there.”
In a leaked memo Roger Ailes said that he had “always hated that speech, and I was there when he gave it.” He thus wanted “to make sure that the rest of America will, too,” adding: “Trying to get America to dislike a man widely considered to be the greatest civil rights leader in American history is the morally right thing to do.”
Shepard Smith reportedly refused to get involved.
2 comments
i am w/ ms.troise in being skeptical-but,on my part,i’ve always found myself somewhat partial towards mr.o’reilly n find it hard to believe. unfortunately,i do not find it impossible.
Is this site for real, or a bad joke at the expense of Fox News? Are there quotes about MLK and his speech fact checked, these people really said those things (Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ails)?