Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily, it appears, can't quite figure out how to feel about Bill O'Reilly's firing from Fox News and the allegations of sexual harassment that caused it.
WND did dutifully serve up a list of "all 12 leer, stare, grunt and grab claims against O'Reilly," and editor Joseph Farah's first column on O'Reilly after his departure was a typically self-aggrandizing account of "My recollections of the late, great Bill O'Reilly" reminding us that O'Reilly's syndicated column was started at WND.
For his next column, though, Farah decided he wasn't ready to throw O'Reilly under the bus after all, with a rant in which he rather stupidly likens sexually harassing women to ... being gay:
However, let’s think about this in the context of leftist ideology. It generally insists that people are who they are sexually and there is generally nothing they can do about it. Someone who is “gay” can’t change. Someone who is bisexual can’t change. Someone who was born anatomically a male could really believe he is a female, and we should all understand his need to live out that fantasy.
They can’t help being what they are – and sex drives and predilections are impossible to change, the left tells us.
Do I have this right so far?
If so, what if Bill O’Reilly can’t help himself?
Aren’t there lots of men and women prone to adultery?
Aren’t there lots of men and women prone to sleeping around?
Should there not be some consideration and tolerance for men and women who are simply being who they are sexually?
Or is it only homosexuals, bisexuals, lesbians and “transgenders” who have the right to be who they are? What about the poor male slob who just can’t stop hitting on women?
Jesse Lee Peterson joined in the bluster, asserting: "O’Reilly’s departure from Fox News had little to do with sexual harassment. The firing of O’Reilly is about silencing a straight, white, powerful, Christian man who had the backbone and decency to treat Donald Trump fairly."
Peterson added that "I don't believe" O'Reilly is guilty of the allegations against him, and that even if he was, the punishment doesn't fit the crime and blamed it all on "man-hating feminists." Recall that Peterson said pretty much the same thing about Bill Cosby.
Mychal Massie followed by asking, "what makes Bill O’Reilly worse than Bill Clinton?" adding, "O’Reilly should be a lesson to all men, especially those in the political arena. The adulterous leftists use sex to buy and own politicians, and they also use it to destroy those they hate."
The so-called news side of WND flipped as well. On April 23, Art Moore expressed concern that Rupert Murdoch's "politically progressive son" James was looking to create a global news brand that would make Fox News look more like --gasp! -- CNN. And an April 26 article by Chelsea Schilling fretted that Fox News employees were being ordered to attend sensitivity training.
Looks like WND is having trouble trying to thread the needle of protecting O'Reilly while also trying not to be too hypocritical about it.
