Attacking Michelle Obama

Bill O'Reilly's June 12th Talking Points Memo

In reading Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo today I found myself much in agreement. I think it would be in very poor taste for the GOP to go negative on Michelle Obama during the campaign. Of course, I think it would be in poor taste for anyone to go negative during the campaign, except to offer criticism of their opponent's policies. I have no patience for personal attacks or smear campaigns. Mr. O'Reilly does very well to denounce any such attacks on Michelle Obama.

Unfortunately, and yet typically, Mr. O'Reilly takes a jump off the deep end and judges that "the reason the far left hasn't been able to win anything is that they are so hateful." I am simply baffled by that comment. Let us not forget Bush's "flip-flopping" remarks concerning John Kerry, or Bush's comment to Gore about "fuzzy math." We should also not forget about Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. What a smear campaign that was. So, once again, Mr. O'Reilly focuses on "far-left loons" rather than showing a clear picture of the political landscape. How does he know this is true? Ratings don't lie, do they? "'The Factor' beat MSNBC by 139 percent in total audience and 102 percent in the key demo." Surely by the logical reasoning of ad populum, if everyone says it, it must be true. Mr. O'Reilly must not be aware that that is actually a logical fallacy. He consistently uses his show's popularity as proof of his own comments. Just because the majority of people in the Dark Ages thought the Earth was flat does not make it true.

Negative attacks and smear campaigns will no doubt be a large part of this upcoming presidential campaign. I challenge Mr. O'Reilly to report on every smear originating from both John McCain and Barack Obama. I suspect that the smearing will come rather largely from the John McCain side, whether from direct action from Mr. McCain's campaign or from indirect action from anonymous McCain supporters. I will be on the lookout for phone calls, emails, and push polls suggesting personal attacks on Mr. Obama. It is a sad state of affairs when a candidate has to go to those lengths to win an election, and an even sadder state that the American public is so easily duped by them. I am happy that Barack Obama has taken the time to create a Fight the Smears web site devoted to combating unsubstantiated and intentionally negative smear campaigns.

And that's "The CounterPoints Memo."