Threatening comments on O'Reilly site draw Secret Service interest
AMERICAblog has been following some nasty comments left on Bill O'Reilly's web site that could be construed as threatening toward Hillary Clinton. For example, see this AMERICAblog post.
Lane Hudson at Huffington Post saw one of the AMERICAblog posts and decided to inform the appropriate authorities.
It all starts to get a bit silly to the non-blog world, I'd imagine. Anyone who has ever ventured into the cesspools at Free Republic or Little Green Footballs knows these kinds of comments are a dime a dozen. But O'Reilly has made a serious tactical error by trying to take a few troll-rated comments from Daily Kos and claim they are representative, because now the right wing sites, including his, are fair game. Any serious journalist doing a story about the dust-up, if any are written, would have to consider what is posted on the right.
This is a very large country, and any political blog (and many other types of blogs) are going to have problems with people posting all sorts of nasty stuff. It's the nature of the beast.
It's been rather eye-opening to learn just how many people there are out there that think posting incredibly violent comments is appropriate. Sure, we throw some elbows around here, but I certainly draw the line way before threats of violence.
Most probably the threats on O'Reilly's site are just trash talk, but it's highly entertaining to see O'Reilly screw up this badly. He's way off his game, and doing our movement favors every day. Thanks, Bill-o.
Lane Hudson at Huffington Post saw one of the AMERICAblog posts and decided to inform the appropriate authorities.
So, I did what a responsible person should do when they see something like this on a blog. I called the Secret Service to report it. This comment isn't about politics or defaming Senator Clinton. It outright states a threat to her life. It is unacceptable.Naturally, this is all in the context of O'Reilly's repeated attacks against Daily Kos, comparing it to the work of infamous fascist dictators.
The Secret Service, who does an amazing job protecting their subjects, were very professional. The first person I spoke to transferred me to another person. Initially, she dismissed my comments. But, when I read her the comment and suggested that the person could be easily identified, she took me much more seriously. She called back minutes later, asking me to talk to someone else. That agent took the information and said that he would refer it to their Internet team.
It all starts to get a bit silly to the non-blog world, I'd imagine. Anyone who has ever ventured into the cesspools at Free Republic or Little Green Footballs knows these kinds of comments are a dime a dozen. But O'Reilly has made a serious tactical error by trying to take a few troll-rated comments from Daily Kos and claim they are representative, because now the right wing sites, including his, are fair game. Any serious journalist doing a story about the dust-up, if any are written, would have to consider what is posted on the right.
This is a very large country, and any political blog (and many other types of blogs) are going to have problems with people posting all sorts of nasty stuff. It's the nature of the beast.
It's been rather eye-opening to learn just how many people there are out there that think posting incredibly violent comments is appropriate. Sure, we throw some elbows around here, but I certainly draw the line way before threats of violence.
Most probably the threats on O'Reilly's site are just trash talk, but it's highly entertaining to see O'Reilly screw up this badly. He's way off his game, and doing our movement favors every day. Thanks, Bill-o.
