O'Reilly's Tiller/Pouillon comparison doesn't hold up
September 14, 2009 11:19 am ET by Simon Maloy
On September 11, a Michigan man named Harlan James Drake was arrested for the shooting deaths of two men, one of whom was Jim Pouillon, an anti-abortion activist who regularly protested outside a local high school carrying signs displaying graphic photos of aborted fetuses. Drake's alleged motives for the shooting of Pouillon remain unclear, though The New York Times reported that a local prosecutor said Drake "was annoyed by Mr. Pouillon's protests, especially when they were near schools." Regardless of what Drake's motives were, the act itself was heinous -- as President Obama said in his statement on the shootings, "whichever side of a public debate you're on, violence is never the right answer."
Bill O'Reilly, however, saw the Pouillon murder as a vehicle to attack the media for some sort of double standard, saying on the September 11 edition of The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: All right in the Michigan, very few people know about this because it's not reported in the media anywhere, we had a pro-life activist 63-year-old Jim Pouillon murdered today. Now this is just like the Tiller thing in reverse. Now this Pouillon, there he is, took his message that abortion is wrong to the public. And he was shot dead in the street. Now, you remember the Tiller outrage and all of that about the abortion doctor being murdered. Nothing, nothing so far on Pouillon.
Tiller, of course, is Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider who was murdered on May 31. There are a couple of points to be made here. First, it's absolutely untrue that the Pouillon murder was "not reported in the media anywhere." By the time O'Reilly's show went on the air on Friday night, NBC's Nightly News had already run a story on the shooting, and CNN reported on it several times throughout the day, as well as posting a story on CNN.com.
Second, if there was a disparity in the coverage of the Pouillon and Tiller murders, part of the reason may have been that Tiller was a nationally known figure at the time of his death, whereas Pouillon was not. And Tiller's nationwide notoriety was due in large part to none other than O'Reilly, who frequently demonized Tiller on his program -- the most-watched cable news show in the country, as he so often points out -- as "Tiller the baby killer."
O'Reilly made Tiller famous, so he's not in any position to complain about how much media coverage Tiller received.
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It's the code of a Nation (Honor) that Mr. O'Reilly is Condemning.
To call Helen Thomas an "Anti-American" is about as low as a Man can Go.
By the time "The Poet" is through with you this is something you will Sincerely Know.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
Bill O'Reilly's No Spin Zone,
is rated highly by his own beloved mother,
but ... no other.
Except that Bill, for all his faults,
still has one skill, a skill of sorts.
He can amuse a true dumb ox,
the dullest crayon in the box,
the kind of ox that watches Fox.
And Bill will pander to this group,
with propaganda, right-wing poop,
knee-jerk views and censored news.
Thus Bill O'Reilly earns his crust,
behaving vilely as he must.
He will not shirk from Rupert's work.
He really is a perfect berk.
I mean, really, Bad News, rhying "women" with "condemning"? That's worse than awful.
A Google News search for "Harlan James Drake" results in over 2,150 news articles.
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/09/13/newsreal-sunday-the-trucking-and-gravel-issue-should-not-be-%E2%80%9Cfought-with-blood%E2%80%9D-either/
It appears this is probably going to an issue on which NewsReal and Media Matters agree.
David Swindle
Assistant Managing Editor of NewsReal Blog
---------------------------------------------------------------
I'm so sick of these smug little liars!
But O'Reilly tells his viewers that very few people know about this shooting. Well, what does that tell you? That his viewers are not well informed. Thanks for admitting that Bill.
They aren't comparable.
Jeez, Bill just doesn't get it.
When did a national TV host, and national radio presenter cover this guy calling him out as a kook on a corner? IT NEVER HAPPENED!!
And again, this is the old conservative trick of saying, "The media isn't covering this" and hoping that their viewers will believe them, and haven't checked for themselves, and of course, when you DO check, the media HAS covered this story (as did FoxNews, who I assume is part of the media right Bill? Right?).
This guy got shot down in the street, he deserved no such thing, but trying to equate his tragic murder with Tiller's ain't even remotely the same.
Secondly: Pouillon was nothing like Tiller. Tiller never tried to push his viewpoints on other people. He believed in providing a service for women that is much needed. The majority of his abortion cases were for women who were raped or the child had severe developmental disabilities or physical deformities. Tiller gave them a service that they otherwise would have performed in back alleyways in unsanitary and unsafe conditions. What Tiller did every day was show up to work despite being harrassed, yelled at, bullied and vilified in the public. Tiller survived multiple assassination attempts before finally succumbing to a bullet womb directly to the head while a church service.
By comparison, Pouillon tried to press his view points on everyone he encountered. He was always seen with a large sign with a very graphic picture of a fetus. He got in arguments with people constantly, and he set up shop near schools to indoctrinate children with his anti-abortion beliefs. He had very few friends and was thought of as kind of a weird "anti-abortion" guy.
Pouillon was the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the extreme right regarding the pro-choice movement. It's one thing to disagree with someone and protest, but to always be carrying around huge signs with graphic pictures of fetuses on them and making people look at them outside of grocery stores and car dealerships when they obviously do not want is taking it too far. It might be legal, but he was invading people's rights when he was constantly disrupting the peace with his protests.
Tiller never disrupted the peace and never tried to influence others about his job (at least publicly). He went from his home to work and back home again (aside from eating a restaurant or going to church). He was forced to put up bullet proof windows and ride in bullet proof cars and wear bullet proof vests because of the nut jobs (like Pouillon) who constantly harassed and threatened him. To compare Tiller with Pouillon is doing an incredibly disservice to the character of Dr. Tiller. The two were quiet different in many ways (not withstanding their views on abortion).