Attacking Media Matters, O'Reilly falsely claimed he said "Coleman's victory was certified by the state ... which is absolutely true" -- but it's not
SUMMARY: Attacking Media Matters on his radio show for noting that his previous claim that Sen. Norm Coleman "was certified the winner" in the Minnesota Senate race was false, Bill O'Reilly repeated the falsehood, claiming: "[W]hat I said was, Coleman's victory was certified by the state because it was. He had 215 more votes, which is absolutely true." In fact, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board did not "certif[y]" a "victory" for Coleman or Al Franken, having authorized an automatic recount of ballots for that race; Minnesota election law states that "no certificate of election shall be prepared or delivered until after the recount is completed."
On the November 20 broadcast of The Radio Factor, host Bill O'Reilly attacked Media Matters for America for highlighting comments he made during the November 18 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, when he falsely claimed Sen. Norm Coleman (R) "was certified the winner" in his Minnesota Senate race against Democratic challenger Al Franken. On November 20, O'Reilly claimed: "[W]e said the other day that, in Minnesota, that the election commission had certified the election and that -- what's his name -- Coleman, the senator, had won by 215 votes." Calling Media Matters "the most dishonest website in the country," he further stated: "So, what I said was, Coleman's victory was certified by the state because it was. He had 215 more votes, which is absolutely true. Absolutely true. OK? Rock solid; in stone. That's what they did." In fact, as Media Matters noted when O'Reilly made the false claim earlier, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board did not certify "Coleman's victory"; nor did it certify "the election." Rather, the board signed a statement on November 18 declaring that "[e]xcept for the offices of U.S. senator, state senator District 16, state representative Districts 12b and 16a, the candidates who received the highest number of votes cast for each office voted on in more than one county is hereby declared 'elected.' " Moreover, contrary to O'Reilly's claim that he said "the election commission had certified the election," Minnesota election law states that "[i]f a recount is undertaken by a canvassing board" in elections including those for U.S. senator, "no certificate of election shall be prepared or delivered until after the recount is completed."
Minnesota law states in relevant part:
204C.40 CERTIFICATES OF ELECTION.
Subdivision 1.Preparation; method of delivery.
The county auditor shall prepare an election certificate for every county candidate declared elected by the county canvassing board, and the secretary of state shall prepare a certificate for every state and federal candidate declared elected by either a county canvassing board or the State Canvassing Board. Except as otherwise provided in this section, the secretary of state or county auditor, as appropriate, shall deliver an election certificate on demand to the elected candidate. In an election for United States representative, the secretary of state shall deliver the original election certificate to the chief clerk of the United States House of Representatives. In an election for United States senator, the governor shall prepare an original certificate of election, countersigned by the secretary of state, and deliver it to the secretary of the United States Senate. In an election for state representative or state senator, the secretary of state shall deliver the original election certificate to the chief clerk of the house or the secretary of the senate. The chief clerk of the house or the secretary of the senate shall give a copy of the certificate to the representative-elect or senator-elect. Upon taking the oath of office, the representative or senator shall receive the original certificate of election. If a recount is undertaken by a canvassing board pursuant to section 204C.35, no certificate of election shall be prepared or delivered until after the recount is completed. In case of a contest, the court may invalidate and revoke the certificate as provided in chapter 209.
Subd. 2.Time of issuance; certain offices.
No certificate of election shall be issued until seven days after the canvassing board has declared the result of the election. In case of a contest, an election certificate shall not be issued until a court of proper jurisdiction has finally determined the contest. This subdivision shall not apply to candidates elected to the office of state senator or representative.
In addition to several news outlets also reporting that the state canvassing board did not certify a winner in the Minnesota Senate race, The Associated Press reported on November 19 that "[t]he recount will be done in more than 100 sites across the state over the next 2 1/2 weeks. A month from now, the canvassing board will reconvene to rule on disputed ballots and certify the election."
From the November 20 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: We have a mandate here where we just simply want to give you the truth and the facts straight up. I mean, that's why we've been successful.
We said the other day -- this is interesting, and you guys might learn a lesson from this -- we said the other day that, in Minnesota, that the election commission had certified the election and that -- what's his name -- Coleman, the senator, had won by 215 votes. All right?
WIEHL: Right.
O'REILLY: That's what we reported.
WIEHL: Right.
O'REILLY: Well, Media Matters, the most dishonest website in the country, because they purport to be watchdogs, but of course they only watch conservative people or people they don't like, or traditional people -- they don't watch the left -- they say, "Oh, O'Reilly lied because he said that the state of Minnesota certified Coleman's victory."
OK. So, what I said was, Coleman's victory was certified by the state because it was. He had 215 more votes --
WIEHL: Sure. So that's a win.
O'REILLY: -- which is absolutely true.
WIEHL: Right.
O'REILLY: Absolutely true. OK? Rock solid; in stone. That's what they did. But these despicable -- that's all I'm going to say. Just despicable. I could say a lot of other things, but I won't.
These people take that, all right, put it on their website that O'Reilly lied by saying they certified a victory. They didn't use, in the state of Minnesota, a victory, 'cause there's a recount. All right?
But, if you certify an election, where one guy has 215 more votes --
WIEHL: Right.
O'REILLY: -- that's a win for Coleman, as it stands now.
WIEHL: It could change.
O'REILLY: And we said, there's going to be a recount. But when you listen to me, I'm going to tell you the truth and give you the facts. Those are going to be twisted and distorted by dishonest people like NBC News.
I guess Bildo needs to convince his audience that coleman won already so they can push that ol' "whaaa! franken stole the election!" meme for the next two years.
manufactured controversy...
I don't get it. Minnesota specifically stated that they were certifying all the races, with the exception of the senate and three or four others. They said this in writing-- they exempted the senate race from certification right now.
So-- just what does it take to convince these people? I mean, this goes beyond mere lying.
Some people learn before getting hit on the head twice...with Bill, it may take a few more whacks.
I might suggest that if getting his brain jarred helps him learn, that you might want to whack him in another location...
WTF? There may be many reasons why you've been successful, but that ain't one of 'em.
Wrong. MMFA said you falsely claimed Minnesota certified Coleman's victory. Lied would be if you had falsely claimed it on purpose, like you're about to...
If, by "certified," you mean "not at all certified but specifically mentioned as not certain or finished," then yes. Good thing your viewers don't actually read MMFA -- It's a cinch that this claim is false.
billybob is successful for the same reasons Jim Jones, jerry falwell, Jim Baker and others were. There are enough sheep out there that believe in made up BS. I watch this clown, billybob, every nite for the cringe factor and for laughs. billybob's world is no place for progress of anykind and truth be damed.
Off topic, but this is must-see tv. The irony of it all.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/20/sarah-palin-holds-news-co_n_145375.html
an irony that went completely over gov. palin's head. wow, big shock there!
is there nothing this woman can't f up? don't you think you would maybe not stand right in front of where they're killing the turkeys? ah, the holidays. and she's the frontrunner for next time, with all the heavyweights [literally] like newt gingrich fawning all over her.
as for o'reilly, his audience will accept whatever he says.
i just saw that. What the hell was that guy doing to the turkeys?
I thought it was supposed to be a quick and painless death.
I'm no turkey-killing expert, but I believe he was draining out the blood. I loved how he kept looking back at the camera.
Billy, you're such a nitwit...
Media Matters has ruined you. And, my, oh my!..., it's been suchj a beautiful thing to watch.
O'Reilly is just like most conservatives. He needs an "enemy" to hate in order to whip up his viewers/supporters. And when there isn't a real enemy out there, just make one up (See Bush vis a vis Iraq).
I hope you're right colonel...
You may very well be right. Billy is for all practical purposes irrelevant. He's a dying relic playing to an increasingly diminished right wing-nut base.
Still, I think Media Matters can speed along this idiot's decent into obscurity. I like the picture of O'Reilly: the quintessential hapless dork--bewildered--flailing away, lost in his own bloviation. Like a little child lost in the playground, searching for uncle Rupert.
That is why I watch him. Sort of like a side show at the carnival. He is between the bearded lady and the 2 headed mongoloid.
well geez, there ya go! if you just absolutely, positively insist on perpetuating facts, it should come as no surprise that mr. o'reilly would deem it necessary to publicly spank you!
ah, bet that felt good, didn't it? come on, admit it, you got a little chubby there, didn't you? hehe
sadly, mr. o'reilly is operating a few firing synapses short of a fully functional cerebral cortex. if only he'd signed that DNR order!
So as usual, Billo, you've been outed as a lying sack of crap and now you're whining because the pooper scoopers are here.
Yawn.
The man does not even know that he's lying. Wow!
propafoxganda news is an incubator for delusional thinking charlatans. That is one sick, twisted and dangerous channel. It should be xxx rated as it is intellectual porn.
Here's a look at some of the votes Norm Coleman is challenging:
http://the-uptake.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1341/
Let's see--Sean Hornbeck enjoyed being held captive by a child molester. There aren't as many homeless vets on the streets as the Department of Veteran Affairs claims. There's a huge network of pink pistol packing lesbians out on the streets attacking straight males and raping young girls. Ted Turner hates America. The ACLU is allied with Al Qaeda. And, of course, Andrea Mackris just made up the whole phone sex thing.
Good God, O'Reilly--can't you just shut up when you've been proven wrong?
Let's see--Sean Hornbeck enjoyed being held captive by a child molester.
To be fair, that's not what BOR said-- he said the whole thing didn't make sense, that why didn't the kid make any effort to get away, that he "could be wrong" but maybe the kid enjoyed being away from school, etc. At all times he qualiofied his opinion.
And all interesting points-- absence any contrary evidence at the time-- which, BTW, no one else had either.
That Hornbeck situation was very baffling-- something about it never added up. There are no easy answers on that one, Nancy Grace to the contrary.
I'll stand somewhat corrected on that. O'Reilly did offer a few, weak qualifications. Nevertheless, he also offered a needless number of ridiculous/offensive comments on the Hornbeck matter. O'Reilly should have offered a public apology for those comments when it was revealed just how wrong they were. He did not.
As for the rest of it, that's a mere sampler platter of O'Reilly. He continues to place his ego driven need to be right ahead of any facts that do not support his opinion. When cornered by the truth he'll attempt to shout down his opposition or do something really grade school-ish like posting a chart that links George Soros to all the "evils" in the world.
I wonder if he's got anybody competent working on his staff.
Something snapped in conservatives. The official playbook for O'Reilly when busted like this is to pretend that he said something else.
Conservatives have lost the ability to obfuscate and spin. All of a sudden they're capable of nothing but farting stupidity. We may be at the bottom here.
Or he just flat out says he is right. Did anyone else see him on the daily show? He claimed over and over that a solid white teddy bear was a Panda.
Certifying the votes is not the same thing as certifying a winner. Certifying the winner would be an official declaration that one person won. Since there's an automatic recount, they have not made that certification. There is no "victory".
It's not "parsing words". The phrase O'Reilly is using is completely misleading.
It goes beyond that. The state explicitly said that "except" for the senate race and a few others, everything else was certified. They said "except."
casey needs to "stop the games". the state did not certify a winner, as o'reilly claimed. that's merely o'reilly's attempt to make it look like the democrats stole the seat if the recount does not go coleman's way. it was not unfair to say he was ahead in the vote at that time, but it was incorrect to say "his victory was certified by the state". it was nowhere close to that. as for the st james news, who cares what they said? are they "wrong also?" if they said the same thing as o'reilly, they are.
exactly!!!!!!!
"They did certify the vote." yes, they did, just not the winner, two entirely different things. though, given the nearly incoherent nonsense spewed by o'reilly, i can certainly understand how you might get confused.
"I understand, they hate O'Reilly" nah, hate requires too great an expenditure of emotional energy. further, it indicates some sense of taking a person seriously. i think (just my opinion) that MMFA, and most of the readers/posters here, just find him kind of pathetic.
as well as backwards, dangerous and out of his freeking mind. What is someone called that contributes nothing to society and makes a lot of money doing it?
What is MMFA problem? They did certify the vote.
That's not what BOR said. He said they certified Coleman as the winner, which they did not.
"[e]xcept for the offices of U.S. senator, state senator District 16, state representative Districts 12b and 16a, the candidates who received the highest number of votes cast for each office voted on in more than one county is hereby declared 'elected.' "
Casey, MMFA does not hate O'Reilly , they are making him accountable for his words. I know I do not hate O'Reilly, I find him entertaining.
I do however hate stupid people like you. Shut the F up.
How exactly is his hate speech and lies entertaining?
"What is someone called that contributes nothing to society and makes a lot of money doing it?"
rich.
"How exactly is his hate speech and lies entertaining?"
he's like a trainwreck; you know you shouldn't look, but you just have to. call it a "guilty pleasure".
Casey , BO is the one "Parsing".