Late yesterday evening, the New York Daily News' Fred Dreier reported on the controversy surrounding Fox News' Bill O'Reilly asking, “Do they have an al-Qaeda ad?” during an O'Reilly Factor discussion of a gay-inclusive McDonald's ad.
Dreier managed to get Factor senior executive producer on the record defending his boss:
David Tabacoff, the senior executive producer for The O'Reilly Factor hit back: “This is a very silly controversy. The quote was taken totally out of context.”
“If you look at the full segment and think he's actually equating gays with Al Qaeda, you must be crazy.”
“By seizing on a handful of words, they have made a really ridiculous argument.”
Tabacoff is off his rocker. Watch the video for yourself:
Perhaps Tabacoff should watch the video again for himself. The context speaks for itself. O'Reilly was talking about a French McDonald's ad aimed at the LGBT community and after saying it would never run in the U.S. he asked if McDonald's had one prepared for al-Qaeda as well. How can anyone come to a different conclusion than the one reached by several LGBT advocacy groups that O'Reilly was equating gays with terrorists?
Given O'Reilly's long history of advancing homophobic misinformation about the LGBT community and related issues, I'm not surprised by the reaction of those critical of his latest comments.
Previously:
- GLAAD Launches Action Calling on O'Reilly and Fox to “Apologize for Comparing Gay People to al-Qaeda”
- Statement from McDonald's on gay-inclusive ad O'Reilly mocked
- EXCLUSIVE: LGBT groups hit O'Reilly for “equating gays” with “terrorists”
- During discussion of gay-themed McDonald's ad, O'Reilly asks: “Do they have an al-Qaeda ad?”