From the September 16 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'Reilly: “The conservative media is winning now. They're winning. They're damaging the president of the United States”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
Video file
O'REILLY: You see, you got to get in the real world. Look, there's a media civil war going on. Colmes did hit on something intelligent.
ALAN COLMES: That's amazing you would say that.
O'REILLY: The right wing now -- the right wing of which you are a part, right-wing radio is now going to relentlessly attack Obama, using vehicles like ACORN, Jones, whatever radical left thing they can find. They're going to tie it right around Obama's neck because it's working.
MONICA CROWLEY: Well, and also, I mean, let's face it, Obama is Van Jones. Obama is ACORN --
O'REILLY: Oh, no.
CROWLEY: Hang on --
O'REILLY: Oh, please.
CROWLEY: You guys are downplaying his ties to ACORN. These ties between Obama and ACORN are deep and longstanding. It's not just representing them as a lawyer. He partnered with ACORN in '92 for his Project Vote organization in Chicago. He also became an ACORN trainer. In response --
COLMES: Not true.
CROWLEY: -- ACORN fanned out for his campaigns in '96 and 2000 in the state of Illinois --
O'REILLY: No, they let them, absolutely.
CROWLEY: -- and last year as well. Let's also remember that during the presidential campaign last year, he told ACORN point blank, you will have, quote, “a seat at the table in my administration.”
O'REILLY: He likes them.
CROWLEY: So let's not downplay the fact he was very proud of being a community organizer. That was ACORN.
O'REILLY: All of that -- all of that is legitimate, but the bigger -- look, people can make up their own minds at home whether Obama and ACORN have an association that's worth -- you're smart enough to do that. But the big story, Colmes, is that the right-wing media, the conservative media in this country, has found a way --
COLMES: Well, let's -- but I think that --
O'REILLY: -- to marginalize --
COLMES: -- all right.
O'REILLY: -- the president of the United States.
COLMES: They need to be called out on that if it's unfair, if it's not fair to do it.
O'REILLY: Well, what do you mean -- look, fair doesn't really cut it. It's effective.
COLMES: It was not --
O'REILLY: It's working.
COLMES: I think it's important to point out the other side of the story that Dr. Crowley just mentioned. There -- he was not community organizer for ACORN.
CROWLEY: Of course he was.
COLMES: He was a community organizer --
CROWLEY: Alan, he trained their community organizers.
COLMES: -- he did not -- no --
O'REILLY: Let Colmes get his.
COLMES: That is not -- that is not accurate. And that is not accurate according to what has been said.
O'REILLY: I don't know why you care about this.
COLMES: Because I want the truth out there.
O'REILLY: OK.
COLMES: Let's not unfairly smear somebody --
O'REILLY: The truth will set us all free.
COLMES: Yeah.
O'REILLY: I'm going to go back to my question, which is a brilliant one, Colmes. And --
COLMES: By your own admission.
O'REILLY: -- try to consider -- try to consider it. The conservative media is winning now. They're winning. They're damaging the president of the United States by Jones, by ACORN --
COLMES: Yeah, right.
O'REILLY: -- and there's other stuff coming down the pike. So you're advising President Obama, Colmes. You like him.
COLMES: Yeah.
O'REILLY: You think he's a good president and so forth. You tell him to do what? How do you blunt that?
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