The Huffington Post has learned that Bill O'Reilly -- who claims to love America -- spent Sunday at a "church" run by a former Hitler Youth named Joseph Alois Ratzinger. Ratzinger has gone to elaborate ends to hide this connection, including taking on the absurd pseudonym "Pope Benedict XVI." Which, even if it doesn't prove anything, certainly makes you think.
This shocking revelation comes only a week after Barack Obama admitted he attends a church formerly run by Jeremiah Wright, who talks smack about America, although probably less than Goebbels did.
This would all be holy water under the bridge, except for one disturbing and undeniable fact: Bill O'Reilly is a Roman Catholic, and Benedict "Joey Ratz" XVI worked for Hitler, as did Unity Mitford, whose baby sister was Jessica Mitford, who knew Maya Angelou, who knew Betty Shabazz, who was married to Malcolm X, who knew Louis Farrakhan.
Is there any place in our public discourse for men like Bill O'Reilly, who won't even repudiate their links to Louis Farrakhan? I'll give you the last word, and then cut you off in the middle of it: No there isn't.
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I probably shouldn't say, "The Huffington Post has learned..." I don't speak for anyone but myself, and it's all I can handle, just doing that.
It might not seem like an important distinction, but for the last couple of weeks Bill O'Reilly's been accusing Arianna of running a "hate site" just based on the comments.
Which is like pretending you don't understand the difference between a newspaper and a blog, or a post and a comment, or The Great Gatsby and a copy of The Great Gatsby someone has written notes in.
No, Bill, F. Scott Fitzgerald didn't circle those words in ballpoint and write "water imagery!!!" in the margin. That was someone else.
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I think it's too bad that we live in a climate when you can get in trouble for something someone else says, where not censoring someone is the same as agreeing with them. Obama and Jeremiah Wright. Wright and Farrakhan. Arianna and everyone who posts a comment on this site.
If we have to take down every comment that Bill O'Reilly might not understand it's going to get pretty quiet around here.
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Ronald Kessler, who printed the first Wright quotes at Newsmax, had to pretend they were violently troubling. And that when he heard them, he was so shocked his shirtfront curled up out of his tuxedo, while his wife fainted. And then Nat Turner came back from the dead and killed everyone with a hoe.
No, not that last part. But even if it had happened, it wouldn't have been worse than the things Kessler had heard. Because what makes you a good American or a bad American doesn't depend on what you do. It depends on which blowhard you listen to. If you don't believe me, ask a Dittohead.
But, okay. That's the new rule: All that matters is what people say. So Obama made his speech about Wright last week, and someone asked Kessler what he thought of it, and he said:
"It was very eloquent, it was brilliant, but it's just words."
I swear I'm not making that up.
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Hey, here's a funny quote I just found by Googling "O'Reilly" and "Catholic." (It's from a column O'Reilly wrote in 2003.)
"It is fairly easy to understand why France, Germany, China and Russia oppose removing Saddam Hussein by force; all of those countries are doing profitable business with Saddam, and all of them would like to see American power diminished. But Pope John Paul II is another matter... the Pope believes there are still options to war.
The problem with this argument is faith, pardon the pun. The Pope is putting his faith in a system of inspections that very well might fail. If that happens and even a portion of Saddam's unaccounted for 8,500 liters of anthrax are used against people, a worldwide catastrophe would ensue."
I wonder when that anthrax is going to turn up.
Maybe we should have listened to the guy who's infallible.
And I know it's not as simple as that. But that's the difference between the Pope and Bill O'Reilly: The Pope is only infallible ex cathedra. Bill O'Reilly is wrong all the time.
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Speaking of missing stuff, has anyone seen Vicki Iseman?