Thursday, January 05, 2006
Bill "Puff the Magic Loofah" O'Reilly Continues to Lie. I'm shocked.
From Media Matters:
In Letterman appearance, O'Reilly repeated false claim that school changed "Silent Night" lyrics
On the January 3 edition of CBS' Late Show with David Letterman, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly appeared as a guest and resurrected his false claim that a Wisconsin elementary school banned the singing of the Christmas hymn "Silent Night." As he discussed his Christmas crusade with Late Show host David Letterman, O'Reilly told Letterman that the school "[k]nocked out the words [to "Silent Night"] and told the little kids to sing" alternative lyrics. According to O'Reilly, this incident "proves there are pinheads at the Ridgewell [sic] Elementary School in Wisconsin. That's what it proves."
But as the weblog Think Progress first noted, O'Reilly and others have falsely attributed the changed lyrics to political correctness. For example, on the December 9 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly stated that Ridgewood Elementary School in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, "forced the kids to sing" the different lyrics. The conservative legal group Liberty Counsel condemned what it called the "secularized rendition" of the song, which it claimed "mocks one of the world's best-known Christmas songs," and threatened to sue the school district.
In fact, the new song lyrics are part of a 1988 Christmas play called The Little Tree's Christmas Gift, in which a scraggly Christmas tree is informed it may not be sold and will instead become firewood, prompting it to croon the revised version of "Silent Night" while lamenting its situation. Think Progress further explained that the play's creator, Dwight Elrich, is the musical director of the New Covenant Singers at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles -- which a December 20 Washington Post article noted was "former president Ronald and Nancy Reagan's church in California" -- and his play has been performed by churches across the country. According to Elrich's website, his products "make it easy for you to produce a fantastic Kids Christmas Musical Program." Elrich told the Post: "I'm just flabbergasted. I'm a choir director in a church! I perform 'Silent Night' 40 or 50 times each year! I thought the play was a really charming, wonderful, positive story about love and acceptance ... removing it from the Christian tradition was something I never thought anyone could ever come up with. We were telling a story about a little tree, so we used a familiar tune to help the kids get it."
A December 27 article in the Wisconsin State Journal by columnist Susan Lampert Smith reported that the uproar over the adapted lyrics, spurred on by Moral Majority Coalition founder and chairman Jerry Falwell and Liberty Counsel, ultimately forced the school to sing the original version of "Silent Night." For the winter concert, the elementary students performed "Silent Night" along with other Christmas carols and then, during the play, the child playing the sad tree merely recited the changed lyrics.
Later in the interview, Letterman admonished O'Reilly, asserting "I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. ... I don't think that you represent an objective viewpoint," to which O'Reilly replied, "I respect your opinion, you should respect mine." But O'Reilly had apparently been aware of Letterman's unrelenting style. In a 2001 column titled "The Letterman Experience," O'Reilly praised Letterman's interviewing abilities:
"The late-night program hosted by David Letterman is the toughest interview show on television. That's because Mr. Letterman is a smart guy who can spot a phony with telescopic accuracy and expects his guests to bring something to the table. If a guest begins to sink on this show, the bottom is a long way down."
You said it Billy. Not me.
In Letterman appearance, O'Reilly repeated false claim that school changed "Silent Night" lyrics
On the January 3 edition of CBS' Late Show with David Letterman, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly appeared as a guest and resurrected his false claim that a Wisconsin elementary school banned the singing of the Christmas hymn "Silent Night." As he discussed his Christmas crusade with Late Show host David Letterman, O'Reilly told Letterman that the school "[k]nocked out the words [to "Silent Night"] and told the little kids to sing" alternative lyrics. According to O'Reilly, this incident "proves there are pinheads at the Ridgewell [sic] Elementary School in Wisconsin. That's what it proves."
But as the weblog Think Progress first noted, O'Reilly and others have falsely attributed the changed lyrics to political correctness. For example, on the December 9 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly stated that Ridgewood Elementary School in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, "forced the kids to sing" the different lyrics. The conservative legal group Liberty Counsel condemned what it called the "secularized rendition" of the song, which it claimed "mocks one of the world's best-known Christmas songs," and threatened to sue the school district.
In fact, the new song lyrics are part of a 1988 Christmas play called The Little Tree's Christmas Gift, in which a scraggly Christmas tree is informed it may not be sold and will instead become firewood, prompting it to croon the revised version of "Silent Night" while lamenting its situation. Think Progress further explained that the play's creator, Dwight Elrich, is the musical director of the New Covenant Singers at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles -- which a December 20 Washington Post article noted was "former president Ronald and Nancy Reagan's church in California" -- and his play has been performed by churches across the country. According to Elrich's website, his products "make it easy for you to produce a fantastic Kids Christmas Musical Program." Elrich told the Post: "I'm just flabbergasted. I'm a choir director in a church! I perform 'Silent Night' 40 or 50 times each year! I thought the play was a really charming, wonderful, positive story about love and acceptance ... removing it from the Christian tradition was something I never thought anyone could ever come up with. We were telling a story about a little tree, so we used a familiar tune to help the kids get it."
A December 27 article in the Wisconsin State Journal by columnist Susan Lampert Smith reported that the uproar over the adapted lyrics, spurred on by Moral Majority Coalition founder and chairman Jerry Falwell and Liberty Counsel, ultimately forced the school to sing the original version of "Silent Night." For the winter concert, the elementary students performed "Silent Night" along with other Christmas carols and then, during the play, the child playing the sad tree merely recited the changed lyrics.
Later in the interview, Letterman admonished O'Reilly, asserting "I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. ... I don't think that you represent an objective viewpoint," to which O'Reilly replied, "I respect your opinion, you should respect mine." But O'Reilly had apparently been aware of Letterman's unrelenting style. In a 2001 column titled "The Letterman Experience," O'Reilly praised Letterman's interviewing abilities:
"The late-night program hosted by David Letterman is the toughest interview show on television. That's because Mr. Letterman is a smart guy who can spot a phony with telescopic accuracy and expects his guests to bring something to the table. If a guest begins to sink on this show, the bottom is a long way down."
You said it Billy. Not me.
# posted by The Punisher @ Thursday, January 05, 2006 
