Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

On February 26, 2001, O'Reilly defended Jeb Bush's "One Florida" program to State
Senator Kendrick Meek. "All right, look, in the university system in Florida right now, 37
percent of the 10 universities are black. Thirty-seven percent." Black enrollment that year
was 18 percent. When Meek tried to correct him, O'Reilly cut Meek off with "I got the numbers
and they're dead on!"
On May 8, 2001, O'Reilly boasted that the United States gives "far and away more tax
money to foreign countries than anyone ... nobody else even comes close." Japan gives more.
Not per capita. More. When his guest, Phyllis Bennis from the Institute for Policy Studies,
pointed out that the U.S. gives a smaller fraction of its gross national product than any other
developed country, O'Reilly bellowed, "That's not true." It is.
Bennis hung in there and said, "It's absolutely true on a per capita basis."
Clearly having no idea what he was talking about, O'Reilly flailed away. "Well, we
have a three hundred million population base here and Sweden has three million, so that's
skewed out." Sweden has about nine million people.
Now, like I said, there's no shame in occasionally messing up an obscure statistic like
the population of a major industrialized nation. You probably didn't know it. I certainly didn't.
But I would never insist that I did.
Even when an obnoxiously persistent guest catches O'Reilly dead to rights, Bill still
manages to sow seeds of doubt in the viewers' minds. As you can see from this 1999 program
with popular corporate speaker Al Franken.
FRANKEN: In '93 [Clinton] passed the budget deficit package with all Republicans voting
against him.
O'REILLY: Clinton couldn't have passed it, AI, if all Republicans voted against him.
FRANKEN: Yes, he could. Well, every Republican voted against it in '93. Every one of—
every single Republican.
O'REILLY: Is that – you—I might stand corrected there. We'll look it up.
FRANKEN: You might. You do. It is ...
O'REILLY: I do stand corrected?
FRANKEN:Yeah.
O'REILLY: Are you sure?
FRANKEN: Absolutely. Every Republican ...
O'REILLY: Okay. All right. We've got it on the tape.