Posted by Lee Russ It was just like a suburban Italian restaurant, he said. "There wasn't any kind of craziness at all," he said. .... Sharpton, appearing on O'Reilly's TV program Wednesday, acknowledged that he found accounts of what O'Reilly said "disturbing and surprising," but added that he had not heard the radio broadcast. "You and I have gone to dinner before in Harlem, and I've never heard you say anything offensive," said Sharpton, speaking from Baton Rouge, La. "I'm going to listen to the tape and I'm going to give a judgment." ... Karl Frisch, spokesman for Media Matters, said it is typical for O'Reilly to criticize his group for merely reporting what he says. "We didn't call him a racist," Frisch said. "We said his comments were ignorant and racially charged, and we stand by that." It was O'Reilly himself who "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference." O'Reilly, not some hypothetical listener whose misimpression O'Reilly was trying to correct. My only defense of O'Reilly would be that having established this pseudo-populist persona in order to appeal to ignorance and find riches, he probably has to continue in his ignorant character if he ever wants to actually communicate anything to his audience. That's some defense.
on 9/27/2007, 10:59 am, in reply to "Juan Williams and Bill OReilly"
75.69.88.150
From exact same article: O'Reilly told his radio audience that he dined with civil rights activist Al Sharpton at Sylvia's recently and "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference" between the black-run restaurant and others in New York City.
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