Can Tiller's Family Sue O'Reilly?

Posted by Fraulein

This is what I want to know: when there is video evidence of Bill O'Reilly's film crew following and ambushing the late Dr. George Tiller--twice--is that enough grounds for Tiller's family to bring a civil suit against O'Reilly for contributing to the fanatical atmosphere that led to Tiller's murder? (This of course in addition to all the other times O'Reilly went on TV foaming at the mouth about Tiller and late-term abortion, implying that women just love to have abortions for fun.)

If not, why not? Seriously?

By the way, among the many outrageous things about this whole situation is the idea, beloved of right-wing blowhards like O'Reilly, that any woman would have an abortion towards the end of her pregnancy without a damn good reason. I guess it's theoretically possible, but as a mother I can tell you it's extremely hard to believe anyone would do this on a whim. For many of Tiller's patients, the choice was between having an abortion, even at a very late stage of pregnancy, or giving birth to a baby with horrific deformities and/or grave illnesses that would cause the baby to die a painful death within hours, days or weeks. The amount of anguish such a decision would cause the mother can't possibly be imagined by anyone as ignorant as O'Reilly. It is this very type of thorny situation that the "pro-lifers," so enamored of their fantasy world where all babies are born whole and perfect, refuse to admit is the reason for many of the abortions performed in this country.

And until we come to terms with this reality and seriously address the domestic terrorism in our midst, we can't even come close to making any progress on the abortion issue in this country.

9/11™

This was brewing inside Keith Olbermann since the final day of Republican Convention. I had commented on the politicization and fear mongering of 9/11 at the RNC the next day, but as usual KO does it so much better.



Meanwhile, it seems that White House aides today have been repeating the fact that the US has not been attacked since 9/11, a total of 2,557 days. But as Keith so aptly put it, "Does 'then' not count?" I'd also like to add that I'm guessing they aren't counting the anthrax attacks - but maybe that's because it wasn't done by an Islamic extremist Middle Easterner.