As NewsBusters reported Monday, Bill O’Reilly isn’t pleased about airliner JetBlue sponsoring the upcoming convention of Daily Kos devotees and Democrat presidential candidates referred to by the netroots as YearlyKos.

In fact, Monday’s “O’Reilly Factor” began with the host observing:

What do you think of someone who says the following: the world would be better off without him? That after Tony Snow announced his cancer had returned. The pope is a primate. Evangelicals are nut cases. Better luck next time after an assassination plot against Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan. And some attacks against coalition forces in Iraq are legitimate.

After that setup, O’Reilly elaborated (video available here):

All of those thoughts were posted on a vicious far-left website called the Daily Kos, one of the worst examples of hatred America has to offer. This summer, that website is having a convention in Chicago. And only one major corporation has stepped up as a sponsor. That company is JetBlue, the airline that melted down last winter.

As is our policy, we contacted JetBlue last week to ask why. Why would it sponsor a hateful website? It had no answer. So we sent "Factor" producer Jesse Watters out to see JetBlue CEO David Barger.

Unfortunately, Barger – who was clearly caught off-guard – didn’t give much of an answer to Watters beyond: “I'm really not going to mix politics from the standpoint of running our business.”

This seemed like a rather absurd answer inasmuch as Daily Kos is indeed a political website, and if you are going to sponsor it, you are indeed mixing politics with the running of your business.

Regardless, this is what Markos Moulitsas, the proprietor of Daily Kos, posted about this issue Monday evening (emphasis added throughout):

I'm still in Greece, coming home tomorrow, but checking my email I see that O'Reilly set his hatemongers off on our humble little site.

Of course Fox News is pissed that we killed their Democratic debates while just about the entire party leadership and presidential candidates will be at YearlyKos. So they send their pit bull to attack. And his minions have responded.

Markos then shared some e-mail messages with his readers to make an absurdly specious point about this being “Irony in spades, layer after layer of it.”

Yet, Markos seemed to miss the difference between e-mail messages and posts at one’s website. If these hateful comments were found at either FoxNews.com or BillOreilly.com, that would be ironic. Folks sending him e-mail messages is by no means analogous:

But what can you say when O'Reilly runs the most hate-filled television show in cableland, on the Republican Party's premier propaganda outlet?

Really, par for the course.

Actually, what’s par for the course is how Markos and his ilk call opposing views “hate.”

More on that later. Before we get there, O’Reilly then brought on BusinessWeek writer Diane Brady to try to make some sense out of this. In reality, Brady made a good point:

Well, he's probably sending free air tickets to the pope and Tony Snow right now. But I think the main reason they did this is eyeballs. Daily Kos is a very popular website. It gets 500,000 hits a day. And one of the things with airlines is they seem to throw, you know, tickets at high school debating groups, forums. I don't think they necessarily always know what's on there.

Makes sense. But, O’Reilly was having none of that:

But we told them what was on there before we did the story. You got to understand that. We didn't ambush this guy. We gave them a week. We said look, look at this stuff. And they don't care. JetBlue doesn't care that they said all the things Jesse said at all. And I'm saying to myself are they just plain stupid? Because this is hate of the worst order. It's like the Ku Klux Klan. It's like the Nazi party. There's no difference here. People should die. They want Tony Snow to die. Cheney to die. Doesn't get worse than this, Ms. Brady.

BRADY: You know, there's no question Daily Kos is clearly on the left. And one thing that comes up, especially with those open forums is you get a lot of lunatics come up. And I'm sure - I look at their site.

O'REILLY: You know, you - look, I have my own website. We don't -- open forum is bull. All right? You can regulate what's on your website. Now, this kind of a thing has got to be troubling to, I think, millions of Americans when they hear it. Because this is the only, as we pointed out, sponsor. The only one. Everybody else stays way away from this. Why JetBlue? Why would they do that?

BRADY: I think they don't think about it. It was ten plane tickets. And I think they get solicited a lot. And probably they just sent it out and thought well, we're not rescind on the plane tickets right now. It's such a small cost to our bottom line. But the reality is in a transparent society like this, "The O'Reilly Factor" or some other group can come back at you and say even if it's a small amount, we're offended by this.

O'REILLY: Well, they have the -- it doesn't matter to us what the amount is. They have their banner there. They have their banner legitimizing this. I just think it's an awful business decision. Am I wrong?

BRADY: I think that probably retroactively they now regret it. But I think that certainly, they throw a lot of tickets at a lot of different places. And one of the things with Daily Kos and with this convention is they're getting a lot of eyeballs. It's a very affluent demographic.

In reality, I agree with Brady. The overwhelming majority of Americans have never heard of Daily Kos or Markos Moulitsas. A few airline tickets is cheap advertising for JetBlue to all of the Kossacks and YearlyKos attendees. The cost/benefit analysis was clearly a positive one until O’Reilly did this segment.

Should JetBlue have been concerned about such a backlash? Probably not. After all, the major Democrat presidential candidates are going to be in attendance. If they’re not concerned about a backlash, why should JetBlue be?

Taking this a step further, if conservatives were disappointed by the efforts of the netroots and Daily Kos to get corporations to stop sponsoring KSFO, the conservative radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area, I think it would be hypocritical to come down on JetBlue for giving these folks a few airline tickets.

After all, what O’Reilly represented at the beginning of the program was conceivably just as cherry-picked as what the netroots were inflamed by concerning KSFO and its radio personalities.

Were these statements made by DKos diarists, or in the comments sections? There is indeed a difference that shouldn’t be ignored, or we are acting exactly like that which offends us.

If, on the other hand, such statements were representative of management’s views, O’Reilly should have made a stronger case to prove that. For instance, were the offensive comments made by Moulitsas or any of the major contributors? On the days the vitriol he cited occurred, what percentage of the comments did this hate-speech represent?

What should always be kept in mind concerning message boards at political websites is that a percentage of the commentary is likely going to be offensive to management and contributors. Without stepping on any toes, there are many comments made at NB message boards that I completely disagree with, and don’t condone in any way. I imagine the same happens at O’Reilly’s website, too.

As such, in the Internet Era, I think individuals and corporations must be careful in attaching too much relevance to what occurs at message boards unless it can be demonstrated that management either shares or condones such views.

What makes this even more necessary is the floating bar of hate-speech.

What is hate-speech? Is this a subjective term, or something perfectly objective? Isn’t one man’s hate-speech another man’s opining?

Before we can determine exactly what the difference is, in this Internet Era of seemingly limitless freedom of expression which we all should revel in rather than fear, it appears prudent to slowly wade through these waters.

After all, the left is now advocating the reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine. As the right seems uniquely aware, this is clearly a move to kill free speech along with conservative talk radio.

With that in mind, it seems appropriate for the right to be cautious when pointing fingers at clearly left-leaning websites, for it could be – albeit speciously! – used as a justification for reviving the Fairness Doctrine along with implementing further government regulation of all forms of media including the Internet.

Just something to consider.

What follows is a full transcript of this segment.

BILL O’REILLY, HOST: What do you think of someone who says the following: the world would be better off without him? That after Tony Snow announced his cancer had returned. The pope is a primate. Evangelicals are nut cases. Better luck next time after an assassination plot against Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan. And some attacks against coalition forces in Iraq are legitimate.

All of those thoughts were posted on a vicious far-left website called the Daily Kos, one of the worst examples of hatred America has to offer. This summer, that website is having a convention in Chicago. And only one major corporation has stepped up as a sponsor. That company is JetBlue, the airline that melted down last winter.

As is our policy, we contacted JetBlue last week to ask why. Why would it sponsor a hateful website? It had no answer. So we sent "Factor" producer Jesse Watters out to see JetBlue CEO David Barger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: Hey, Mr. Barger, Jesse Watters with FOX News. How are you?

DAVID BARGER: Good morning.

WATTERS: Good morning. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?

BARGER: Regarding?

WATTERS: On the Daily Kos website, it says attacks against coalition forces in Iraq are legitimate. Does JetBlue subscribe to that kind of thinking?

BARGER: There's really, you know, politics and our business. It's really not something that we mix.

WATTERS: What about the pope is a primate? Do you agree with that kind of thinking?

BARGER: Same. I mean, it's -- from the standpoint of running our business, that's what we do from an airline perspective. So there's really not alignment along those lines. I appreciate your interest.

WATTERS: Do you think you're giving legitimacy to this kind of thinking? I mean, they're saying the world may be better off without Tony Snow when Tony Snow had a cancer relapse.

BARGER: It's -- I'm really not going to mix politics from the standpoint of running our business.

WATTERS: And aren't you guys kind of mixing politics by, you know, sponsoring this convention?

BARGER: It's -- it's -- I can see where you're trying to go with it, but it's -- I'm just not going to, you know, to respond to that here at this point and time.

WATTERS: Don't you think your sponsorship is kind of attached endorsement to this kind of thinking?

BARGER: I think just the ability to leave my apartment and do that freely and go to work is really what I'm trying to do. And along those lines, I think the people can draw their own conclusion. We're running our business. And from the perspective of politics, there's not alignment. So thanks very much.

WATTERS: Thank you. I mean, do you think that your JetBlue customers want to know that you're kind of subscribing to the belief that Iran has the right to attack Israel? I mean, these are the kind of things they're saying on this website.

BARGER: I'll just close by saying this. I think our customers are -- I'll treat them with dignity and respect. They're very smart. They'll draw their own conclusion, whether it's watching your new show, whether it's watching our in-flight television. They're pretty smart people. They'll draw their own conclusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: And we have. It is beyond belief that a company like JetBlue would sponsor hate mongers like the Daily Kos.

Comes a time when American consumers have to take a stand. And this is one of those times. Any company or person who endorses hate websites should be held accountable.

Finally, this isn't an ideological issue. If the company was sponsoring a David Duke convention, we'd do the same story. Hate is hate, no matter where it comes from. And that's the Memo.

Now for the top story tonight, another view of this. With us Diane Brady, a senior writer for "Business Week" magazine. I think Mr. Barger looked as bad as I've ever seen an CEO look in an interview like that. What do you think?

DIANE BRADY, BUSINESSWEEK MAGAZINE: Well, he's probably sending free air tickets to the pope and Tony Snow right now. But I think the main reason they did this is eyeballs. Daily Kos is a very popular website. It gets 500,000 hits a day. And one of the things with airlines is they seem to throw, you know, tickets at high school debating groups, forums. I don't think they necessarily always know what's on there.

O'REILLY: But we told them what was on there before we did the story. You got to understand that. We didn't ambush this guy. We gave them a week. We said look, look at this stuff. And they don't care. JetBlue doesn't care that they said all the things Jesse said at all. And I'm saying to myself are they just plain stupid? Because this is hate of the worst order. It's like the Ku Klux Klan. It's like the Nazi party. There's no difference here. People should die. They want Tony Snow to die. Cheney to die. Doesn't get worse than this, Ms. Brady.

BRADY: You know, there's no question Daily Kos is clearly on the left. And one thing that comes up, especially with those open forums is you get a lot of lunatics come up. And I'm sure - I look at their site.

O'REILLY: You know, you - look, I have my own website. We don't -- open forum is bull. All right? You can regulate what's on your website. Now, this kind of a thing has got to be troubling to, I think, millions of Americans when they hear it. Because this is the only, as we pointed out, sponsor. The only one. Everybody else stays way away from this. Why JetBlue? Why would they do that?

BRADY: I think they don't think about it. It was ten plane tickets. And I think they get solicited a lot. And probably they just sent it out and thought well, we're not rescind on the plane tickets right now. It's such a small cost to our bottom line. But the reality is in a transparent society like this, "The O'Reilly Factor" or some other group can come back at you and say even if it's a small amount, we're offended by this.

O'REILLY: Well, they have the -- it doesn't matter to us what the amount is. They have their banner there. They have their banner legitimizing this. I just think it's an awful business decision. Am I wrong?

BRADY: I think that probably retroactively they now regret it. But I think that certainly, they throw a lot of tickets at a lot of different places. And one of the things with Daily Kos and with this convention is they're getting a lot of eyeballs. It's a very affluent demographic.

O'REILLY: Would you do it if you were the CEO?

BRADY: Well, I'll tell you, you know, FOX News and Daily - and excuse me, FOX News and JetBlue have both sponsored gay and lesbian conventions.

O'REILLY: Yes, there's no contention. There's no - look, gay and lesbians are Americans. All right. They're just gay and lesbian. These are haters. These are people who are wishing people with whom they disagree ill. That's who they are. That's what they do. That's all they do.

BRADY: What's interesting about JetBlue, I think, is they see themselves as a very edgy, young airline. I don't know if you've flown them, but basically.

O'REILLY: I've flown them a couple times.

BRADY: .the people are supposed to leap.

O'REILLY: I'll never fly them again.

BRADY: .They're supposed to leap down the aisles and be happy go lucky and really apply to the youth crowd.

O'REILLY: All right. I think this is, as I said, just an awful business decision. Now that airline changed CEOs. This guy Barger's a new guy. The creator got booted out because the airline melted down last winter, correct?

BRADY: Well, one of the things they proved, they grew very fast. You know, they basically came from nothing. And now they're in 54 cities. And Neeleman didn't really handle the crisis. You mentioned in the winter the Valentine's Day.

O'REILLY: Yes.

BRADY: .people were stranded for ten hours. They felt they needed more professional management. I don't know.

O'REILLY: You think Barger's - that's right. I don't know if they got more.

BRADY: They certainly.

O'REILLY: Because look, with Jesse, I mean Jesse was asking very legitimate questions in a very calm manner. This guy had no answer. You know, are you legitimizing these people, sir, or not?

Why did you do this? Is there a reason you did it? He had nothing. Nothing. And this is the CEO of the airline? I mean, come on. This guy's in charge? It's just ridiculous.

This airline, JetBlue, do you believe this is coming back? Do you believe -- I think now it's going to lose some patronage. I do believe that will happen from this report. But do you believe this is a legitimate airline that's going to come back? Or are they still in a lot of trouble?

BRADY: I think their sales are up. Their on time departures, frankly, stink, but so do everybody else's right now. They're a small airline. They're the biggest at Kennedy, but they're only the biggest at Kennedy. But they're an upstart. They like to see themselves as being, kind of, the 21st century airline. And one of the things they do is they like to sponsor websites like this or conventions where Hillary Clinton and other people are going to be.

O'REILLY: I don't mind them sponsoring any -- if they want to be political, they can be political, all right. But hate, no. Ms. Brady, thank you for coming in. We appreciate it.

 

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.