When fascists get their own cable network, hilarity is sure to follow.
And what's funnier than Bill O'Reilly and some Fox News Channel legal analyst looking for ways to justify spraying peaceful protesters -- college kids who were just sitting there -- point-blank in the face with pepper spray, sending two to the hospital?
OK, I lied. It's not funny at all. It makes me want to throw up for one important reason . . . or rather one frightening thought that occurred to me. What if Bill O'Reilly had been a prominent national TV commentator in 1963?
What if O'Reilly had been on television every night convincing just enough Americans that they couldn't believe their eyes, not when it came to what they just plainly saw on the TV news. That the horrors being inflicted on blacks in the segregated South weren't nearly so bad as they appeared.
Move along. No injustice to see here. No need to do anything about it.
Can you hear him in your mind's ear, telling a nightly audience of about 4.5 million that it was just water coming out of the fire hoses blasting young civil-rights protesters in Birmingham, Ala.?
C'mon, everybody drinks water. You need water to live, right? It's the stuff of life -- listen, your body is, what, 80 percent water anyway.
And the police dogs being turned loose on those black kids? Who doesn't love dogs? C'mon, it's Fido, for God's sake! If you make nice with the doggie, he'll be nice to you.
Besides, "I don't think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police." Especially a longtime public servant like Bull Conner.
Right, Bill?