Saturday, April 7, 2007

O'Lielly vs Geraldo

In what can only be regarded as one of the most bizarre exchanges in recent TV history, Fox News "commentator" Bill O'Reilly squared off Thursday with fellow Fox celebrity "investigative journalist" Geraldo Riveria in a verbal wrestling match over something that remotely resembled an immigration issue.

Like most of Fox's "fair and balanced" debates, this one had little to offer by way of substance, but generated more than its fair share of fireworks.

Starting with the usual twisted logic and hyperbolic setup we've come to expect from O'Reilly, the debate revolved around Bill's assertion that a fatal car accident in Virginia Beach Va. involving an undocumented drunk driver was a direct result of what he termed, that city's "sanctuary" policy towards "illegal aliens"

After a five-minute set-up in which O'Reilly admonished the town's Mayor and Police Chief along with Virginia's Governor for not "enforcing US immigration laws", claiming their lack of action directly resulted in the deaths of two teenage girls, O'Reilly brought on Riveria to discuss the problem of "sanctuary cities"…and the verbal melee began.

O'Reilly, staying true to form, strayed from the facts on numerous occasions in order to make his point. …So it might be helpful to review the realities of the case before going to the play by play.

Driver in fatal crash may have been drunk

VIRGINIA BEACH -- The driver who killed two Virginia Beach teens last week may have been driving while intoxicated at the time of the fatal accident.

Alfredo Ramos, 22, who is facing two manslaughter charges, admitted in his court appearance on Monday that he is in the country illegally from Mexico. Though police say speed and alcohol were contributing factors in the fatal accident, they have not charged him with driving while intoxicated or driving under the influence.

According to a Virginia Beach police spokesman, Ramos was driving westbound on Virginia Beach Boulevard on Friday night when he rear-ended another car that was stopped at a red light at Kings Grant Road. The two girls in the car -- Allison Kunhardt, 17, and Tessa Tranchant, 16 -- were pinned in their vehicle and died from their injuries.

Court records show that Ramos has at least two prior convictions this year -- one for DUI in Chesapeake and one for public drunkenness in Virginia Beach. He was also convicted for public drunkenness in Chesapeake last year.
Hamptopn Roads Daily Pres


Now…Let's get ready to rumble.


video link

Normally this should have been a hard match to score with two esteemed intellects like O'Reilly and Riveria going at it...But I think it's safe to say Geraldo scored the most points for knowledge and truthiness … besides O'Reilly just looked so damn rabid as he spat and snarled, making anything even remotely intelligent coming from Rivera looking like pure genius compared to the bombastic bloviating of the Loofah-boy.

Full transcript available; Here


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2 comments:

Professor Howdy said...

Hello!
Very good posting.
Thank you - Have a good day!!!

Duke Reed said...

just like Mr O'Liely, you have missed the point...whether purposely or unintentionally only you know.

The problem with these drunk driving cases is just that ...drunk driving.

It has absolutely nothing to do with immigration.

The article goes on to explain why the incidence of driving while intoxicated is higher among young Latinos.

One reason is demographics..the Latino population tends to be younger than the general population so statistically they show a higher rate of the dangerous behaviors always associated with younger demographic groups. (there's a reason young people pay so much higher car insurance rates...statistically they are more prone to engage in dangerous behaviors)

Most of the Hispanics involved in crashes are young men, he says.

Many of them have left their family, church and social networks behind when they come to the USA to work, and they sometimes drink to combat loneliness, says Antonio Asion, public safety director for El Pueblo, a non-profit Hispanic advocacy group in Raleigh.

"You see the same thing with this same age group of people that are non-Latino," Asion says. "College students when they go away from home for the first time (drink to excess). If you look in the military, you see the same thing."


Also as MADD has pointed out young Latinos are targeted by advertisers for alcohol products at a much higher rate than non-Latinos.

The new study out today as Hispanic families prepare for Cinco de Mayo celebrations shows that Latino youth join youth of other cultures as targets of alcohol product advertising. A new Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) report released today shows that Hispanic youth see even more alcohol advertising in youth-oriented magazines and on radio and television than non-Hispanic youth who are already drenched in ads.

Hispanic youth see 32 percent more alcohol advertising for malternatives, alcopops and other "low-alcohol refreshers" in magazines than do youth of other cultures. Also, in U.S. cities that are most highly-populated with Latino populations, Hispanic youth are overexposed to English-radio alcohol advertising and 85 percent of the alcohol industry's Spanish-language TV advertising spending takes place in these markets. The alcohol industry appears to know its target for increasing sales--young Hispanics. Since young Latinos tend to be bilingual and seek out English media in some cases more than Spanish media outlets, the industry gets lucky by reaching diverse audiences in one language. Youth are the unlucky ones.

http://www.madd.org/news/6620


Thirdly, young, foreign-born Latinos have not been exposed to the same level of drunk driving awareness education as their native-born counterparts.

As Geraldo pointed out numerous times this has nothing to do with immigration or a proclivity of Latinos in general to drunkenness. It has to do with educating young people as to the dangers of drunk driving. whether they be Latino or native-born.

It's a drunk driving problem ...to try to turn it into an immigration issue is disingenuous at best and highly suspect at worst.