You Know You're Watching Fox News...

when you find yourself taking David Duke's side in an argument.

The situations you find yourself in sometimes. I just had to watch The O'Reilly Factor last night because Mr. O'Reilly was finally going to get the story on what 'white nationalist' David Duke thinks about the Ward Churchill affair. Where was the biased mainstream media on this one, I asked myself. And why has the mainstream media stopped talking about Churchill's controversial quote just weeks after he uttered it? That's why I watch Fox News, people.

Questions raced through my head. What did Bill expect to hear? Did he want to tie Churchill's reputation to that of fellow 'extremist' Duke? Did we want to trash Duke and Churchill simultaneously? This couldn't be about boosting ratings, could it? Did O'Reilly want to compare hate speech with Duke? Has O'Reilly written a new book? Or maybe he thought Duke would feel right at home among all of the young, square-jawed Aryan men and women that serve as anchors at Fox?

Regardless of the reason for Duke's visit, I found myself spellbound as O'Reilly proceeded to show why he gets paid the big bucks, immediately taking control of the discussion and getting to all the important points: Was Duke formerly Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan? Had he said bad things about blacks and Jews? How did Duke think his hate speech compared to Churchill's? Oh, don't be so modest Bill, you can 'hate speech' the hell out of both those guys!

Duke sugarcoats his views when he can get a word in, but O'Reilly refuses to let him make any kind of point whatsoever. Duke tries to steer the conversation to First Amendment issues and America's need to take a look at its foreign policy if they want to prevent terrorism (and I find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with David Duke on something). But this is not the story that Bill O'Reilly wants to broadcast. So after speaking over Duke a couple more times, he ends the interview.

And for the first, and hopefully last, time in my life, I find myself sympathizing with David Duke.