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- Sep 15, 2010
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First, a little backstory. Soon after the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, O’Reilly spoke on the air about the nature of evil. “I don’t think a lot of people understand,” he said. “My mother, for example, doesn’t understand evil. When I would tell her, ‘Hey, mom, I was in El Salvador and I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head,’ she almost couldn’t process it. She couldn’t process it.”
In reality, while Catholic nuns were executed during El Salvador’s civil war in December 1980, O’Reilly could not have seen them get shot – he was not in El Salvador in December 1980. He arrived in the country the following year.
Since there’s no way O’Reilly could have seen what he claims to have seen, Fox News gave “The Rachel Maddow Show” a statement from O’Reilly, which read as follows:
“While in El Salvador, reporters were shown horrendous images of violence that were never broadcast, including depictions of nuns who were murdered. The mention of the nuns on my program came the day of the Newtown massacre. The segment was about evil and how hard it is for folks to comprehend it. I used the murder nuns as an example of that evil. That’s what I was referring to when I say, ‘I saw nuns get shot in the back of head.’ No one could possibly take that segment as reporting on El Salvador.”
That’s a pretty remarkable response for a couple of reasons.
First, we’ve reached a curious point at which O’Reilly is parsing the meaning of the word “see.” When the Fox host said he “saw nuns get shot,” he apparently meant he saw pictures of nuns who were shot, and according to O’Reilly, those two sentiments have identical meaning.
In reality, while Catholic nuns were executed during El Salvador’s civil war in December 1980, O’Reilly could not have seen them get shot – he was not in El Salvador in December 1980. He arrived in the country the following year.
Since there’s no way O’Reilly could have seen what he claims to have seen, Fox News gave “The Rachel Maddow Show” a statement from O’Reilly, which read as follows:
“While in El Salvador, reporters were shown horrendous images of violence that were never broadcast, including depictions of nuns who were murdered. The mention of the nuns on my program came the day of the Newtown massacre. The segment was about evil and how hard it is for folks to comprehend it. I used the murder nuns as an example of that evil. That’s what I was referring to when I say, ‘I saw nuns get shot in the back of head.’ No one could possibly take that segment as reporting on El Salvador.”
That’s a pretty remarkable response for a couple of reasons.
First, we’ve reached a curious point at which O’Reilly is parsing the meaning of the word “see.” When the Fox host said he “saw nuns get shot,” he apparently meant he saw pictures of nuns who were shot, and according to O’Reilly, those two sentiments have identical meaning.
