Why Bill O'Reilly Ought To Be Sodomized With the Femur of a Dead Sudanese Child:
Briefly noted: Last night, the Rude Pundit sat down to another fine episode of The O'Reilly Factor, with noted baby seal bludgeoner Bill O'Reilly hosting. In his Talking Points Memo segment, O'Reilly started by mentioning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's criticism that O'Reilly ignored the genocide in Darfur, Sudan in favor of nonsense like the "war" on Christmas. Oh, the Rude Pundit thought, this oughta be "good," rubbin' his hands together in sweet anticipation. Did O'Reilly talk about the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Darfur? Did he talk about the Bush administration's hypocrisy in doing little to halt such horrors while still spouting off about human rights violations in Iraq?

Nope. It was all about what O'Reilly called a "gross human rights violation" that he claims neither the Times nor "any network news organization" has discussed: the sentencing of a Vermont child molester to sixty days in prison and then treatment. According to O'Reilly, the little girl victim's civil rights have been violated. See, it's like Darfur, except with less flies.

So the Rude Pundit took out his trusty laptop and did a wee lil' Nexis search of the name of the molester. Seems that not only has the case been discussed endlessly on CNNMSNBCFox, but, on January 14, it hit the big time with a story on NBC Nightly News. Seems also that ABC's Good Morning, America covered it on January 13.

But this ain't about "gotcha" bullshit. It's about anyone who would nod along with O'Reilly, thinking that the two things are even remotely comparable. It's the fact that when O'Reilly says, "Yes, things are bad in Darfur. Nicholas Kristof's right. But there's a gross human rights violation going on in Vermont. And the media and politicians could not care less. Somebody tell Mr. Kristof and his editors," well, are additional jokes really necessary?

Later this morning: why George Bush is like a serial masturbator.