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August 22, 2006 - O'Reilly sees anti-Bush t-shirt guy as "war profiteering"
Warning to readers who have just come out of
lengthy comas: In the year 2006, producers of highly
rated cable news programs are no longer able to
detect irony, have lost all sense of perspective, and
can no longer comprehend the meanings of
common English terms.
Okay, let’s begin.
Bill kicked off his program last night on a promising
note. Over the tagline “War Profiteering,” his camera
followed a man walking down the street being
questioned by his reporter: “How much money have
you made marketing death like this?”
Then Bill asked, “Is this man exploiting dead
American soldiers?”
lengthy comas: In the year 2006, producers of highly
rated cable news programs are no longer able to
detect irony, have lost all sense of perspective, and
can no longer comprehend the meanings of
common English terms.
Okay, let’s begin.
Bill kicked off his program last night on a promising
note. Over the tagline “War Profiteering,” his camera
followed a man walking down the street being
questioned by his reporter: “How much money have
you made marketing death like this?”
Then Bill asked, “Is this man exploiting dead
American soldiers?”
Wow, that’s great. Is Bill finally going to do a story on greedy corporations that exploit the war for
profit? Maybe he’ll nail Custer Battles, a company that allegedly defrauded the U.S. government out
of millions of dollars in Iraq!
Oh no. At The O’Reilly Factor, they’re more interested in striking the root: Guys who sell $18 anti-war
T-shirts with the names of dead soldiers on them.
We had to wait awhile, but Bill eventually got to his story about people who financially benefit from
the tragic deaths of young innocents somewhere in between JonBenet Ramsey segments.
O'REILLY: "Personal Story" segment tonight, an anti-war activist, named Dan Frazier has been
selling T-shirts with the names of 1,700 military killed-in-actions on them. Also on the shirts, the
words, "Bush lied, they died." That action has outraged Judy Vincent, whose son, Marine
Corporal Scott Vincent, was killed in Iraq. She believes Frazier is doing a terrible thing
(…)
O'REILLY: All right. Joining us now from Tulsa, Oklahoma, is Judy Vincent. Did you ask this guy to
take the name of your son off the shirt?
JUDY VINCENT, SON KILLED IN IRAQ: I did talk to him twice, and I never could get through to him.
His line was either busy or there was no answer.
O'REILLY: Were you able to—were you able to leave a message?
VINCENT: No. I didn't.
O'REILLY: This didn't go through. You saw him. I mean, he wouldn't ask for any of our questions,
and you know, he's a fanatic. We know that.
When did you first—when were you first made aware of this, and then how did it hit you when
you found out your son's name was on the shirt?
VINCENT: Well, we all became aware of it in June of 2005 when he got his site up and running to
sell his wares on the Internet. And when I seen it, I was outraged and just sickening. And...
O'REILLY: How much did he charge you for the shirts?
VINCENT: He sold the last batch, marked them down to $10.
O'REILLY: They were $18—$18 originally. Nobody's buying them. I don't think a lot of people are
buying these things.
VINCENT: Well, he's printing new ones now.
O'REILLY: Yes.
VINCENT: He's added more names to the shirt, a total of more than 2,500. And he's back selling
them for $18.
O'REILLY: You took your anger to the Oklahoma legislature. What happened?
VINCENT: I took my anger to my state representative, and we got together and I directed a deal.
And Oklahoma governor signed the bill, the bill into law of May of this year.
O'REILLY: What does the law say?
VINCENT: And—it's illegal to use the fallen without our permission.
O'REILLY: Illegal to use anyone killed in combat without a family member's permission for profit—
profitable gain? Is that it?
VINCENT: Yes, sir, that's right.
O'REILLY: OK. I think Louisiana also has a law like that. It may be unconstitutional, because free
speech. We don't know yet. But he operates out of Arizona, this guy. And, as you said, he's
selling off the Web site. So you'd have to get him on a federal beef. Unless he came through
Oklahoma or Louisiana. Then you could arrest him. Because the law did pass. It is in play?
VINCENT: Yes.
O'REILLY: Are the feds going to do anything about him?
VINCENT: Governor—not Governor Boren—Congressman Boren introduced a law into
Washington July 11 of this year. And currently, they are on recess, though we're just waiting to
see...
O'REILLY: How it goes.
VINCENT: ...how it would go very...
O'REILLY: OK. Now, I'm not going to speak for Frazier, because he could have spoken for himself.
We sent our guy out there to get an interview with him, and you saw he wouldn't answer any
questions. But I'm sure he would say, "Listen, I'm just doing this to save lives. I'm an anti-war
guy. I want to save lives."
And how would you answer that?
VINCENT: I don't think what he's doing is the voice of everybody else. It's his own personal
opinion. He can use his opinion, but he doesn't need to use the fallen in any way, shape or form.
O'REILLY: Do you feel it's insulting to the memory of your son for him to do this?
VINCENT: I think it's a very dishonor. He states, too, that it's a memorial. Well, I don't think it's
much of a memorial, putting my son's name on an $18 T-shirt.
O'REILLY: All right. We're sorry for your loss. Thank you very much for appearing.
VINCENT: Thank you.
O'REILLY: And this Frazier guy, you saw him.
Ouch. Down goes Frazier! O’Reilly, with his several minutes of cable network exposure that normally
costs advertisers mere thousands of dollars, has no doubt struck a death blow of national publicity
to this guy’s multi-dollar home-based screen printing business. Those anti-war pinheads are on the
run now.
Now, we don’t want to make fun of Vincent, whose grief and outrage are at least as legitimate as
Cindy Sheehan’s, but there’s no way in hell this law is constitutional. Even O’Reilly can see that. You’
d pretty much have to ban advertising from any program that mentions the name of a dead soldier if
the law holds up.
Indeed, if you had to arrest anyone who profited from the Iraq war, Fox News would pretty much have
its own wing at Sing Sing.
If you'd like to order a t-shirt for yourself, check out Dan's site.
profit? Maybe he’ll nail Custer Battles, a company that allegedly defrauded the U.S. government out
of millions of dollars in Iraq!
Oh no. At The O’Reilly Factor, they’re more interested in striking the root: Guys who sell $18 anti-war
T-shirts with the names of dead soldiers on them.
We had to wait awhile, but Bill eventually got to his story about people who financially benefit from
the tragic deaths of young innocents somewhere in between JonBenet Ramsey segments.
O'REILLY: "Personal Story" segment tonight, an anti-war activist, named Dan Frazier has been
selling T-shirts with the names of 1,700 military killed-in-actions on them. Also on the shirts, the
words, "Bush lied, they died." That action has outraged Judy Vincent, whose son, Marine
Corporal Scott Vincent, was killed in Iraq. She believes Frazier is doing a terrible thing
(…)
O'REILLY: All right. Joining us now from Tulsa, Oklahoma, is Judy Vincent. Did you ask this guy to
take the name of your son off the shirt?
JUDY VINCENT, SON KILLED IN IRAQ: I did talk to him twice, and I never could get through to him.
His line was either busy or there was no answer.
O'REILLY: Were you able to—were you able to leave a message?
VINCENT: No. I didn't.
O'REILLY: This didn't go through. You saw him. I mean, he wouldn't ask for any of our questions,
and you know, he's a fanatic. We know that.
When did you first—when were you first made aware of this, and then how did it hit you when
you found out your son's name was on the shirt?
VINCENT: Well, we all became aware of it in June of 2005 when he got his site up and running to
sell his wares on the Internet. And when I seen it, I was outraged and just sickening. And...
O'REILLY: How much did he charge you for the shirts?
VINCENT: He sold the last batch, marked them down to $10.
O'REILLY: They were $18—$18 originally. Nobody's buying them. I don't think a lot of people are
buying these things.
VINCENT: Well, he's printing new ones now.
O'REILLY: Yes.
VINCENT: He's added more names to the shirt, a total of more than 2,500. And he's back selling
them for $18.
O'REILLY: You took your anger to the Oklahoma legislature. What happened?
VINCENT: I took my anger to my state representative, and we got together and I directed a deal.
And Oklahoma governor signed the bill, the bill into law of May of this year.
O'REILLY: What does the law say?
VINCENT: And—it's illegal to use the fallen without our permission.
O'REILLY: Illegal to use anyone killed in combat without a family member's permission for profit—
profitable gain? Is that it?
VINCENT: Yes, sir, that's right.
O'REILLY: OK. I think Louisiana also has a law like that. It may be unconstitutional, because free
speech. We don't know yet. But he operates out of Arizona, this guy. And, as you said, he's
selling off the Web site. So you'd have to get him on a federal beef. Unless he came through
Oklahoma or Louisiana. Then you could arrest him. Because the law did pass. It is in play?
VINCENT: Yes.
O'REILLY: Are the feds going to do anything about him?
VINCENT: Governor—not Governor Boren—Congressman Boren introduced a law into
Washington July 11 of this year. And currently, they are on recess, though we're just waiting to
see...
O'REILLY: How it goes.
VINCENT: ...how it would go very...
O'REILLY: OK. Now, I'm not going to speak for Frazier, because he could have spoken for himself.
We sent our guy out there to get an interview with him, and you saw he wouldn't answer any
questions. But I'm sure he would say, "Listen, I'm just doing this to save lives. I'm an anti-war
guy. I want to save lives."
And how would you answer that?
VINCENT: I don't think what he's doing is the voice of everybody else. It's his own personal
opinion. He can use his opinion, but he doesn't need to use the fallen in any way, shape or form.
O'REILLY: Do you feel it's insulting to the memory of your son for him to do this?
VINCENT: I think it's a very dishonor. He states, too, that it's a memorial. Well, I don't think it's
much of a memorial, putting my son's name on an $18 T-shirt.
O'REILLY: All right. We're sorry for your loss. Thank you very much for appearing.
VINCENT: Thank you.
O'REILLY: And this Frazier guy, you saw him.
Ouch. Down goes Frazier! O’Reilly, with his several minutes of cable network exposure that normally
costs advertisers mere thousands of dollars, has no doubt struck a death blow of national publicity
to this guy’s multi-dollar home-based screen printing business. Those anti-war pinheads are on the
run now.
Now, we don’t want to make fun of Vincent, whose grief and outrage are at least as legitimate as
Cindy Sheehan’s, but there’s no way in hell this law is constitutional. Even O’Reilly can see that. You’
d pretty much have to ban advertising from any program that mentions the name of a dead soldier if
the law holds up.
Indeed, if you had to arrest anyone who profited from the Iraq war, Fox News would pretty much have
its own wing at Sing Sing.
If you'd like to order a t-shirt for yourself, check out Dan's site.
