Thursday, October 06, 2005

Come Back Bill O'Reilly to Ballyjamesduff

Not much to do with this one but a direct quote, from Fox News goon Bill O'Reilly, via Atrios:

My people came from County Cavan in Ireland. All right? And the British Crown marched in there with their henchman, Oliver Cromwell, and they seized all of my ancestors' lands, everything. And they threw them into slavery, pretty much indentured servitude on the land. And then the land collapsed, all right? And everybody was starving in Ireland. They had to leave the country, just as Africans had to leave -- African-Americans had to leave Africa and come over on a boat and try to make in the New World with nothing. Nothing.

The big problems with this one are too easy, so let's try some of the smaller ones ... Cromwell a "Crown henchman"? Tell that to Charles I.

We have previously posted about this strain of Irish-American conservatism; notably on the transition from left-leaning populism , and Republican spinner Ed Gillespie (now the Supreme Court nominee sherpa) using the Famine to sell tax-cuts.

UPDATE: Illustrated O'Reilly by Mike Power.

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