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O'Reilly, Ingraham baselessly
attacked NY Times for publishing photo of Rumsfeld's summer
home
Media Matters July 13, 2006 Summary: Bill O'Reilly and Laura Ingraham baselessly attacked the The New York Times for publishing a photo of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's vacation home. In fact, Rumsfeld's public affairs director confirmed that he granted the Times permission to run the photo, the Secret Service confirmed that the photo "is not a threat" to Rumsfeld's security, and numerous media -- including Fox News -- had previously reported the location of Rumsfeld's residence. Further, a nearly identical photo ran in The Washington Post six months earlier. On the July 11 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly and conservative radio host Laura Ingraham baselessly attacked the The New York Times for publishing a photo of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's vacation home. In fact, as American Prospect's Greg Sargent noted on July 3, Rumsfeld's public affairs director confirmed that he granted the Times permission to run the photo, the Secret Service confirmed that the photo "is not a threat" to Rumsfeld's security, and numerous media -- including Fox News -- had previously reported the location of Rumsfeld's residence. Further, a January 2 Washington Post article -- headlined "Right on the Water, The Only Retreat for Cheney and Rumsfeld: St. Michaels" -- published a nearly identical photograph of Rumsfeld's vacation home on the front page of the paper's Style section. Continuing to assert that the Times is damaging national security, O'Reilly and Ingraham pointed to an "awful" Times profile of Vice President Dick Cheney's and Rumsfeld's summer homes, in which the Times "publishe[d] a photo of the secretary of defense's vacation home." The two were presumably referring to a June 30 profile of St. Michaels, Maryland, where both Rumsfeld and Cheney own second homes. The article featured a picture of the wooded driveway of Rumsfeld's home. O'Reilly and Ingraham expressed outrage that the Times would publish such a photo; O'Reilly declared the story to be "awful," while Ingraham called it "just bizarre," and questioned how the Times "believes that it truly is being patriotic" by publishing such a photograph. However, the duo's condemnation appears baseless; the Times was apparently granted permission to take and publish the photograph of Rumsfeld's house. As American Prospect's Greg Sargent noted on July 3, Rumsfeld's public affairs director Hollen Wheeler confirmed "that the photographer, Linda Spillers, had been granted permission to photograph Rumsfeld's house by Rumsfeld himself." Sargent continued:
Sargent also apparently received confirmation from a Secret Service spokesman that the photo's publication "is not a threat" to Rumsfeld's security. Moreover, media outlets have previously reported that Rumsfeld and Cheney have homes in St. Michaels. First noted by blogger Glenn Greenwald, "news outlets such as NewsMax and Fox and others had previously disclosed this same information months earlier," and "this information is commonly reported about government leaders in both parties." As noted above, The Washington Post previously published a photograph of the exterior of Rumsfeld's house for a January 2 article similarly noting that both Cheney and Rumsfeld have homes in St. Michaels. The Post's photograph of Rumsfeld's residence appears nearly identical to the photograph published by the Times: O'Reilly also bashed the Times earlier in the program, asserting that the Times has "definitely undermined" Americans' "security" and has "no question" made "life much easier for the terrorists." O'Reilly even imagined a Bush-hating conspiracy lead by the paper's publisher, Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr., declaring that Sulzberger "believes the Bush administration is a danger to the world," so he has "put together a staff of true believers like himself, and they are bent on undermining the Bush administration." Continuing, O'Reilly ominously repeated: "Not watching it, undermining it." O'Reilly concluded that "[t]here is a far-left press jihad going on in this country," and asked: "Has critical mass been reached?" From the July 11 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
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