Battle Lines Drawn Between O'Reilly and Rich

America's raging culture war has come down to a sparring match between two top media figures, with Fox News superstar Bill O'Reilly verbally slugging it out with New York Times arts columnist Frank Rich, says today's issue of the Forward.

Zeroing in on this week's heated exchanges between the two men, the Forward reported that O'Reilly let loose on Rich for what he called the Times columnist's "savage attack on Mel Gibson" in the paper's Sunday edition, one of a number of vicious attacks Rich has aimed at "The Passion of the Christ" and Gibson over the past year.

According to the Forward, on Monday O'Reilly spent most of his time condemning Rich as a member of the "elite media," who, O'Reilly charged, "believe that the majority in the country — white Christian Americans — are prone to oppressing the minority," and added that "elites don't debate, they attack and marginalize."

In his Sunday column Rich raised questions about O'Reilly's show three days earlier, during which O'Reilly asked a film critic whether the hubbub over Gibson's movie was because "the major media in Hollywood and a lot of the secular press is controlled by Jewish people?"

Noting that "Rich has not resorted to personal invective in print," The Forward recalled that during a recent interview with the paper Rich had compared O'Reilly both to Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-Semitic radio host from the 1930s, and "Ted Baxter [from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"], the blowhard local anchorman, where it's all about him rather than the issue."

Then on Wednesday morning, Rich appeared on the "Imus in the Morning" show and renewed his assault on O'Reilly, provoking the star of the top-rated "O'Reilly Factor" to fire back later in the morning during his own appearance on the Imus show.

He continued his response to Rich's comments that night, devoting his opening editorial to attacking Rich for claiming that he had never used his Times columns to wage personal attacks against Gibson or O'Reilly.

"For one of the few times in history," O'Reilly said, "the elite media has been called on a blatantly unfair campaign and is losing the debate."

"If you go up against the elite media, it's not going to be pretty. You'll be branded a bigot, racist, anti-Semite, homophobe," O'Reilly added.

But Rich says, without a shred of evidence to back the accusation, that O'Reilly's constant references to the "elite media" are a veiled "code word" for Jews — a reference, the Forward suggested, that the host "seemed to make explicit in his March 4 question about Jewish control of the media."

"Whenever he attacks me, it sets off a flood of anti-Semitic e-mails and voice mail messages," Rich told the Forward.

And so it goes.

For his part, O'Reilly keeps challenging Rich to appear on his show, an invitation Rich continues to decline - which, O'Reilly says, proves he's a coward. "He's hiding under his desk," O'Reilly said.

Rich responds by saying he avoids going on shows where people shout at each other.

Editor's note:
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