[Undertoad]

There have been numerous nasty lies and errors and other outrages on Fox News. Many of these have been located and highlighted and amplified by media professionals whose sole job it is to watch FNC full-time and take potshots at it. Its loose, tabloid-style approach makes that job pretty easy.

But to my knowledge, they have never aired such an obvious and complete fabrication as Dan Rather's Rathergate.

It took bloggers (and me, frankly) MINUTES to determine that Rather's story was manufactured. It took CBS News MONTHS to fire the responsible producer.

But I also seriously doubt that he really feels this anxiety in the first place. I think what he said was done purposely and it wasn't for sharing feelings openly and honestly.

OK, here's some of the larger context:

The damning video clip of Williams, like the damning clip of Sherrod, cuts off the speaker just as he's about to reverse course. According to the full transcript, immediately after saying, "I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts," Williams continues: "But I think there are people who want to somehow remind us all as President Bush did after 9/11, it's not a war against Islam." That continuation has been conveniently snipped from the excerpt.

A few seconds later, Williams challenges O'Reilly's suggestion that "the Muslims attacked us on 9/11." Williams points out how wrong it would be to generalize similarly about Christians:

Hold on, because if you said Timothy McVeigh, the Atlanta bomber, these people who are protesting against homosexuality at military funerals—very obnoxious—you don't say first and foremost, "We got a problem with Christians." That's crazy.

Williams reminds O'Reilly that "there are good Muslims." A short while later, O'Reilly asks: "Juan, who is posing a problem in Germany? Is it the Muslims who have come there, or the Germans?" Williams refuses to play the group blame game. "See, you did it again," he tells O'Reilly. "It's extremists."