Bravo, Mr. O’Reilly. Bravo.

Commentary by Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig

Bill O’Reilly, the host of Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” has outdone himself with his latest hate campaign against the city by the Bay.
   Once saying he wouldn’t mind if Al Qaida attacked San Francisco, O’Reilly has stooped to a new low with painting one of the most beautiful cities in the country as a den of pimps, prostitutes and cannabis-club card carrying homeless degenerates. He described the city as having a “radical left government” and that it was “once a working class city” that has since “embraced a secular liberal culture.”
    During a Nov. 13 report, O’Reilly sent show producer Jesse Waters on a mission to show America how bad the city is. Waters — a first time visitor to San Francisco — came back with video that portrayed San Francisco exactly how O’Reilly wanted him to.
    It showed a handful of people, most of them of color, who were homeless, drug users and the like, along with a few young, white mothers of young children who seem to fear for their lives every time they step outside. Waters described the homeless — which he said in no way compared to the one or two at a time you find where he lived in New York City — as traveling in packs.
    Phrases like “pockets of bad places … prevalent throughout a lot of the city … this dark underbelly that seeps into the regular society” are used throughout the segment.
    First of all, are both men serious? Secondly, what alterworld do they live in that the Big Apple is nirvana?
    As a resident of Oakland who visits the city a few times a week, I am offended and a little amused that O’Reilly would again attempt to defame such a wonderful city and to do so in a way that has made Fox News such a favorite among the American people.
    You wouldn’t go to the Presidio at night. Not because it’s dangerous, but because its hella dark in the woods. The neon signs and Amsterdam-like atmosphere was shot in one neighborhood known for being a great place for night life … at night. And more proof that O’Reilly is clueless about the area: He placed two neighborhoods — the Tenderloin and North Beach — which are several neighborhoods away from one another, as being one and the same. Medical marijuana clinics everywhere? Untrue.
    San Francisco is no different than any other heavily populated, major U.S. city. It has its bad and ugly, but the good outweighs everything else. And what makes the city and the entire Bay Area such a great place is that we are a melting pot of sights, sounds and smells and most importantly people, who offer much more than a four-minute, 43-second news segment by the right-wing 24-hour cable network could ever do justice.
    I think one man in the segment said it best: “… everyone treats each other like one [people] … we are all in the same basket.”
    I’ll be happy when O’Reilly and the team at Fox News climb into it with us.

   Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig is an award-winning journalist who resides in Oakland. If you have an individual, organization, issue or other topic that may be of interest to the Globe’s readers, contact her at talk2mfc@yahoo.com.
   Visit her blog at www.stpminute.blogspot.com.