O'Reilly is on Fox. Fox is on cable. The FCC doesn't have any governing authority over cable. This is one for an advertiser boycott.

You're confusing me, Answer Frog!

"Anyone else see a parallel between the 9/11 apologists and these domestic terrorist apologists?"

As to apologists, I remember there was some militia guy who said that if half his members had the courage of those brave terrorists, how proud he'd be, blah-blah. It was a stunning display of how far we'd gone in coddling these I-hate-USG misfits.

"I remember hearing from some Europeans after 9/11 that, well, all that killing is unfortunate, but if you had only solved the Palestinian problem, it wouldn't have happened."

I lived in Western Europe and the time, the headline in Le Monde was "We are all Americans today." Everybody in my town got a note of condolence and support for the American brothers and sisters from our mayor. Then the Bush people and other xenophobes started jingoistic crap that somehow the Europeans weren't fully supporting them. And I started to hear the stuff your talking about now from my fellow Americans, and it was unrecognizable and it seemed more like it came from them than from Europeans. Europeans were *horrified* by what happened to us, and deeply sympathetic. But Bush worked on the base and others to fan Francophobia, and pretty soon were at Freedom Fries. (I don't want to beat around the bush on that either -- I regard that as an exceptionally disgraceful misadventure for the American body politic: stated-sponsored yahoo bigotry masquerading as policy.) Are you sure you didn't hear Americans bitching about what they think Europeans *might* have said? I sure heard a lot of shit like that at the time, though I don't remember anything from Europeans like what you report. Some in Europe had the utter gall to question the WMD malarkey, and European countries were so myopic as not to realize that the Iraq war was a genius idea and not to support it. Plus, getting back to what you say, as a simple matter of neutral fact, blind support for Israel's treatment of Palestinians *whatever that treatment may be* was unquestionably a provocative factor, which is why Obama is changing that now. That's not glib, that's simply not denying the screechingly obvious.

"Many people, including on the right, denoucned this sort of glib apologism"

Yeah, the right was doing a lot of denouncing, I do recall that.

"for what was really bloodthirsty extremism that needed few pretexts."

Obama was a neurotic maniac; read Steve Coll's The Bin Ladens.

"Now we get to hear the same sort of APOLOGIA from the conservatives abotu domestic terrorists:
Well, murder is unfortunate BUT ...."

Right. Exactly. They weren't too hard on the militia movement either, even though it was so much about ever-increasing hyperboles in hating the U.S. government. I don't think the guy I mentioned getting misty-eyed about the valor of those brave terrorists is a lone occurrence by any means. Those are the Republicans' gun buddies, though, so they get a pass to some degree.

"Essentially, the righties making excuses or blaming the victim, or blaming the government, are nothing other than the propaganda wing of a terrorist movement."

Agreed: Killing the doctor might indeed be terrorism if it weren't done in furtherance of the sacred will of God. Same rationalization as the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

A case could possibly be made if it could be proven that the killer was a fan of O'Reilly's show. DVR'd/tivo'd episodes (specifically ones regarding Dr. Tiller), letters or emails sent to the network, family or friends who could testify of his "appreciation" for O'Reilly's point of view, etc. If it went before a judge anywhere, it would be a media circus. The case would likely be thrown out in the end - but what a way to draw highly unflattering attention to FNN and O'Reilly.