We now take a brief programming break from mourning the continuing state of affairs in Congress to mourning the continuing state of affairs on Fox News, where Bill O'Reilly has, startlingly, revealed that he might have some incorrect assumptions about American race relations.
He has, bless his heart, moved on from Hispanic moochers and onto Asian-Americans, who, traditionally, are not as moochy. From yesterday's show , during a discussion about Hawaii:
But you know what's shocking? 35 percent of the Hawaiian population is Asian, and Asian people are not liberal, you know, by nature. They're usually more industrious and hard-working.
Yes! Asians are wonderful, hard-working people, not liberals . After the jump, we shall evaluate whether this statemnt is accurate. (Shocking spoiler: It is not. )
Ok, so let's just accept as ridiculous the claim that Asian people are genetically more hard-working, though it seems obvious that "hard work" and "liberalism" are mutually exclusive. 47 percent, etc., etc.
The Census Bureau says the proportion of Asian-Americans living in Hawaii is actually 38.5 percent , but for a guy who says Christianity is not a religion , this is a remarkable feat of uncharacteristic accuracy. This is where the accuracy ends.
Turns out, only 17 percent of Asian-Americans identify as Republicans! And Hawaii has only ever elected two Republicans to the House, ever, and one of them voted for the DREAM Act and the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell . I know! It's like he just makes stuff up! Here is some more:
O'REILLY: Now I have to say, Hawaii is one of my favorite places in the world. It's beautiful.
JESSE WATTERS: Yeah, it's beautiful.
O'REILLY: But when I'm there I'm under water. I'm not talking to pinheads. But the state is in enormous debt.
WATTERS: They are.
O'REILLY: Alright. They've got a lot of social problems. When you says it's the biggest homeless thing, it's because of the addiction.
WATTERS: Right.
O'REILLY: The addiction is rampant, all over the place, because they don't enforce the drug laws.
WATTERS: No.
It's not really clear what the point of any of this mumbling is, but it must be true, because his guest did not press him on it! Just kidding, Jesse Watters is a Fox News producer, who is doing that thing where some warm body sits and just quietly agrees with whatever O'Reilly says, because he would look stupid saying this stuff to himself .
Also though, the drug problem in Hawaii isn't significantly worse than any other state: They don't enforce their marijuana laws very stringently , because heeey, come on man, but if we are talking about "rampant" addiction, "all over the place," well, that is also not true. Turns out all the Republican Asians are not wasting away in hash dens: The rate of (non-marijuana) illicit drug use in Hawaii is about 0.6 percentage points higher than the national average.
What are we talking about again? Asians? Hawaii being beautiful and full of drugs? Huh? What a great show. [ Media Matters ]
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Missed it by a year, but still nice.
Bill-O must be planning on moving to Hawaii to make good on his promise to leave the country if his taxes went up