As difficult as it is to like Fox's Bill O'Reilly, it is quite enjoyable watching him go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump. That’s what happened Wednesday night as O'Reilly decried the Dwight Eisenhower program 'Operation Wetback,' which Trump has recently taken a shine to. Caitlin MacNeal reports:
O'Reilly first asked Trump if he knew what Eisenhower named the deportation program.
"I do but I don’t like the term. I wouldn’t use the term," Trump responded, alluding to the program's title, "Operation Wetback." O'Reilly said he was referring to another name for the deportation effort, "bracero."
Oh, how elegant of Trump not to use the term. I mean, that would sound bigoted and discriminatory and absolutely inappropriate in polite company. The policy, however—rounding up tens of thousands of immigrants and then quite literally dumping them in random locations in Mexico to die—that's some good stuff. Good enough to resurrect in the new millennium, said Trump, as O'Reilly tried to make the case against the horrific effort.
"That was brutal what they did to those people to kick them back," O'Reilly told Trump on Wednesday night. "The stuff they did was really brutal, it could never happen today."
"I’ve heard it both ways. I’ve heard good reports. I’ve heard bad reports," Trump said in response. "We would do it in a very humane way."
Oh yes, rounding people up for deportation is totally humane. Ya know, average folks, just chain ‘em up along with their children and send 'em away. Eleven million of them. Totally humane.
I will say one thing for Trump, he's amped up his racist rhetoric to an unimaginable level. If someone had told me in June when he began spewing gibberish about “rapists” and “murderers” and “drug dealers” that he was just getting started, I wouldn't have believed it. He has absolutely and ignominiously exceeded expectations there.