A reader tipped us off to this recently posted YouTube video of a vintage Oprah episode in which a woman describes how her Jewish parents forced her to sacrifice babies "for power." We're not entirely sure what that means, but, watching this, we're absolutely astounded by Oprah's miraculous media ascent. One day she's salivating over Jewish cults and the next she's television's queen bee.

Somewhere, sad and alone, Gerlado's screaming, "It should have been me!"

(As for the video's title, "Re: The shocking video Muslims don't want you to see!!," your guess is as good as ours....)

Earls is a bad man. He raped a little girl and got a ridiculous one-year sentence. But it's still astonishing that last night two grown men openly discussed on national television whether or not it's OK to just up and kill him.

O'Reilly, cognizant of the criticism he received for his role in turning George Tiller into a national villain who was then gunned down by an abortion opponent, managed to struggle through the moral logic of Thou Shalt Not Kill. But Rivera, with a wink and a nod, basically said "Yes." The only reservation he has about someone taking his advice to go out and kill Earls is that they might get hurt themselves.

Here's the gist of the exchange:

O'Reilly: If Earls ever walks out of jail and gets killed, who are they going to blame?

Rivera: ... I can only tell you ladies and gentlemen, that I will not weep if something happens to David Earls. I do not encourage vigilantism. I think it is something that puts your own life at risk. I do not advise it, I do not counsel it. I will not, however, weep if David Earls is found sometime on a country road.

O'Reilly: We obviously don't want anyone to do anything. That would be as morally wrong as what Earls did—to take Earls' life. You can't do that.

Rivera: I don't agree quite with your moral reasoning. You're more moral than I am.

These men actually want people to die.

Broderick is just a lowly news writer at the news network, but his dangerous alleged antics last week hardly constitute the first time that a Fox Newser has exhibited difficulty keeping the lid of civility on his barely restrained rage. From Shepard Smith's eerily similar tale of ramming a pedestrian with his car to Bill O'Reilly's legendary outbursts to Geraldo Rivera's pugilistic streak, a common thread runs through the network's mostly white staff. Maybe it's due to the stress of working for Roger Ailes, a maniacal militarist who demands total loyalty and perfection. Maybe it's because Fox News' aggrieved, rage-fomenting editorial stance attracts aggrieved, rage-filled people. Maybe it's because Ailes likes to hire entitled jackasses who think its OK to run people over when they are inconvenienced. Whatever it is, bitter and barely hinged people who really liked Michael Douglas' performance in Falling Down are overrepresented at Fox News. Here are some of them.

Bill O'Reilly
What can you say? There's the mic-cutting, there's the time he fucked it and did it live, there's the time he called us "despicable, slimy, and scummy," there was the time he threatened to hit Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and break their fingers off, and—jesus, just watch this.

Glenn Beck
He's angry, and sad, and laughing all at the same time. Which is clinical. Doesn't he remind you of Susan Powter?

Brian Wilson
In 2005, when he was the network's congressional correspondent, the "bizarrely angry" questions Wilson was barking out during a Howard Dean photo op caused the Washington Post's Mark Leibovich to wonder if Wilson—whom he didn't recognize—was a GOP staffer. When Leibovich asked Wilson who he was, the Fox Newser shouted back: "Who the fuck are you?" Then he stalked down a Senate hallway shouting obscenities.

Shepard Smith
Recently, Shep has been the sole voice of reason on Fox. But back in 2000, while covering the Florida recount battle, Smith rammed his car into a fellow reporter who was attempting to reserve a parking spot for her colleague. He "shouted some profanities at her and basically just struck her, striking her at the knees, which threw her up on the car," a Tallahassee cop told the St. Petersburg Times. He was charged with aggravated battery with a motor vehicle; the charges were later dropped.

Geraldo Rivera
He's not white, but he's still angry! He's said he would spit on Michelle Malkin if he saw her, and challenged Ketih Olbermann to a fight, calling him a "pussy" and threatening to "make a pizza out of him" (pizza?).

Russell Rhodes
The morning anchor for Tampa Bay's Fox affiliate doesn't technically work for Fox News, but he does work for Roger Ailes, who runs Fox's stations. So we consider it relevant to the matter at hand that in January, Rhodes was pulled over in a parking garage for driving recklessly. When he got out of the car, his pants were undone, and he tried to run away from the cop three times and refused to hand over the keys, forcing the officer to "take him to the ground." He was arrested for DUI and resisting arrest.

Aaron Bruns
Trafficking in the depraved sexual abuse of children is angry, right? Aaron Bruns, a Fox News producer who was "embedded" with the Hillary Clinton campaign last year, was arrested in February on charges of possession of child pornography. Just about 10 years after he was arrested in Michigan for distributing child pornography.

Yes, Brian Kilmeade, Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson were besides themselves, up in arms even, over MTV's offensive display of man-flesh, citing the fact that such things are harmful to the youth of America, labeling it as nothing more than a disgusting and cheap ploy for ratings.

And then later in the week, the Daily Show caught them all joined by Geraldo Rivera for a game of tackle football with a bunch of women dressed in lingerie outside of the Fox studios, an event Carlson termed "one of the best things I've ever seen on TV."

Life must be so blissfully happy living inside a bubble filled with your own BS, no?

• Madonna and Alex Rodriguez had a big secret dinner at Dos Caminos Third Avenue in New York. They arrived half an hour apart, sat in the back at a quiet, "alcove-like" table and left by separate exits. Then they denied the Mexican food rendezvous to the press, since Rodriguez's soon-to-be-ex-wife has the crazy idea Madonna sneaks around with A-Rod . But Us Weekly and Page Six each has a source who saw the dinner, so it's basically confirmed.
• The other big rumor about Madonna is that she isn't eating anything at all, ever, with anyone and that her skeleton is terrifying the innocent people of Gotham. [Sun]
• It wouldn't have been a proper farewell to Steve Dunleavy if Geraldo hadn't spilled a martini on Cindy Adams' handbag at some point in the evening. [Post, bottom item]
• Instead of taking meetings with book publishers he want to advance her $6 million, Tina Fey is personally calling celebrities to beg them to do 30 Rock cameos. Salma Hayek is the latest and she's signed on for two episodes. It's not clear if she forced Fey to do her Palin impression as part of the negotiations, but she totally should have. [P6]
• Natalie Portman sold her $6.5 million West Village condo because she is "valuing her privacy more and more."
• Jennifer Aniston complained to the press that the press falsely accused her of using her relationships to get more press. This got her more press, although not as much as a celebrity relationship would. Still: Excellent flackery. [Hollyscoop]

To get the perspective of admitted political smear artist Roger Stone. In a neat demonstration of the media echo chamber, Stone said he hadn't heard of the purported video, but now believes it exists because so many TV news networks have called to ask him about it.

Host Geraldo Rivera said he'd bet $100 against the rumor being true, but it doesn't matter: If the Republicans can keep everyone talking about the rumor through October, when Johnson's "Republican sources" say it will surface, the chatter will have, in and of itself, hurt Obama in the same significant way spurious rumors about him being Islamic delivered votes to Clinton.

That right-wing, Roger Ailes-operated Fox News is helping to facilitate this damage via national television should come as no surprise; the real test is whether the other networks will now follow suit and further whip up this corrosive, baseless rumor, simply because there's nothing else they want to talk about.

[David Seaman]

[TVNewser]

Of all the various, arguably-justified reasons tossed about as to why the terrorists want to kill us and the rest of the world despises us, Geraldo Rivera is one of the most often overlooked. That's odd, considering no one quite personifies that grand American tradition of dramatically overreacting first and sorting out the details later as the man born Gerald Michael Riviera. But, say what you will about him, he is indeed multifaceted. And like a half-Jewish, half-Puerto Rican onion, his layers continue to unfold. So, is it possible, based on the above sighting of him giving his best Sipowicz in a car with NYPD plates, that one of those layers may soon be allowed to arrest people?

The man has already conquered the worlds of law, and, as all Baywatch fans will remember with joy, acting. He is a journalistic legend and an accomplished author who has written both his autobiography and an online ode to sailing, titled, poetically, The Sailing Book. Perhaps now that he has settled comfortably into his fifth marriage with a woman half his age and his syndicated show has been reduced to only weekend spots, he has decided to put his money where his mustache is and become one of New York's finest.

Of course, there is a second possible explanation here. That would involve Geraldo going undercover in the NYPD to bring his world-renowned investigatory skills and unique perspective to some dirty, internal corruption story or something of the like. And yes, perhaps driving around in a car clearly marked NYPD may not be what you or I would do when we were working undercover. But, as we learned from his Iraq coverage, Geraldo has some trouble with words like "embedded" and "undercover". They are details, or, as they call them at Fox News, the stuff CNN worries about.

Production To Cease on Geraldo at Large [B&C via TVNewser]

Philadelphia Will Do directs us to this video of crusading journalist Geraldo Rivera visiting the City of Brotherly Love to investigate a plot to whack him. It's pretty much what you'd expect (i.e., a lot of Italian guys with whiny voices yelling, "Hey, get outta my face") but what struck us when watching was this: Why do we need the Philly mob to put a hit on Geraldo? We're New York Fuckin' City, our mob can kick your mob's ass. This sixth borough shit is getting out of control.

Geraldo Discusses Plan to Whack Him, Asks If He's Allowed To Be Angry [PWD]

Fear Exceeded Crime's Reality in New Orleans [NYT]
Earlier: Alessandra Stanley

The TV Watch column on Sept. 5 discussed broadcast journalists' undisguised outrage at the failings of Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts. It said reporters had helped stranded victims because no police officers or rescue workers were around, and added, "Fox's Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety."

The editors understood the "nudge" comment as the television critic's figurative reference to Mr. Rivera's flamboyant intervention. Mr. Rivera complained, but after reviewing a tape of his broadcast, The Times declined to publish a correction.

Numerous readers, however - now including Byron Calame, the newspaper's public editor, who also scrutinized the tape - read the comment as a factual assertion. The Times acknowledges that no nudge was visible on the broadcast.

Like manna from heaven, Calame's on the nudge. All is right in the world, and Geraldo's reputation is safe to be sullied only by his actual idiocy.

Corrections [NYT]
Earlier: Geraldo Threatens to Sue 'Times'

Good thing they did, because after all that's been written about the controversy — in the Washington Post, in the Los Angeles Times, by the Times's own public editor, even here on Gawker — everyone's been waiting for an impartial observer trained in the ombudsmanic arts — someone like, say, Public Eye — to give us a definitive opinion on the matter. So what do the CBSers think?

I think it's safe to say that Geraldo Rivera is one of the more controversial journalists of his generation. It's also safe to say that the New York Times' reaction to his demand is one of the reasons an ombudsman was created at the paper — and the reason one is still needed. And it's a good example of why all news organizations benefit from someone or something to bark inside the house.

It's a special crew that has the cojones to stake out the difficult position that Geraldo is controversial and ombudsmen are good. Good work, Public Eye.

Calame Looks Into Corrections Vault and Finds It Empty [Public Eye/CBS]
Earlier: Geraldo Threatens to Sue 'Times'

"Fox's Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety."

A great image, and one that fits perfectly with the sorts of showboating we all know the man born as Gerald capable of. The only problem is that it's not true. Fox News and Rivera have provided the Times with tapes that show no "nudging," even with some outtakes. Yet the Times won't run a question or clarification.

In Howard Kurtz's Monday Washington Post column, Times editor Bill Keller explained the paper's unwillingness to run a correction this way:

"It was a semi-close call, in that the video does not literally show how Mr. Rivera insinuated himself between the wheelchair-bound storm victim and the Air Force rescuers who were waiting to carry her from the building. Whether Mr. Rivera gently edged the airman out of the way with an elbow (literally 'nudged'), or told him to step aside, or threw a body block, or just barged into an opening — it's hard to tell, since it happened just off-camera."

Got that? It's OK that Stanley said Rivera nudged the airman, Keller says, because there isn't any tape to prove he didn't.

But Rivera isn't buying that, and he's still pressing for a correction. (Incidentally, we should note, the Fox Newsman has no videotaped proof that Keller doesn't beat his wife. We're just saying.) And in today's Los Angeles Times, Rivera says he'll sue for the correction, if necessary.

Geraldo Rivera suing the Times! Over a charge of premeditated nudgery! This would be a delightfully hilarious sideshow, except for one thing: As Reference Tone demonstrated earlier in the week, Stanley is only marginally more accurate than Jayson Blair. Which means we'll never, ever forgive her for the sentence we're about to write, which goes against ever fiber of our being.

Geraldo's right, and the Times is wrong.

Geraldo Challenges N.Y. Times [LAT]
Related: Hearings Tempest Downgraded to Tropical Storm [WP]
Earlier:Critical Errors