Whoopi Goldberg on Tuesday demonstrated an absolutely staggering ignorance concerning a variety of subjects.
Appearing on Fox News's "O'Reilly Factor," Goldberg admitted not knowing what a madrasa is, said it wasn't the Japanese that attacked America at Pearl Harbor, and claimed Muslims in America are more persecuted than Jews (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL O'REILLY, Host: Do you believe in the world, we have a Muslim problem?
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: No.
O'REILLY: OK.
GOLDBERG: I think we have a terrorist problem.
O'REILLY: OK. So, you don't believe we have a Muslim problem.
Would you agree with me that if all the good Muslims, and I think they overwhelm the bad Muslims, OK? Would cooperate with the West, with the United States and NATO and other countries, that we wouldn't have a terrorist problem? For example, if Pakistan would cooperate with the United States, we wouldn't have the Taliban problem in Afghanistan. We would defeat them.
GOLDBERG: That would all be great if that's how it worked.
O'REILLY: But that's how it works.
GOLDBERG: But it isn't how it works, because, if you recall -- think of it this way, that crazy gentleman, I take that back because that's rude -- the gentleman that said he was going to burn the Koran, that got played all around the world.
O'REILLY: You mean the nut down in Florida?
GOLDBERG: I'm not going to say that.
O'REILLY: OK, I will. But that, you're diverting the attention.
GOLDBERG: No, no, I'm not. Listen to my point.
O'REILLY: All right. Go ahead.
GOLDBERG: So, all the people who are watching around the world saying, boy, America feels like that, so Americans --
O'REILLY: See, but I disagree. I don't think Muslims think that everybody is like that crazy guy. I don't believe that.
But let's get back to Pakistan. Pakistan, if they would help us --
GOLDBERG: No, no. Bill, Bill.
O'REILLY: -- we could win that.
GOLDBERG: Bill, do you think that the people in Pakistan, the people who live in Pakistan, the poor people, the people who don't have any say, you think they don't want help to help the West?
O'REILLY: A lot of them don't. The madrasa -- do you know what a madrasa is?
GOLDBERG: No, I don't.
O'REILLY: OK. Madrasa is a school that teaches Islamic jihad and there are madrasas all over the Muslim world. They teach 4 and 5-year-old kids to hate people.
GOLDBERG: Bill, that may be true --
O'REILLY: It is true.
GOLDBERG: It may be true. I can't prove it. You've clearly been --
O'REILLY: I can.
GOLDBERG: You've clearly been to them and I will take your word for it. But that does not change the fact that when you paint all Muslims with one brush, it's bad.
So, this woman gets to discuss serious matters about religion and terrorism on national television, but she's never heard of a madrasa. But that's just the beginning:
O'REILLY: I'm not painting all Muslims with one brush.
GOLDBERG: But when you say Muslims killed us, when you don't specify. It's like saying whenever I see black men coming down the street, I'm scared. That's the same --
O'REILLY: Do you have a problem in history when you were taught about World War II that Japanese attacked us? Do you have a problem with that?
GOLDBERG: I have a problem with that.
O'REILLY: Do you?
GOLDBERG: Yes.
O'REILLY: But they attacked us?
GOLDBERG: The Japanese --
O'REILLY: Attacked us.
GOLDBERG: -- army attacked us.
O'REILLY: The air force did.
GOLDBERG: Sorry, the air force did. You understand my point?
Understand your point? The Japanese air force attacked us on December 7, 1941, NOT the Japanese?
Goldberg apparently has "a problem" saying it was the Japanese because all of that nation's people weren't on the planes that morning!
But there's still more:
O'REILLY: No, I don't, because I think you are cutting the hair so thin. We have a Muslim problem in the world in the sense that 90 percent of the terrorism.
GOLDBERG: Bill, we're going to disagree.
O'REILLY: Come from that area.
GOLDBERG: You know what? What do you mean 90 percent of the terrorists --
O'REILLY: Yes?
GOLDBERG: -- are from everywhere. They are white.
O'REILLY: No, predominantly they are Muslims.
GOLDBERG: Right now.
O'REILLY: Right. That's what we are talking about.
GOLDBERG: Right now, everybody can say the Muslims are the terrorists. Two years ago, it was the white people that were the terrorists.
O'REILLY: What white people?
GOLDBERG: Oh, wasn't it white people that blew up Oklahoma City?
O'REILLY: Yes, two of them. Two of them.
GOLDBERG: What about all the folks
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: It's like saying crime is white is black.
GOLDBERG: Bill, we disagree.
O'REILLY: All right. We disagree.
GOLDBERG: We disagree on this.
O'REILLY: But I just want to be clear.
GOLDBERG: And it's OK.
O'REILLY: We have to have these discussions.
GOLDBERG: We must have these discussions.
O'REILLY: Right. But I just want to be clear and I'll give you the last word on this and then we'll get to your book.
GOLDBERG: OK.
O'REILLY: I believe there is a Muslim problem in the world.
GOLDBERG: OK.
O'REILLY: And that's what I was trying to get across to you guys on "The View."
GOLDBERG: Right.
O'REILLY: That 70 percent of Americans believe the way I do. They thought it was inappropriate to make a Muslim community center that close to Ground Zero. That was my point.
GOLDBERG: I understood your point. What did I not understand and I will just reiterate it again because --
O'REILLY: I just left out the word terrorist.
GOLDBERG: Yes. Because in this day and age when kids are getting their butts kicked because they are Muslim, OK?
O'REILLY: Not so much.
GOLDBERG: Bill, are you kidding me?
O'REILLY: New study today, Jews in America are far more likely to be persecuted than Muslims, just came out today.
GOLDBERG: You know what? I'm sure that someone believes that, but I believe that in neighborhoods where they don't want Muslims, they beat up kids.
She's sure someone believes that? Well, I don't know what new report O'Reilly was talking about, but as NewsBusters reported in August, according to the FBI, Jews in 2008 were victims of hate crimes ten times as much as Muslims.
Alas, such facts are unimportant to Goldberg, for she believes anything she wants regardless of all the inconvenient truths out there.
Of course, that is her right. After all, ignorance is bliss.
But that she has a national platform like ABC's "The View," with over 3.5 million viewers on a daily basis, to spread this ignorance is deeply disturbing.
