Catherine Crier was a guest on Countdown last night and Keith asked her about O'Reilly's treatment of Shawn Hornbeck ( as have I.)---and if t
February 6, 2007

catherinecrier.jpgko-shawn-bill.jpg Catherine Crier was a guest on Countdown last night and Keith asked her about O'Reilly's treatment of Shawn Hornbeck ( as have I.)---and if the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children should still use him as a speaker. Her first response says it all:

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Crier: "...malicious ignorance is another and I'm afraid if I was was the charter---I'd say thank you very much, but no thanks.

Olbermann: It does not take a great leap of common sense to realize that when a teenaged boy has been abducted and held captive for four years, nothing about that experience could have been anything close to fun.

And to suggest that the victim voluntarily participated in his own detention -- a child, under the influence of a predatory adult -- is unforgivable.

But in our number three story on the Countdown: refusing to call it that, has put a local chapter of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, in an untenable situation.

It has scheduled the man who blamed the abducted Missouri teen Shawn Hornbeck for the nightmare that envelopped his young life... to be the keynote speaker at the fundraiser for missing and exploited children, on the 9th of next month.

That speaker, would be Bill O'Reilly. (transcript below the fold)

Michael Devlin -- a Missouri pizzeria manager -- already charged with abducting Shawn Hornbeck... now charged with 69 additional counts of forcible sodomy.

Shawn Hornbeck was abducted in 2002, at age eleven.

Prosecutors say Mr. Devlin raped the boy repeatedly for the first month of his captivity. And at least once a month thereafter. Thirteen-year old Ben Ownby was abducted January 8th of this year... also allegedly sodomized.

Police found both boys at Devlin's apartment on January 12th. Mr. O'Reilly made his comments about Shawn Hornbeck, on January 15th. O'Reilly: The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn`t have to go to school. He could run around do what he wanted.

SUSTEREN: Some kids like school.

O`REILLY: I don`t believe this kid today. I think when it all comes

down, what`s going to happen is there was an element here that this kid

liked about his circumstance.

The invitation by the local chapter of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children came long before those remarks...

Or his comments last night that "we all knew this was coming, it's terrible to hear it, these poor boys subjected to this monster"...

But the local chapter stands by its decision to have Mr. O'Reilly deliver the keynote address at a March 9th **fund-raising** gala at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Florida.

Joining me now, attorney and Court TV anchor, Catherine Crier.

Catherine, good evening.

Let me take some of the heat out of this. For the purposes of the discussion, it's John Doe, and he's not a commentator he's a former athlete. If he repeatedly blames the victim in the highest-profile child molestation case of the year, should he be speaking at a 500-dollar-a-ticket fundraiser for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?

(2) O'Reilly also questioned -- in that same January 15th broadcast -- why Shawn Hornbeck didn't escape when he could have (saying he doesn't buy the whole Stockholm Syndrome thing). **Now** authorities say that Mr. Devlin used a gun to threaten Hornbeck when he was abducted. But you don't need to have known that either, do you, to comprehend the concept of a kidnapper's power and control over his abductee, especially one who is eleven years old?

(3) Of course with the man we're talking about, this never stops. He asked a guest last night...

"What do you expect from the defense attorneys here? Because the defense attorneys, the only way, the only way they could possibly introduce any kind of reasonable doubt in this case would be to say the boys went along willingly."

Apart from the peek into his own soul provided by that quote -- legally, is that even true? You're talking boys of 11, 12, 13 -- does the word "willingly" even exist?

(4) So what does this chapter of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children do, with a speaker scheduled for their big fund-raiser, a month from Friday -- who has dismissed Stockholm Syndrome outright, who has blamed the victim, who believes defense attorneys for child molesters can create reasonable doubt by saying "the boys went along willingly"?

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