Bill O'Reilly flunks middle-school math while defending Fox's sleazy hatchet job on the Netherlands



[Video Link] After Fox aired a video calling the Dutch "naive," and the country "out of control," "a cesspool of corruption and crime," "a mess," and "anarchy," a man from the Netherlands named Max Wezendonk made a video response, backing up his counterargument with facts about the Netherlands' low rates of drug use and murder compared to the USA.

Sociological Images says:

By far, the best part occurs at 2:40. Gretchen Carlson mentions that 40% of Americans in the U.S. report having ingested marijuana, compared to 22% of the Dutch. O'Reilly responds with shocking statistical illiteracy (or a willingness to assume the illiteracy of his viewers). Confusing percentages with whole numbers, he says: "The way they do the statistics in the Netherlands is different, plus its a much smaller country, it's a much smaller base to do the stats on."

O'Reilly could be telling the truth, at least about his first claim: "The way they do the statistics in the Netherlands is different." That's correct, if he means "different from the way Fox does statistics."

Fox News vs. the Netherlands

Related: Joan Rivers takes a bong hit.