Retaliating against Bill O’Reilly for criticizing their hate speech and anti-Americanism, far left group MoveOn.org and hate site Daily Kos are joining forces in a thuggish effort to harass and pressure advertisers into dropping Fox News.

NEW YORK - Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network.

MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America’s Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos.

The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot Inc. to stop advertising there.

At least 5,000 people nationwide have signed up to compile logs on who is running commercials on Fox, Gilliam said. The groups want to first concentrate on businesses running local ads, as opposed to national commercials.

“It’s a lot more effective for Sam’s Diner to get calls from 10 people in his town than going to the consumer complaint department of some pharmaceutical company,” Gilliam said.

Markos “Screw Them” Moulitsas is gloating that they’ve already succeeded in intimidating one advertiser: Daily Kos: Lowe’s pulls advertising from O’Reilly show.

UPDATE at 7/28/07 10:10:02 am:

Interesting. Markos “Screw Them” Moulitsas is taking credit for Lowe’s dropping the O’Reilly show, but apparently this is very old news and has nothing to do with the Kos thugs. From February 2, 2007: Lowe’s: Let’s Boycott O’Reilly Together.

Home-improvement chain Lowe’s has pulled its advertising from The O’Reilly Factor following comments host Bill O’Reilly made about Shawn Hornbeck, the 15-year-old Missouri boy who recently returned to his parents after four years in captivity.

(Hat tip: carefulnow.)