Bill O’Reilly irretrievably loses it over White House slaves; Washington Post, 7/28/16

Erik Wemple, Washington Post; Bill O’Reilly irretrievably loses it over White House slaves:

"As the Erik Wemple Blog pointed out this morning, Jesse J. Holland, who wrote the book on slaves and the White House, noted that the slaves were housed in a barn and were provided with food. Yet there’s a gap between that historical fact and what O’Reilly alleged, which, again, is that they were “well fed” and resided in “decent lodgings.” Those aren’t really facts; they’re judgments. Though Holland researched this matter extensively, he found limitations. “Writing about slavery is difficult because there is so little that we know for a fact because so little was written about their lives during their lives.” If it weren’t for the records of payments to slave owners, says Holland, historians might still be arguing about whether slaves actually worked on the White House."