An easy pit. O'Reilly. He has lost it, you better be scared

The BBQ Pit
41

Well, this is extremely annoying. And sometimes, it is a bit more difficult than simply ‘downloading and installing’ some software, especially if you’ve missed the last few Tributes to the OS Gods and aren’t running the bleeding-edge latest patch of the latest revision of the latest variant of the latest version of the latest OS. And, at base, it’s stupid: There’s no reason to distribute PDFs that require (or say they require) a specific version of any PDF-readable format. PDF has been stable and usable for over a decade now. What’s wrong with using a version that will work with 99.999% of all PDF readers out there?

I’m not defending Hewitt’s reaction to Zogby’s unprofessional behavior, but the situation is hardly one-sided.

42

I believe O’Reilly finally realized this was a prank. At least I think it’s a prank, having callers mention Keith Olberman, based on this:

Could it be that? Callers determined to mention Olberman? I don’t watch O’Reilly with regularity, so I wouldn’t know.

43

Heh. Your anecdotes reminds me of this anecdote – looks like the latest Zogby poll has the wingnuts all a-twitter…

44

There may have been a very good reason; perhaps a feature was added in that version that was very useful for displaying the particular data they wanted to distribute. Or maybe there was a bug in some feature of their PDF creation software that they needed to use, which forced them to upgrade to the latest version.

Regardless of how they got to the situation where their docs needed the latest version, it’s no great burdon installing the latest Adobe Reader for the vast majority of users. If my 63 year old mother on dial-up can do it, I’m sure Hewitt could have found somebody to help him or his staffers with this very basic task of downloading and running an install program.

45

You can see [name removed due to legal threats]'s response here.

I like the part at the end where he makes up an O’Reilly-esque response. Especially the “I told you I’d shoot! But you didn’t believe me! WHY DIDN’T YOU BELIEVE ME!” part.

46

Meh. Releasing the document in the latest version of Adobe may be somewhat unwise (I don’t know, personally I don’t have any problem with it). But in anycase, Hewitt was accusing Zogby of withholding the demographics to the poll inorder to hide some flaw with the data, not for bad office management skills. I think we can agree that Zogby didn’t release the demographics in the latest version in some insidious plot to keep the data hidden from the public.

47

Perhaps Zogby and his organization actually clicks on the “OK” button when Adobe Acrobat Reader prompts them with the “Check for updates?” dialoug box. In my experience, this happens every damned time I open any .pdf document.

48

transcript of the call.:

49

Well, John, done giving benefit of the doubt to someone who has never given anyone else any?

-Joe

50

Meh. That post (which is just another blog, btw) still doesn’t produce the missing audio. And the guy’s description of what he said doesn’t match the auido we have of what he actually said.

I’ll repeat: We still don’t know what got cut off. And while O’Reilly isn’t the most credible person in the world, neither is some partisan blogger who admits to making crank phone calls in order to irritate people.

51

That’s all there is out there. make of it what you will.

52

[quote]

Soon after a few callers received phone messages from the head of security at FOX – threatening them:

"I got the call on the phone I used to call him from the head of Fox News security. He said that harassing phone calls were coming from my phone. I asked him how many? He did not know. I asked him what was said that was harassing? He said that he did not know but that it did not have to be what was said, but how many calls were being made. He tried to make like I made 20 phone calls instead of one, and that I cursed O’Reilly out. All I said was that I was grateful to O’Reilly for turning me on to Olbermann.

Then he hung up."He’s an idiot for not recording his side of the conversation, and even more of an idiot for not recording this.

53

Because, after all, everyone knows Bill O’Reilly is an even-tempered person who’d never lie, exaggerate, shout down, or simply misrepresent anyone to score his own points…

</sarcasm>

54

(Riinngg, Riinng, Riin-)

–Good evening and thanks for calling The O’Reilly Factor. What would you like to discuss?

–I’d like to take on Mr. O’Reilly’s challenge to start addressing what’s right about America. Specifically, sports announcers, American whiskey, fish and game, pretty girls and recycling fur coats.

–Great. Hold for Mr. O’Reilly.

(Long pause)

–Hi, welcome to the no-spin zone!

–Mr. O’Reilly?

–Yes, what have you got to say?

–Well I just called up to talk about some of my favorite things, and they’re all American.

–Fine. Go ahead.

–Well first of all, there’s ESPN. I love that little fat guy who’s been there forever, Chris is his name, I think? Anyway, I just can’t get enough of OL’ BERMAN and I don’t care who knows it!

–Uh, what was –

–Oh, and my favorite drink while I’m listening to OL’ BERMAN is to sip at a glass of aged Wild Turkey, ‘cause OLD BOURBON is just the best thing ever next to OL’ BERMAN, don’t you agree?

–Wait a minute, are you –

–‘Course I’m not a complete couch potato, at least not when OL’ BERMAN and OLD BOURBON aren’t around. I like to go ice fishing. Last week, though, I put my boot though a thin spot near shore, and let me tell you, that water was COLD! BRR, MAN!

–Okay, just a –

–And nobody beats American girls. I used to cut quite a swath in my day, and thank God there’s still a few out there who appreciate an OLDER MAN, that’s all I have to say. A young girl out there who might like a pre-owned fur wrap, like a fine OLD ERMINE.

–All right, I’ve heard about –

–I just needed to get that off my chest, Mr. O’Reilly. Thanks for having the courage to let me discuss what’s* right * with America for a change.

(Click)

55

The only logical presumption here is that there is no missing audio and nothing got cut off. If you want to take this position, it’s up to you to present evidence that there was anything cut off.

56

I don’t think John does that anymore. He just tries to argue nuance till people throw their hands up in the air and give up.

-Joe

57

Are you drawing that “presumption” from the transcript or from the actual audio (the OP has a link)? In the audio it sure sounds like he was cut off mid-sentence to me. Unless, that is, the caller (Mike) only speaks in half-sentences. Knowing that there is a 5-7 second delay on radio broadcast, if that’s all the caller said and O’Reilly didn’t want to air the name of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned, then why even air anything that Mike said?

58

Actually, I’ll have to take that back. Reading Mike’s blog and listening to the Olberman show’s piece on that point, it seems that there was some bit of unaired conversation. However, I see absolutely no reason to believe that any of it was obscene or threatening as O’Reilly implied. Mike’s given his side in pretty good detail. His intent (to annoy O’Reilly with mentions Olberman) and his methods are pretty well known. The burden of the proof there lies on O’Reilly if he wants to give anyone a reason to think that Mike did something illegal.

59

I agree. Especially since it would be a trivial thing for him to do, even if he has to bleep out any offensive words. I think even a bleeped out version would allow us to make a pretty good determination of whether any profanity was used or if any non-obscene but threatening remarks were made (if the latter, no bleeping would be necessary).

60

Lord Voldemnort? Yeah, tired joke but it’s all I’ve got.