What I’ve been able to catch of the incident makes for some perverse entertainment. Seems to me Bill O’ just can’t stand Franken personally, or else had trouble dealing with someone at the opposite end who is just as convinced of being right, just as unconcerned about looking good from all sides, and just as eager to turn his schtick on him, under conditions he does not control – someone also who probably, in his eyes, should not be in his same league, coming as Franken does from the entertainment side of infotainment [SNL]. (Also, your usual stereotypical “Media Liberal” tends to abhor becoming involved in direct confrontation) Ironically, O’Reilly himself has expressed on an interview that he enjoys interviews with subjects that he knows despise him.
Of course, my take on BOTH O’Reilly and Franken is that as time has progressed they have each become ever more full of himself and ever more (self-)righteous (an ailment that tends to affect many of us)… just that O’Reilly has done so ten times faster than Franken, in front of a larger audience, and all the while claiming it’s No-Spin “fair and balanced” journalism. Yeah right.
Here’s part of O’Reilly’s response from his show, courtesy of Tom Tomorrow’s blog (www.thismodernworld.com):
Two points:
1.) Why was this “a forum in which (Bill) was at a decided disadvantage”? Because he doesn’t control the microphones on this one? Because other people are allowed to complete thoughts?
2.) Is anyone else thoroughly creeped out by his rather elaborate fantasies about shooting Franken? I mean, we’ve all had our murderous rampage fantasies, but most few of us have the chutpah to enthusiastically describe them on national television.
He could have refuted Franken’s assertions, but instead he talked about how cool it would be to shoot him. What a waste of air time.
Just FTR, that quote is from his radio show. I caught the first part of his Fox TV show and he basically said “Al Franken is a jerk, not worth responding to, and he went over time, but he’s really not worth responding to, and yes he pissed me off, but he’s really not worth responding to, and that’s all I’m going go say because he’s really not worth responding to.”
He sure was animated over a guy who wasn’t worth responding to.
The bizarre thing is, on “SNL,” Al Franken was often very funny. In person, the guy has absolutely NO sense of humor. None.
I don’t know if he’s just a bitter, angry person who’s capable of playing funny roles, or if he’s so terrified of not being taken seriously that he avoids showing the slightest sign of humor. Either way, when he talks politics, he is utterly charmless. It isn’t easy to make Bill O’Reilly look like a relatively fun guy… but Al franken managed it!
Ordinarily I might agree with you but Bill O’Reilly is a guy who has made a career precisely out of making uncalled for attacks on his guests, screaming at them, calling them “liars,” impugning their motives, etc. O’reilly loves to try to catch his guests in verbal contradictions or mistatements which he can blow up to villify and discredit them.
Franken caught O’Reilly in a “lie.” Maybe it was a minor lie. O’Reilly was trying to puff up his credentials (incidentally, Those Pulk awards were won after O’Reilly had left that show). Maybe it was even just a slip of the tongue, but that’s not a benefit of the doubt that O’Relly has ever been willing to give anyone else.
He got a taste of his own medicine. The best he could respond with was name-calling and murder fantasies. It’s ridiculous for him to complain about publiccriticism, even partisan public criticism, because that’s all O’Reilly does. That’s his schtick. He’s a demagogue. If he can’t take it then he shouldn’t dish it out.
While I agree that O’Reilly could have handled things better – a brief statement on his show that Inside Edition had won Polk awards, not Peabodies, coupled with a short apology and issued promptly after the error was made known would have been ideal – Franken’s flogging of this thing is stupid, particularly the point about when the award was won. O’Reilly pointed to the award as evidence that the show was a quality program. It thus shouldn’t matter that the award came after O’Reilly’s tenure there ended, since the basic format and content of the show had not changed. Unless you’re going to argue that Inside Edition went from crap to quality upon O’Reilly’s departure, the point is silly.
Anyway, I just listened to the MP3 linked above. Franken comes off as a grade-A asshole. O’Reilly comes off as a cranky doofus. Pat Schroeder echoes the old SNL imitations of her. And Molly Ivins comes off as the most sane and rational person in the room.
I never thought I’d be writing that last sentence, BTW.
congrats on your first step away from the dark side. Really the food’s much better in the “liberal but not a fucking lunatic” section.
and I must step in and comment on the Stuart Smally book that Franken did. Absolutely one of the funniest I’ve read, but you have to have some smattering of knowledge in 12 step programs, and be able to see them skewered and find it funny. so the audience may be limited.
Not really – it’s a pretty low bar to be more sane and rational than the rest of the folks on that panel. I’d hope that on a panel containing Michael Moore, James Carville, Sean Hannity and Bill Kristol, you’d say Kristol was the most sane and rational person in the room.**
And credit where credit is due, that Smalley sketch with Michael Jordan was one of the best things SNL’s ever done.
“I don’t have to dribble the ball fast or throw the ball through the hoop.” Classic stuff.
I see a lot of people who believe O’Reilly is a pompous ass, and a few who feel the same about Franken. Who here believes that the “No Spin Zone” really is fair and unbalanced?
Really, I’d like to know who these people are who believe there’s no bias or agenda at work there.
Here is the streaming video of the whole panel discussion on C-span broadband.
I forgot where, but in a discussion on the program on another site, the replay time/date mentioned was different from what was posted earlier by survivorology.com. The replay on C-SPAN2 was supposedly scheduled for Sunday June 8th at 5:30 p.m. ET/2:30 p.m. PT; not sure if this or the Friday time is the correct one.
I wonder if there will now be a FOX special titled, “When Liberals Attack”?
