Bill O'Reilly needs to go fuck himself already

The BBQ Pit
41

Did you read what I actually wrote? I said that sometimes he actually lets people get a word in. Does that mean I think he is totally impartial, totally cool-headed and even-handed? No! It means that sometimes, yeah, sometimes the other guest is allowed to present their point of view in such a way that people are convinced of the validity of their point. And I sometimes am one of those people.

Yeah, he can interrupt them, but sometimes, he actually lets them get a word in. I’ve seen it.

Maybe it’s not ever going to be a completely “objective debate” (because, no matter how “objective” a debate seems to some, they’re will always be someone who takes “issue” with it).

Yes, and no. He is a powerful presence, it’s HIS show, but like I said before, I’ve sided with the opposing side of view more than once. And, I’ve seen him change his mind after talking to a guest. So, to repeat myself, sometimes, he does allow them to get a word in.

Not all the time, certainly not. But sometimes, I’ve seen it. Or at least some element of it.

“People”? ME! I say that my viewpoint has been changed! I’m right here, telling you!

And I have a hard time believing that I’m the only person who has had their mind changed by one of his dissenting guests. Neither of us can really prove how many people have found the opposing opinion compelling, can we? You doubt it happens much, but since I’ve had my mind changed, I tend to believe it’s not all that uncommon.

42

I don’t usually go back and correct my typos and grammar, but this REALLY bugs me: It should be: “because, no matter how “objective” a debate seems to some, there will always be someone who takes “issue” with it.”

I don’t know what made me spell it the other way. I’m a spelling dummy, but not usually that bad!

43

Here ya go: www.fair.org/extra/0108/oreilly.html

About 3/4’s of the way down the page is this bit: *O’Reilly makes much of his “working class” upbringing in Levittown, Long Island. His book’s dust jacket begins: “Bill O’Reilly rose from humble beginnings to becom a nationally known broadcast journalist,” and O’Reilly says his father, who retired in 1978, * never earned more then $35,000 a year in his life."

But O’Reilly’s mother told a reporter her son actually grew up in Westbury, Long Island, "a middle-class suburb a few miles from where he attended a private school (Washington Post, 12/13/2000). His father’s $35,000 income in 1978 is equivilent to over $90,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Of course, O’Reilly would bleat and screech about how unfair it is to bring the whole inflation adjustment issue in because it complicates things. hell, I’m a history manager and I understand it.

44

Wsler: Interesting info, and yes, it does look like some interesting questions are raised about his background, and yeah, maybe he did gild the lily a bit on his past. But, once again, maybe the facts that we now see dredged up all these years after the fact are not telling all of the story.

For instance, my dad went to private school as well when he was a kid. But his family was POOR. The only reason he got to go to private school (and it was a girls private school, to add to his mortification) was because his dad (my grandfather) was the gardener on a rich Hollywood estate, and the owner of the estate was generous enough to pay for all the servants’ kids education. But, oooooh—my dad went to private school, right, so his family must have been rich! (I’m not trying to say that O’Reilly had a similar situation or course, but still—some times there’s more to a story than what we see on the surface.)

And back to the fair.org cite—I do not consider fair.org to be an impartial source in any way. I like the guy who runs it (Jeff Cohen) but there is NO WAY this guy is anything resembling “impartial”. Also, if you remember, I mentioned before that O’Reily said that his dad started making better money when O’Reilly was grown and out of the house. And in 1978 O’Reilly was what? 26 or 28 years old? (I’m not sure of his age, but he most assuredly was in his 20s.) So what did it matter how much money the dad made when O’Reilly was supporting himself and no longer dependant on his parents? And even though we now know that $35,000 would equal a lot more today, O’Reilly was technically accurate about the amount, wasn’t he?

The thing I’d like to know is, how much money did the dad make when O’Reilly was 12? Or at age 16? That would be a more fair way to indicate if O’Reilly came from humble roots. And as far as the private school thing goes, it does seem to hint that the parents were well off, but once again, we don’t know what the family may have had to give up to afford that. Maybe they didn’t give up anything of substance, maybe they could have afforded the school easily. Or, maybe they had to scrimp and save (not unlike how my parents scrimped and saved to afford that concert grand piano, and the trips to Europe).

Anyone dredging up my past might never see past the piano or Europe, and would never believe that we were not rich when I was growing up. But we were still poor in my mind. Even though we were living in Glendale, California (a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles) we were poor! Would you call me a “liar” for claiming that?

45

http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3839/savage3839.html

“I Want To Go To A Gay Bathhouse!”

Yep.

46

I still love the time O’Reily was apparently so frustrated that he didn’t completely trounce someone that he actually had voiceovers edited in after the fact so that he could get in even MORE blather. It was like having two O’Reilys vs the poor sap he had on, only the poor sap didn’t even get to hear or rebut the accusations the other O’Reily was making.

The problem with the “no spin” bit is that he seems to have no idea that “spin” is all about the use of certain sorts of inflamatory, misleading, and falacious arguments. He uses such “spin” tactics constantly. But his idea of “spin” is something totally different: it seems to be something about not holding certain views with which he disagrees.

He also strikes me as the sort of person who thinks just because he can get an uninformed and poorly prepared person on the show and tear them to bits, that that actually proves something. Debate is not a forum for proving anything. It’s about roughhousing, learning about what ideas are out there and playing around with then in real-time. But a skillful debater can easily make someone look like an idiot everytime, no matter who really has the stronger argument. He really seems to forget that, if he ever knew it.

it also drives me nuts how he culls together some random events from around the country that he doesn’t like, and presents them as some sort of dangerous movement or trend, which he then uses as the basis for a broader attack on groups of people supposedly associated with these events (without ever having to actually deal with anyone’s actual opinions about them, or positions on any issues).

47

Just to be clear, are you saying he had the footage edited to make it look like he said things during the “debate” that he didn’t actually say, in order to make himself look like… ahem, a master debator at the other guys expense?

I’ve always said that the biggest fans of The O’Reilly Factor are people who like to be told what to think by someone whose personality they can appreciate and identify with. And I italicized personality because that’s all the O’Reilly show has going for it. It’s sad when people mistake personality for intelligent news analysis.

48

OK, so I finally watched Factor last night.

First, let me say, I typically avoid any program on a news channel whose premise is the host blathering on about his opinions on current affairs. For me to watch it last night was a big deal.

I actually thought about Dio while I was watching it because he had a segment on the fire in Baltimore that claimed the lives of Angela Dawson and her five children.

That being said, what an arrogant jerk this man is! I know that Fox News is a conservative news channel (we report, you decide my ass) and being a (moderate) conservative, I didn’t think I’d find O’Reilly to be that bad. (By the way, I purposefully didn’t read this thread before watching the show.)

Observations[ul][li]He’s got some hard-on for Mazda now because they didn’t return his calls re: sponsoring the VH-1 prison concert show. I found this extremely comical. [/li][li]He thinks Johnnie Cochran is a ‘leader’ in the black community. I’ll argue that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton aren’t ‘leaders’ in the black community (I’ll even argue about the existence of a black community) but I can at least understand why someone might draw that conclusion. They may think they speak for some blacks, but they’re no more leaders of the black community than Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan are leaders of the white community. But Johnnie Cochran? Jesus Christ, give me a break. Just because a black man with some money expresses an opinion about blacks in America doesn’t mean he’s a) speaking for all or even most blacks and/or b) a black leader. I admit I didn’t see the segment to which he alluded (it was on an earlier broadcast), though.[/li]He’s smarmy. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I wouldn’t want to be in an elevator alone with this man.[/ul]He’s arrogant, a jerk and smarmy, yet, I was strangely compelled to watch his show and argue with him from my sofa. I won’t go out of my way to watch him, but if I’m awake and there’s nothing else on, I may give it a whirl again.

49

I liked the way he tried to sidestep his guests’ assertions about the city’s indifference to the problems in Angela Dawson’s neighborhood and urban blight in general. Instead he said “well that’s capitalism,” (whatever that means) and then attempted to blame “black leaders” for the fire.

50

I think what he was getting at was black leaders (he cited Cochran, by the way) often say there’s ‘over policiing’, as he called it, in poorer, urban neighborhoods. In his opinion, the problem is not enough policing. Bill actually advocated the use of billy clubs in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge way.

In his defense, though, the guest did try to blame corporate America. I’m not sure what that was all about.

51

I remember the 'billy-club" remarks. I wonder if he was really advocating police brutality.

You’re right in how you characterized his remarks about Cochran et al, but it is typical of him to always drag “black leaders” into any conversation remotely dealing with race, no matter how tangential.

Last night was actually pretty low on the arrogance and smarm scale for BO. There are nights when he literally starts screaming at people.

52

Juanita, I didn’t watch the show, but, a reference to corporate America in the context of policing in poor neighborhoods could be the theory that there is a prison-industrial complex that allows corporations to exploit prisoners (labor, I presume). I have no idea on its validity.

53

—Just to be clear, are you saying he had the footage edited to make it look like he said things during the “debate” that he didn’t actually say, in order to make himself look like… ahem, a master debator at the other guys expense?—

No: he had voiceovers of himself added in afterwards during and after the debate that gave him even MORE time to rag on the poor guy (who, admittedly, was not very prepared and wasn’t a great rhetoritician).

54

Yeah, there was a really good:p Bill O’Reilly screech/shriek/bleat/screamfest a few nights back. Bill was getting wound up about the Vh-1: Rock Behind Bars epsiode, and the guy he had on disagreed with Bill and said that while he didn’t agree with special, he thought that since America still has the 1st amendment, Vh-1 has the right to show it, and people have the right not to watch it.

I honestly thought O’Reilly was going to either:

A) reach across the table and punch the guy.

B) have a massive heart attack and die right there on the set.

Unfortunately, neither happened:p

Ah well. There’s always next week to look forward to.

55

See?
He’s entertaining!

56

Read his bio at this website plugging him as a speaker.

Bill O’Reilly
For more than five years on the Fox News Channel, The O’Reilly Factor has caused the powerful in America to duck for cover as the rigidly enforced “No Spin Zone” deals with the nation’s most important issues in a straightforward and provocative manner. (I can’t imagine typing that with a straight face)

O’Reilly’s career took a dramatic change in 1989 when he joined the nationally syndicated Inside Edition as senior correspondent and backup anchor behind David Frost. Mr. Frost was fired three weeks into Inside’s run and O’Reilly took over the anchor chair. (Always a class act, pointing out Frost was “fired.” More likely, refused to pander to the lowest common denominator)

For the next five years Inside Edition reigned as the highest rated “infotainment” program in America and became the prototype for the primetime network news magazines on the air today. (Infotainment?? Is that what they call the endless parade of **Amy Fisher, The Long Island Lolita ** stories?

Bill O’Reilly continues to live on Long Island where his best friends are guys with whom he attended first grade. (In other words, his aunts make his cousins take his calls)

57

I think the two should be treated differently. If we are a nation of laws, then it means something when a conviction is overturned - for whatever reason. Oliver North’s conviction was reversed on appeal.

Liddy’s sentence was commuted by President Carter, but he remains an honest-to-gosh convicted felon.

That said, I think O’Reilly is right more often than he’s wrong. However, the OP is on the money is this respect: one area in which O’Reilly is consistently wrong is his claim of a “no-spin zone.” He is clearly possessed of an agenda, and for him to deny it is dishonest.

  • Rick
58

I had a dream last night wherein I was a guest on O’Reilly’s show. I ended up killing him. I wonder what that says about my feelings toward him. :wink:

My father likes him though. Dad is a hard-line Republican. He is smart, polite, and thoroughly conservative. He reminds me a lot of december. As smart as he is, I am mystified as to why he likes that popmpous windbag O’Reilly so much.

59

I seems that certain people don’t understand what “news commentary” is. It’s not “news reporting”, it’s commentary, like the commentary you get at a football game (“looks like the Bruins’ weak offensive line is going to be no match for the #1 defense Trojans, Bob…”)

Commentary = Editorial

He’s an arrogant asshole-- that’s what makes his show so damn entertaining. It’s called the no-spin zone. You don’t like that? Fine, how about the anti-spin zone. The point is, he wants to call a spade a spade, not a “curved aluminum soil removal device with spade-istic tendencies who wasn’t shown enough love by his manufacturer and that’s why he engages in the self-defeating act of spearing and removing topsoil”

In other words: he’s taking the things politicians say, which are often technicality-laden excuses, and deciding what they mean, then telling us what it is.

It’s a COMMENTARY show

He’s a news COMMENTATOR

Therefore he gives COMMENTS about things

All news is biased, you’re just used to hearing the left wing’s version of the story because most news channels are so far left that middle looks extremely conservative to them. That’s why an obviously conservative network like FNC can claim “fair and balanced” Other news stations are further left of center than FNC is right of center. But to those poor misguided souls who all this time believed that CNN and their local news, almost exclusively run by liberals, was center, then indeed, Fox looks really right wing, because you’re seeing the difference between the networks, not between the network and center.

Bill O’Reilly is a COMMENTATOR… he gets to give his opinion/COMMENT… that’s what his show is ABOUT.

(Waaaay off topic, but Neil Cavuto’s cute)

60

Olver North should have been hanged for treason for subverting the constitution. He never served time but he was denied a gun permit by a judge who said he was a person of low character:

Judge Denies North Pistol-Permit Renewal

               New York Times, Sunday August 7, 1994

Moneta, Va., Aug. 6 - A Virginia judge has denied Oliver L. North, the state’s Republican nominee for the Senate, a permit to carry a concealed weapon “on the ground that the applicant is not of good
character.”

 The judge, James L. Berry of Clarke County Circuit Court, cited Mr. North's conviction for obstructing Congress during the investigation into the Iran-contra affair, which took place when Mr. North was on the staff of National Security Council in the Reagan

Administration. Mr. North, who lives in Berryville, in Clarke County, succeeded in having the conviction overturned on appeal.

 Judge Berry, who said he was a Democrat, wrote in an order that was mailed to Mr. North on Monday, "This courty is unable to ignore his convictions for crimes based on moral turpitude, even though his convictions were later overturned."

The judges who voted to overturn North’s Iran-Contra conviction were not exactly looking at the facts objectively. They were Sentelle and Silberman, 2 right wing Federalist Society judicial activists. Read about the miscarriage of justice here:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story10.html

Diogenes, do you have a cite for that info about the Iran connection to the Lebanon bombing? I believe it, just have never seen the connection made before.