O’Reilly came right out of the gate with a bunch of French jokes about Colbert. That’s how they got onto the whole France thing in the first place.
I don’t know how to cite the Molson thing. I saw it myself. It was a segement a couple of years ago. He seriously thought it was outrageous that a Canadian would say that Canada was better than America. I can’t find anything with Google and I don’t know if there’s an archive of past episodes. Hopefully, somebody else will remember it and back me up.
The real reason that O’Reilly has a problem with Canada is because they won’t air the Fox News Channel.
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MAybe it was all in fun. I still tune in the factor every now and then. It seems to me that Bill is even more of a white house stooge than he ever was. Some stupid white house talking point gets thrown in for no good reason as if it’s part of his contractual obligation. Occasionally he will make a good point. His crusade to get stiffer sentances for child molesters is legit.
You know, if you actually watched his show on a regular basis, you would realize that he is anything but a “white house stooge.” Bill is very critical of the Bush administration on several issues, especially immigration.
Bill has a massive ego, which makes him an easy target, but it also makes him entertaining to watch. He will criticize both Republicans and Democrats, both liberals and conservatives. He is more conservative than liberal for sure (he calls himself a “Traditionalist”), but does not like the idea that one should just “toe the party line” and accept whatever the Democrat/Republican party tells you to think.
I should say that this is in fact false as far as I know, since I live in Ottawa and get Fox News Channel on my digital cable subscription. I watch it every now and then for a laugh, but can generally only take a few minutes of it (BBC for me baby, coupled with CTV Newsnet and Global for factoids and CBC for Canada-specific stuff). They do have some hot news women though.
Ok, that’s something that must have changed recently. BO used to bitch about it reguarly but I haven’t watched much Fox in the last year or so (wife’s orders. I used to scream obscenities at the TV. My blood pressure is much better now).
It was approved for digital broadcast last November. But before that he did get into a spat with a Globe and Mail columnist who suggested Fox be allowed to broadcast in Canada for laffs, and he was shot down by another Globe and Mail columnist on his show when he threatened to invoke The Power Of The Factor and boycott trade with Canada. Maybe that’s what sticking in his craw.
RE: Canada and Fox News. You guys are correct. For a long time, Canada would not broadcast Fox News. O’Reilly wasn’t happy about this and complained about it often. He states on his show that the Canadian media is very anti-US and reports on it often. I tend to agree with him. He points to a poll about an alarming percentage of Canadians agreeing that America is “evil”, and blames the media for this. I’ll try and dig up a cite.
Recently Canada started airing Fox News, I remember O’Reilly welcoming canadian viewers. It’s my understanding that the shows doing well up north, which isn’t surprising. The market up there propably has conservatives who are thirsty for a non-liberal viewpoint just like the US had prior to talk radio and Fox news.
Canadian Conservatives weren’t thirsting for a Conservative viewpoint. Mainstream newspapers aren’t all that liberal, and if they wanted the sort of nonsense O’Reilly and Hannity and their ilk put forth, there’s always the Sun newspaper chain.
They even published Ann Coulter for a while, bless 'em.
I thought that JS came away with his dignity intact and BO’R did not. Bill came across as a boor and a whiner. I didn’t think his call up to the upper seats funny at all–I found it pathetic.
I thought JS handled him well–and got in a few digs that were not that obvious. I loved the injury one.
And the “why so grumpy?” bit–wonderful and biting. Bill didn’t get it at all.
Surprisingly, I actually quite enjoyed Bill O’Reilly’s performance on last night’s Daily Show. I did get irked at all the trite and hackneyed French bashing, and I thought he wasn’t nearly as good off-the-cuff as Stewart (minus his hilarious “don’t make me come up there” line), but the two played pretty well off each other. Stewart was respectful, O’Reilly was ascerbic. I thought it was all in good-natured fun.
I like the way O’Reilly tries to blame the Evil Canadian media for Canadians hating America rather than any of the many things we’ve done to totally earn that hatred. The Canadian media didn’t invent the invasion of Iraq. O’Reilly’s tirade is still insulting to Canadians because it implies that they’re all idiots who are being led by their “socialist” media and are incapable of forming reasoned opinions of their own or from seeking information outside the Canadian media.
It sure doesn’t seem to me like Sam Stone has been brainwashed by the liberal Canadian media. The same can be said of several other Canadian posters on this board.
I also notice that BO didn’t actually give any examples of the Canadian media making any false representations of the US. It looks to me like he was just trying make excuses for the fact that the Canadian viewing public was not exactly clamouring for more right wing American punditry on their televisions.
I know this isn’t GD, but how bad really IS America bashing in the media in Canada? Anyone have a reasonably unbiased analysis? I know when I was in Canaday in the mid to late 90’s it wasn’t all that bad. Not that I remember anyway.
This is not the forum to discuss this, but he is wrong. He is wrong in his reading of history, and he is wrong about the media having that much influence on thev people (or “the folks,” as he calls them in his newspaper column. He has been informed that Long Island is in New York, and not Arkansas, right?) I was a teenager during the Reagan Administration, when there was no Fox News, when the media was all “liberal,” when Rush Limbaugh was calling AA baseball. Plenty, even the vast majority of teenagers thought Reagan was great.
During his tiff with The Globe & Mail, he referred to it as a “far left newspaper.”
(To get an idea of how silly this is, I used to subscribe to take the Globe into work with me, so I’d have something to read instead of the semi-literate local papers that routinely reserved the front page for sports news. My co-workers used to rib me about this with comments like, “So, Larry- how are your stocks doing?” The “Careers” section of that paper is mainly full of postings for C.E.O.s and C.F.O.s. “Far left.” Heh.)
Um, what? Bill O’Reilly cares what a bunch of 14 to 18 year-olds think about his country? No offence to anyone in that age group here, but honestly, who gives a fuck what any teenager thinks? Seriously, this is Bill’s rant? It’s both retarded and factually incorrect. To whit:
This is outright wrong. I watch Canadian news, and can tell you that aside from a few small instances of idiot backbenchers making thoughtless comments, little gets reported on the US from an editorial standpoint that doesn’t reflect what is being said in the American press as well. Canadian news carries stories of what has happened in the world, just like any other news, and there’s no “spin” on US news that makes them look bad (beyond what may naturally make the US look bad anyway, like releasing video of soldiers being coached for an “unscripted” press event). This is Bill promoting an agenda, not being factual
First off, Moore isn’t Canadian, so what he says doesn’t reflect on us. Second off, is he really saying the US is bad, or is he saying he thinks things the government has done is bad? Or can Bill not separate the two?
A debatable point and certainly not a definite fact. Many other factors contributed to the fall of communism, including the work of previous presidents, as well as other world leaders (how about that Pope John Paul II guy?)
No one is denying this.
I can’t recall anyone in the Canadian press ever arguing those points either. However, Bill seems to ignore that many, many other nations participated in the battles in Korea and the former Yugoslavia (Canada included. Really. I mean it, we were actually there too Bill).
And Canada is currently keeping the peace in Kabul with the largest part of the Nato force in place there, and did our part in the ousting of the Taliban too, and served with distinction. As for Iraq, what have you replaced Saddam with, Bill? Seriously, how many civilians have to blow up before you get the idea that maybe this wasn’t the smartest fight to pick?
The dig at France is immature and lacking in class, but the truth is the US does send a lot of money, except that the current administration withholds a lot of it and forces donations to be given only to groups that promote abstinence, or who don’t involve needle exchanges, or who are religious in nature. These things just don’t work and so a lot of that pledged money has never been given out in reality while people keep dying and the US blocks the sale of cheap generic drugs that could save lives.
Let’s not beat around the bush here. The actions of the US in Central America and the Caribbean have been self-serving at best. The ostensible goal of defeating left-wing totalitarian regimes is as much about preserving American investment as about freeing people, and has often left worse regimes in place. And as for Haiti, Canada’s there too, and believe it or not so are those evil French!
I’d say that overall the US is better than it is bad and has done a lot of good in the world since it’s birth, and freed many. But let’s follow Bryan Ekers’s point and just ask the Dutch about their freedom. Or Italians during WWII. Or look up Vimy Ridge. Who entered both world wars first, Canada or the US? Not casting judgement on the US, just saying that we did our part too. France basically held Central Europe together after the armistice was signed at the end of the Great War. France has intervened in the Côte d’Ivoire to prevent the breakdown of peace, and France has been active in Nato, in Afganistan, in Serbia and the Balkans. France bore the brunt of the worst fighting in WWI and took it hard in WWII too. So maybe the US has been able to do a lot, but that doesn’t detract from the work of other nations, Canada and France included.
This last is just stupid. I’m not a big fan of Moore, but I can understand his reluctance to appear on O’Reilly’s show, because it’s a waste of time. The man just shouts down anyone who tries to speak. Further, yes the US has been a champion of freedom, but let’s not march in lockstep with rose-coloured glasses on, the US has screwed up too. So has France, and just about every nation. But we have been there when we’ve been needed for a good cause, and so has France. Our press outright does not bash Americans and while I was never a great fan of Chretien, and he definitely said some stupid things, I can honestly say that he was simply a fighter trying to maintain his nation’s independence of policy. He wouldn’t just walk in step with the president because he was a patriot. The comment about friendship is truly ignorant. Americans may not think much about Canada, and the Anne Coulter’s of the world may think we could disappear without being noticed and that Americans don’t need us, but take 20% of your economy away and see what happens. We are definitely the most important friends you have.
And again, 14 to 18 year olds, seriously, who cares?
Don’t forget the follow-on question: “Has America been doing stuff since the '90s to earn the bad reputation it’s getting among Canadians?”
I don’t watch The Daily Show myself, but from what I’m hearing, it sounds like Bill was the same as he’s always been on his TV and radio shows. Whether it’s all just an act or if he really is a mouth-foaming loonie is left for the viewer to decide.