He’s not really conservative – he’s sort of all over the fucking place. Very little political consistency with my dad.
He adores O’Reilly, though, because he’s convinced O’Reilly sticks it to both sides, while other news sources are hopelessly biased. And frankly, there’s some truth to that, depending on the issue O’Reilly’s dealing with – he hates SUV’s, for instance. But dad’s utterly blinded to Saint Bill’s hypocrisy and stupidity. He doesn’t see that a guest that disagrees with the O’Reilly position will get shouted down regardless of viewpoint; somehow, because sometimes it’s someone on the right and sometimes someone on the left who’s taking a position contra to Saint Bill, it means he’s treating everyone fairly.
True story: someone lent dad a copy of Bernie Goldberg’s Bias. When I was bitching to him about O’Reilly, he actually said O’Reilly fairer than Dan Rather because – get this – O’Reilly puts up critical emails at the end of each show, and according to Goldberg Rather is very thin-skinned and won’t accept criticism. “Dan Rather doesn’t put up critical emails.”
Of course not, dad. Because CBS Evening News, however biased it might be, is not a news analysis program like O’Reilly’s; it is a news reporting program. You’re comparing apples to oranges. And the critical email thing is not unique. Turn on Crossfire, or Hardball, or any of the other fifty talking-head debate programs for examples. :rolleyes:
I once called my dad because I was flipping channels, landed on the Factor, and was listening to O’Reilly go on about how it was terrible that internet sites were profiting from the Paris Hilton sex video. “Isn’t that exploitation terrible! Using personal moments for dirty profit!,” sez O’Reilly. As he was talking – I am not making this up – they showed stills from the video. Granted, the genitalia was fuzzed, but the pics were still clearly designed to titillate. The hypocrisy of the O’Reilly’s venting while doing the exact same thing at the exact same moment that he was complaining about was truly staggering.
So I called dad, and bitched about it. And I swear, he actually tried to defend it.
“How is O’Reilly profiting here?”
Uh, dad? He’s paid to bring in ratings. Titilatting photos = more viewers (it certainly caused my remote to stop flipping channels). More viewers = mad ad bucks. After going around and around on that, he finally gets the point.
“Well, how can he do the story without the photos?”
Easy, dad – just say there’s a sex tape out there. No one needs to see stills from the video to evaluate the merits of O’Reilly’s argument. Simply reporting the tape’s existence will suffice. Again, we go around this a few times.
“Well, so what if he’s hypocritical? He’s better than the other biased jerks out there, like that asshole Dan Rather. Did I mention he reads critical emails on-air?” :rolleyes:
I wonder about my dad sometimes…
