# George Will calls Bill O'Reilly's book about Reagan a lazy, incompetent pack of lies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 7, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853 "2015-11-07T00:06:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/1 "2015-11-07T00:06:44Z")
Uh Oh! Mommy and Daddy are fighting. O’Reilly castigated by… wait for it… conservative columnist George Will for being a huge BS artist and very bad, not so good, wannabe historian. [Bill O’Reilly slanders Ronald Reagan](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-oreilly-slanders-ronald-reagan/2015/11/05/d11300d6-83e3-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html) > [@](#): > > Donald Trump is just one symptom of today’s cultural pathology of self-validating vehemence with blustery certitudes substituting for evidence. Another is the fact that the book atop the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list is a tissue of unsubstantiated assertions. Because of its vast readership, “Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency” by Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly and his collaborator, Martin Dugard, will distort public understanding of Ronald Reagan’s presidency more than hostile but conscientious scholars could. > > Styling himself an “investigative historian,” O’Reilly purports to have discovered amazing facts that have escaped the notice of real historians. The book’s intimated hypothesis is that the trauma of the March 1981 assassination attempt somehow triggered in Reagan a mental decline, perhaps accelerating the Alzheimer’s disease that would not be diagnosed until 13 years later. The book says Reagan was often addled to the point of incompetence, causing senior advisers to contemplate using the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Well. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/2 "2015-11-07T00:13:34Z")
I’m not going to bother looking further into this, however the portion quoted in the OP sounds like O’Reilly telling the truth about Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/3 "2015-11-07T00:28:21Z")
I haven’t heard any good things about any of O’Reilly’s histories. Killing Lincoln, Kennedy, Jesus, Patton, as far as I understand, they’re all garbage. I see no reason the Reagan book wouldn’t be the same. I think it’s obvious to everyone that Reagan was losing his mental abilities as his Presidency progressed, but I haven’t heard from any reliable source that it progressed to the point where senior advisors were considering removing him. Which they couldn’t do anyway. The amendment requires the Vice-President and the Cabinet to initiate such an action. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/4 "2015-11-07T03:38:15Z")
I thought Killing Lincoln was okay but when I moved on to Patton, I gradually became aware of a lot of tricks like “surely he must have seen” and “a typical German might.” I did ask my minister about Killing Jesus and all he would say is “Bill-O wasn’t 100% accurate in some of his details.” ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/5 "2015-11-07T04:21:17Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > I did ask my minister about Killing Jesus and all he would say is “Bill-O wasn’t 100% accurate in some of his details.” Well I can understand him not wanting to get into a big long discussion about Jesus. Always best not to discuss religion or politics. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/6 "2015-11-07T06:25:32Z")
I watched the high-octane debate between O’Reilly and Will tonight. While I usually tend to find both of them interesting and worthy of my time, tonight they both made pinheads of themselves. I suspect there is something deeper going on here than either of them are letting on. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/7 "2015-11-07T06:40:24Z")
Does George Will ever do _anything_ other than eviscerate “fellow” conservatives and republicans? He certainly doesn’t seem to ever like anyone. At least not from his own party. I like George Will. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/8 "2015-11-07T16:56:47Z")
I think George Will is lost in the wilderness. He is an intellectual conservative who cannot understand why a hack like O’Reilly is not only raking in more money than Will could imagine, but people actually believe the stuff O’Reilly puts out. One thing about Will is that he uses words that O’Reilly’s audience would never understand. He has a low tolerance for stupid people. I can appreciate that, but what George Will can’t wrap his head around is that the country as a whole relates to someone like O’Reilly, not him. The other thing about Will is he does not change his position once he chooses it, nor does he like his beliefs challenged. I highly doubt O’Reilly’s book is anything but a hack job, but going after one of the sacred cows of conservatism (Reagan) makes him come out swinging. I highly doubt anyone buying O’Reilly’s book is reading Will’s column. I love how in the linked Will piece, he uses as a source someone who worked closely with Reagan, a woman who we find at the end of his diatribe happens to now be his wife. :dubious: Thanks, George. The dumbing down of America is a runaway train, and the only thing that will ease George Will’s pain is his own passing. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/9 "2015-11-07T17:24:21Z")
Given Will’s long history of lies and distortion, this is the pot calling the kettle black. At least I don’t believe O’Reilly made predictions about elections based on baseball history. Reagan was a doofus for a _long_ time. Many, many anecdotes going back to days as governor. It is quite hard to determine when the Alzheimer’s became a more important factor than his general poor memory, inability to grasp facts and laziness. One tactic people used when Reagan would start nodding off in meetings was to start asking him questions about his Hollywood days. Would perk him right up. I’d say an indicator that Alzheimer’s was taking over would be when that stopped working. Wonder if anyone noticed such a change in his latter years as PotUS. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/10 "2015-11-07T23:51:04Z")
Haven’t read any of his “Killing…:” books, but, let’s be real: What kind of dipshit would write a book titled “Killing” anything without killing, even in the figurative sense, anything/anybody? ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/11 "2015-11-08T00:41:12Z")
And Bill calls George Will a hack and slanderer: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/L46aQzJCj64/hqdefault.jpg "Bill O'Reilly To George Will: "You're a HACK!" \*SpArKs EvErYwHeRe\*") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L46aQzJCj64) I might need more popcorn if this continue. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/12 "2015-11-08T00:47:45Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Haven’t read any of his “Killing…:” books, but, let’s be real: What kind of dipshit would write a book titled “Killing” anything without killing, even in the figurative sense, anything/anybody? In fairness, all of the subjects (except for Reagan), were actually killed. I find it odd that he doesn’t seem to be interested in writing a book about “Killing Martin Luther King”, or “Killing Sacco and Vanzetti”, or “Killing Warren Harding”. But, whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/13 "2015-11-08T00:49:06Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > And Bill calls George Will a hack and slanderer: > [https://youtu.be/L46aQzJCj64](https://youtu.be/L46aQzJCj64) > > I might need more popcorn if this continue. Someone tell those two to “get a room”. If they had been sitting beside each other, they would have started slapping and then fell into sloppy kiss. They were essentially arguing about who was better at kissing Reagan’s ass. “I’m better!” “No, I’m better!” “Am not!” “Are too!” ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/14 "2015-11-08T00:50:07Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > In fairness, all of the subjects (except for Reagan), were actually killed. I find it odd that he doesn’t seem to be interested in writing a book about “Killing Martin Luther King”, or “Killing Sacco and Vanzetti”, or “Killing Warren Harding”. But, whatever. And why oh why hasn’t someone written “Killing Bill O’Reilly”? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/15 "2015-11-08T01:26:47Z")
I once said that George Will wrote the “Reliably Wrong” column in _Newsweek_ and someone here thought it was seriously the column’s name. But that was the only way to read it. It’s going to make for a fascinating psychiatric case study of Will’s body of work when some future masochist tries to figure out how Will can see and eviscerate the weird wrongnesses in the Republican Party when uttered by others but can’t see the same qualities when he writes them. BTW, you all should reread Will’s column with this end note in mind: “(Mari Maseng is now Mari Will, the writer’s wife.)” ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/16 "2015-11-08T21:03:42Z")
I began to suspect O’Reilly’s bias when he blamed Jesus’s crucifixion on Dan Rather. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/17 "2015-11-08T21:23:04Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Does George Will ever do _anything_ other than eviscerate “fellow” conservatives and republicans? He certainly doesn’t seem to ever like anyone. At least not from his own party. I like George Will. 🙂 I can’t say I’m an expert on the matter, but I don’t think Will is exactly a Fox News entertainment “conservative.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/18 "2015-11-08T22:14:21Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Given Will’s long history of lies and distortion, this is the pot calling the kettle black. > > At least I don’t believe O’Reilly made predictions about elections based on baseball history. > > Reagan was a doofus for a _long_ time. Many, many anecdotes going back to days as governor. It is quite hard to determine when the Alzheimer’s became a more important factor than his general poor memory, inability to grasp facts and laziness. Most informative and insightful book about Reagan I’ve ever read is [_The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan,_](http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Bridge-Fall-Nixon-Reagan/dp/1476782423/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447020788&sr=1-2&keywords=invisible+bridge) by Rick Perlstein. Reagan always thought more in terms of black-and-white moral narratives than facts. He was always a self-aggrandizer, back to his days as a lifeguard. He was frustrated that he never could seem to reach “star” status in Hollywood. And he was an astonishingly cold and indifferent father. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/19 "2015-11-09T03:21:57Z")
[Interesting article.](http://www.salon.com/2015/11/08/george_wills_had_enough_lying_his_battle_with_bill_oreilly_is_finally_an_intellectual_battle_to_reclaim_the_gop_from_fox_news/) ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853/20 "2015-11-09T04:12:41Z")
I always assumed the little git had Alzheimers from way before he was elected. Accounted for his undoubted deep rapport with America’s weirdos. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-will-calls-bill-oreillys-book-about-reagan-a-lazy-incompetent-pack-of-lies/736853.md?page=2)