What if they harass you in their private life?
For the love of Cecil…why? Why don’t you see sexual harassment as a serious thing?
Wesley Clark, sexual harassment, like rape, is not just about sex. It’s about power and hostility. It’s about someone using you and treating you like you are a slab of meat with no humanity and no feelings. It’s about being bullied.
It’s not about the fun, happy and exciting part of sex. It’s not a turn-on.
I read the brief that was filed in court and it is a real page-turner. But out of everything that was said, I found the following two sentences to be the strangest:
WTF?
Also of particular interest are the comments about Al Franken and his supposed vulnerability to the Bush Administration.
Falafel, anyone?
Speaking of Al Franken, could O’Reilly have handed him a better gift than these transcripts? Talk about a series of hanging curve balls. Franken’s next book will practically write itself.
Guin: For the love of Cecil…why? Why don’t you see sexual harassment as a serious thing?
Can’t speak for Wesley, but I’d just point out that sexual harassment, in the general perception at least, covers a pretty broad spectrum of behavior. Anything from a joking “Woo baby, nice legs!” to direct and constant propositioning and groping could be regarded as sexual harassment.
I’d agree that harassment on the mild end of that spectrum, while still inappropriate and unprofessional and improper, is not such a serious thing. I’ve even occasionally been the victim of that kind of harassment, and it didn’t really change my opinion of the harasser. (Actually, I didn’t have very high opinions of any of them to start with, but my point is that I didn’t take it very seriously or feel particularly outraged by it. More of a :rolleyes:.)
However, if I learned that someone had subjected another person to the sort of harassment that includes repeatedly phoning them to talk about sexual fantasies while masturbating, even though the other person had made it clear that this was inappropriate and unwanted, you betcha I would consider that serious, and it would most definitely lower them in my opinion. Irrespective of whether they subsequently tried to cover up the harassment by intimidating the victim.
I’m human enough to have had embarrassing moments. On the other hand, I have never engaged in any action that would come close to producing the humiliation that O’Reilly should have felt about this if he was not so intent on proving that he is an attack dog even when his actions should inspire contrition.
If I entered public life, I could sleep soundly every night based on my past actions. (Fear for my family or for false charges might keep me up.)
Which overlooks the aspect of this drama that O’Reilly was the first one to go to court. Perhaps he really was being extorted (although I would think that if Mackris was engaged in extortion, O’Reilly should have gone to the police, not engaged a tort lawyer–that’s what the on-air persona of O’Relly would have done*), but if this was an attempt to influence the election, O’Reilly could have simply maintained quiet negotiations until November 3 rather than making it all public with absurd claims that Mackris wanted to use OReilly to affect the vote.
*O’Reilly blames (tort) lawyers for many of the problems in this country, then when he gets in trouble, he goes to a tort lawyer rather than to the prosecutor. There is a good, consistent attitude.
He’s a goofy motherfucker, alright.
Preach it, brother!
If it is extortion, why didn’t he go to the police? On the other hand, if he is guilty of harrassment, that’s the last place he’d want to go. Something smells.
I’m not even famous, and I wouldn’t do anything like that. No phone sex or internet sex, which might come back to bite you in the ass. No naughty photos or videos (a boyfriend once wanted to take nude photos of me and I said, “yeah, that’s gonna happen”).
If you’re going to talk dirty on the phone to someone? Trust me, they’re recording it.
OTOH, I have “said,” but not “done,” with a co-worker (on the same corporate level as I and in a different department) and fully accept that I was an immature idiot at the time. And I probably still am one but am not a public figure so a corollary to your law would be, “If you are an immature idiot do not trumpet your personal and moral perfection to millions of people on a daily basis.”
Most of you have not told racial or ethnic jokes that hypothetically could have been recorded?
or flirted with a member of the opposite sex other than your spouse?
or made an anti war or pro war comment that could be used against you if you were running for office?
or swore using 4 letter words at someone where the incident could have been recorded?
or participated in a joint or 2 during your wild days?
Be honest now., Would you have the same venomous attitude if it had been John Edwards or even John Kerry that had done whatever BOR did?
fuck, yes. Anyone who does that kind of thing needs to be held accountable. And to try and color this as a partisan attack is kinda weak. Do you think what he did was wrong? Do you think he should be held accountable.
People who behave this way, whoever the hell they are, don’t deserve any respect. They are abusers. When they have power over people, they use it in totally inappropriate ways. They suck.
How would this cause a lack of sleep? There are a lot of divisive issues on which one might take a stand that could affect the number of people who would vote for a person, but taking positions on abortion, the death penalty, defense spending, the designated hitter, education funding, environmental regulations, euthanasia, evolution-vs-creationism, gun control, medicaid/medicare/social security, taxes, and a host of other issues are what politicians need to do in order to prevent elections from being decided by the best teeth and hair.
Your question was what embarrassing thing we might have done that could actually cause us to lose sleep fearing its revelation. I find it amusing that you believe that everyone should feel shame for their lives or that O’Reilly’s particular actions, in this case, are somehow defensible or that they are not much different than what other people do.
And what is the purpose of trying to drag Kerry and Edwards into this? I do not see anyone making an issue of Bush’s alcohol and cocaine usage when he was much younger. It is simply not considered relevant to this election (and was only briefly relevant in his first election because he was so coy about answering the question when it was raised).
O’Reilly makes a big deal about personal morality and personal responsibility and the current court cases demonstrate an appparent violation of both of those priniciples currently. Since O’Reilly is a person who has been quick to condemn others, it is fun to watch O’Reilly squirm around in the hot seat that he created.
Silly claims (from Bill, that you swallow) about attempts to affect the election or red herrings (from you) about whether we ought to consider how we would judge the Democratic candidates in hypothetical situations are clearly irrelevant and border pretty close to the precipice of stupidity.
It’s called “Not being a fucking stupid idiot.” O’reilly should try it sometime.
I never said it wasn’t serious, just that it didn’t bother me personally. Some things do bother me personally that other people don’t care about. Police chases and the consequences of them bother the hell out of me for example, but i’m sure most people could care less.
What do you want me to say? Some people don’t think about the plight of poor people in the DRC, some people devote their lives to it. Some people devote their lives to maintaining affordable healthcare and SS benefits, some people don’t know what these things are. I never said sexual harassment wasn’t an issue that damages relationships or was serious, just that I don’t care that much about it or that it would bother me personally to know someone did it. As I said, O’Reilly threatening his victim bothers me alot more than him sexually harassing them. For some people maybe the sexual harassment is a major issue and the threatening of the victim isn’t even important to them.
Yeah if I were harassed it would bother me, especially if I made it clear that it bothered me and they continued.
a) Am I the only person who found the OP confusing to the point of incoherency until the 5th or 6th reading thereof? I kept reading it as (paraphrased) “Could you sleep at nights if it happened to be true that you had nothing in your past that could embarrass you? I sure couldn’t!”
b) I think Bill O’Reilly is toast. You can say that kind of stuff once to a coworker, friend, neighbor, classmate, or other person equal in power, that’s not harassment. If the person you say it to doesn’t say “ewwww, fucking stop that” or “stick it in a pencil sharpener and crank, creepazoid”, you can arguably continue to say that kind of thing to another equal. (A “reasonable person” has to find that the colleague would not have felt unduly threatened or intimidated to the point of being unable to tell you to knock it off, though.) You don’t ever get to say things like that to your employee. It’s sexual harassment if you do.
c) If I were a candidate, I would be running as the anarchist, openly schizophrenic (and militantly schizzy-rights), esoterically religious (in the “believes God talks to him in person” sense) candidate for office. I’ve got all kinds of shit that I’ve done that is personally embarrassing to me when I think about it, but my guess is that if someone like me could become a viable candidate, my opponents would have their hands full figuring out which things I’ve said and done would be embarrassing to me and my candidacy and which ones I’d be proud of. Best they’d be able to do is look for inconsistencies and contradictions.
First Rush Lindbaugh and now Billy O’
Clearly this is a complex liberal conspiracy set to take out the brilliant talking heads of the right. Can the eagle from the Muppet Show be far behind?
Actually, I think it is all a plan on O’Rilley’s part. I have long believed that having legal problems helps your employment at FOX news. How else can you explain Ollie North and Geraldo being employed there? I imagine Bill heard that Martha Stewart had signed a great contract with FOX and was jealous.
That’s probably why they fired Dennis Miller - no arrests, no convictions, no exciting lawsuits against him.
I can’t wait until FOX manages to spin this so CBS looks stupid for not catching this and putting it on 60 minutes during their profile of BO’R.
TV
Not that you asked for a comparison . . . 
If all this about O’Reilly is true, Limbaugh will end up smelling like a rose compared to him. (Of course, if Limbaugh ends up in jail that would suck for him, but he would definitely have much more sympathy from his fans.)
Limbaugh got sucked into an addiction from painkillers—apparently after using them legitimately for a while. Then he snuck and lied and was pathetic but went clean (when busted by the National Enquirer) and, as far as we know, has cleaned up his act. I’m sure there’s some hypocricy there with him (any comments he’d made previously about drug users can now bite him in the butt), but basically, that’s it.
O’Reilly is a completely different kettle of fish. If this is all true, he’s scummy, vile, icky, hypocritical, harrasser, scummy (did I already mention that?) and . . . yuk. What happened to Limbaugh was shocking and surprising for his fans, but once the dust settled, somewhat understandable (at least for most of his fans). If all this about O’Reilly is true (and as far as I am concerned, the jury’s still out) then he is done. Done. This is so embarassing, disgusting to contemplate, embarassing (did I mentioned embarassing?) and slimy. I don’t see too many his fans seeing him ever in the same way after this. If it’s all true, O’Reilly makes Limbaugh look like a choir boy, in my opinion.