O'Reilly, you do have some actual facts to back up that claim, right? Right?!?

The BBQ Pit
1

Bill, Bill, Bill, when are you going to drop the whole Hillary Clinton business?
First you were outraged that she wouldn’t admit that she was going to run for President next year, despite the fact that she has vociferously denied having any sort of plan to do so on innumerable occasions.

Strike one.
Then you were pissed off at her book deal and were shrieking to the high heavens that her publisher would never make back the advance they paid out to her.

Strike two.

Then you were bleating about how you would sell more books then she would.

Strike three. Go have a seat back in the dugout.

But suddenly when it apparently became clear even in your dangerously psychotic mind that there was no way in hell that you were going to sell more books then Hillary, hell you can’t even sell more books then Al Franken, you change the “rules” of your little contest at the last second.

Here’s a link for ya. The statement in question is about 3/4 of the way down the page under the MOST RIDICULOUS ITEM OF THE DAY header.

O’Reilly claims that while Hillary may have sold nearly a million copies of her book, (actually she has sold well over a million, more like 1.25 million), “A good amount of those were purchased by the Democratic National Committee. That doesn’t count Senator.”

WTF?!?!???

Where does O’Reilly come up with this horseshit?

And shocker, he doesn’t give any data to back up his claim.:rolleyes:

What a swinefucker.

I started a thread in GQ about this, asking if anyone could find any data to back up O’Reilly’s claim and no one has been able to find anything yet.

2

Well, I think O’Reilly’s going off the deep end about this Hillary thing, and I have no clue about the book sales thing.

One thing I will say, though: if the DNC is buying the books in bulk and then hoping that they’ll sell them, or just giving them away, I don’t think that really counts. If, however, the DNC is acting like another retailer, buying a lot of the books and then selling them to members (or anyone else), just like any other retailer sells books, well, that definitely counts.

All I know is that when I sell my work (artwork and pottery), I never thought it “counted” when my dear friends or family bought my stuff. It counted when strangers bought it, because they wanted to—not because they felt any special loyalty or obligation to me. I would consider the DNC buying Hillary’s books to be similar to my dad buying my pottery. It just doesn’t “count” as a “real” sale.

3

Until O’Reilly actually has a cite for his claim, it’s all unsubstantiated bullstuff. Which is par for the course for him, unfortunately.

Besides, betcha Bill doesn’t complain when book sales figures from right-wing demagogues (such as Coulter, Limbaugh, and himself) get inflated with bulk sales to political groups.

4

There is no evidence that the DNC is buying any bulk orders at all. O’Reilly is talking completely out of his ass, as usual.

I wonder what his excuse is for getting outsold by Al Franken and Michael Moore.

5

I like this bit from O’Reilly’s whiny "talking points:

Well…um…if there are hundreds of people in line isn’t it only practical to keep the line moving? What should she do, hold up the line by boring each person to death with long-winded diatribes ala Bill O’Reilly.

I’m guessing that O’Reilly simply has no experience with lines at his book signings.

6

He’s a political pundit. Sadly, they are under no obligations to prove a word they say.

7

Actually I was at a book signing at my lunch break that featured O’Reily. I was pissed that he was the reason I couldn’t get to the graphic novel section. But he certianly didn’t spend any amount of time with people that should give him bragging rights about the amount of time HE spends with anyone. The line chugged along at a pretty machinelike pace.

The problem with O’Reily is not just that he’s so often wrong on factual matters, but that he’s such an asshole about it. People bring figures onto his show, and he tells them that they are wrong wrong wrong, when its him tha’s wrong. And worse, they often have cites: he has vague recollecitons, or a reference to the name of the company that did the poll, but no details on when or where or how it was done.

8

Actually, there is. The DNC is giving the book away to its Presidential Partners.

http://www.dncrewards.com/president.html?s=002

9

I know they had a hard time keeping the book in stock at Barnes and Noble in Houston the first week it came out. And this is Houston … not exactly a Democratic hotbed.

10

Ok, so how much of the total sales does that count for? A few hundred? A few thousand? That still leaves O’Reilly far in the dust.

And why don’t bulk sales “count” anyway? Count for WHAT?

11

Diogenes

You said, “There is no evidence that the DNC is buying any bulk orders at all.” I’m not defending Bill O’Reilly. I’m doing the same thing that I hope you would do — correcting a factual error.

12

When the NYTimes counts book sales for its bestseller lists, it also asks booksellers and publishers about “bulk” orders, that is, sales other than individual book sales to single customers. When there are such, the mark the book sales in its weekly tally with a dagger symbol.

This first came up, IIRC, years ago when the works of the loathesome L. Ron Hubbard were noticed climbing the charts in the “non-fiction” section. When booksellers were contacted, they reported that individual persons were coming into thier stores and, in some cases, buying out thier entire supply of Hubbard’s redolent crapola.

It turned out that some of the unfortunate victims of Dianetics were being sent to prove thier devotion by bankrupting themselves by purchasing hundreds and oftimes thousands of copies of such books.

“Bulk sales” also was noted as a genteel version of bribery.

Sen. Fogbottom, Chair of the Committee for American Goodness and Spending Money on Crap, would publish his breathtaking tome My Nine Struggles for Patriotism and Right-thinking, usually published by a minor publishing firm, say, Remainder House. Usually, the royalty per copy paid to the author far exceeded any such arrangement with such hack scribblers as Hemingway or Wolfe.

GreedCo, a wholly owned subsidiary of WeSaySo, Inc., which has a pet project under consideration by Sen. Fogbottom’s committee, would be deeply impressed by the probity and wisdom expressed in his book, and would buy 100,000 copies of said book directly from Remainder House, and distribute the mighty tome to its blubberingly grateful employees. This can be considered an educational effort, and worthy of a hefty tax break due to such non-profit excercises in civic virtue. Thus, does GreedCo place a hefty chunk of moola in Sen. Fogbottoms Cayman Island accounts without sullying itself with unseemly bribery. (IIRC, it was just such a ploy that Newt Gangrene used to bring down Speaker Wright…)

So, to sum up…from that time on, the “bulk sales” issue sheds light on whether or not the book is sold primarily to individual buyers, such as worthy citizens buying a Franken book hoping to have some impact on thier Dad’s Cro-Magnon political viewpoints. Just as a “for instance”.

Mr. O’Reilly is having the living snot kicked out of him by Hillary, Al and Mike. Since it is a central dogma of the Tighty Righty’s that the vast majority of Americans are in complete agreement with thier central feces…pardon, theses… such sales must be explained away by reference to the vast liberal conspiracy of Perfidious Liars [sup]TM[/sup].

Ain’t so.

13

I can’t believe this sniveling, narcissistic bully has a television show.

14

Ah, but you’re not, really. There’s no evidence that the DNC bought the books at all. For all you know, Hilary donated them to be given as part of the gift package.

15

Hillary donating her books? That’s rich. Wouldn’t that have an adverse effect on her precious royalties?

16

This is the reason Fox News exists. To give braying morons like him a chance to babble while the masses soak it up like a fucking sponge, then ask for seconds.

  • Lat
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That’s only money. Hillary’s already got money. Money is not her coin, politics is her coin. Her biggest concern was that the book sell enough to cover her advance, which it has done rather handily. Once that was done, the actual money is pretty small potatoes, next to measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.

I don’t that much want to see Hillary be President. Sooner or later, the Prez must be female, and she’ll do.

But I would dearly love to buy milroyj a beer to celebrate as we watch the Inaugaration.

18

And I will gladly buy elucidator a beer to celebrate President George W. Bush’s second Inaugaration.

19

I don’t mean to hijack what seems to be a very important issue to some people, but does anybody take a moment to think ‘outside the box’? (apologies in advance for outdated buzzwords :blush: )

The way I see things, people develop such strong opposing viewpoints with each other that they jump all over the most mundane things. I mean, do people get this viscious over selling girl scout cookies?!

20

Why, heavens no, little grrl! Do come in!