Who Said it?

We are living in a time where perception is reality and impressions are formed from rank propaganda and outright deception.

Give up? Bill O?Reilly. Insert joke here.

Comments

[joe]

I think it's charming that the O'Reillys still go around the table and say what they're Thankful for before carving the turkey.

[Bill]

O'Reilly is a lot of things (as I'm sure will be elaborated by subsequent commentators), but how exactly is he a propagandist or deceiver?

I observe the following about O'Reilly:
1. He's bombastic and opinionated
2. He generally *tries* to get both sides presented
3. His *opinions* are sometimes loony and non-fact based

In no way do those observations make his "propaganda and deception" statement laughable (or more importantly, inaccurate).

[Matt Welch]

I find it funny because it's so incredibly dour, pessimistic, and absolute. Since I'm cheerful, optimistic, and wishy-washy, this makes me laugh.

[The Merovingian]

When exactly was there a time when "perception" wasn't "reality" and "impressions" weren't "formed from rank propaganda and outright deception." O'Reilly is one of these typical ahistorical idiots who is always glancing back to the so-called "good times" of the past. They come in all sizes and shapes - religious conservative nuts, environmental wackos, Marxists, etc. In fact, just the other day someone told me - a white man no less - about how good times were a hundred years ago. To wit I asked this twenty-something idiot-college student why he thought it would be a good for a woman or a black person to time-travel back to 1900.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Somehow I missed the turkey references in the article.

[Doug J.]

I've seen, cumulatively, maybe 20 minutes of O'Reilly's show. Didn't especially appeal or repulse. On the other hand, I enjoy seeing the people O'Reilly pisses off getting their panties in a wad, so more power to him, I say.

[Bill]

Matt:

Sorry, I misunderstood your original post to imply that O'Reilly was a propagandist and deceiver, and thus a hypocrite. My bad...

I would generally agree it's better to be cheerful and optimistic, but I live in California, so most of the time I feel like I'm taking crazy pills (and not happy-crazy, either). It's a fair bet that 49 out of the 50 initiatives on the ballot next year will be "for the children", so they'll all be dancing on my last deceptive propaganda nerve 🙂

[Matt Welch]

Bill -- I live in California too, which is exactly why I'm optimistic! Good weather, delicious tacos, crazy people ... what's not to love?

[Jesse Walker]

The earthquakes and the taxes. But I sure do miss those tacos.

[Jason Holliston]

Nah, I think O'Reilly is an alright guy. He seems to be on target well over half the time on his show (I watch it about once a week), but sometimes goes off on these strange tangents, like his take on the unregulated Internet or how we should introduce caning as punishment for littering into our culture.

Almost all TV/radio pundits have their strange, whack-job sides, don't you think? Who here can honestly say that Bill O'Reilly is more off his rocker than, say, Rush or Savage?

Matt, I do take your jab good-natured. But, generally speaking, I see the knee-jerk attacks on O'Reilly as simply trying to pull down the guy at (or near) the top of his game. I mean, I can listen to O'Reilly, while listening to Savage on the radio makes my ears bleed after 3 minutes.

[Matt Welch]

Jason -- I think anyone who thrusts himself out there in the public eye, spitting out barbed moralisms the way Reggie Jackson used to spit sunflower seeds, is more than deserving of all kinds of scrutiny, including cruel & unfair mockery by icky liberals. I watch him about as often as you, like him sometimes, find him laughable others.

[Jason Holliston]

Matt: fair enough. Those barbed moralisms definitely come out from time to time. I don't think he'd disagree that he's a pretty staunch social conservative -- somewhere in between GW Bush and the real whackos like Pat Buchanan.

I think it's also a good idea to remember that a heck of a lot of Americans agree with those ideas. And I still think that a lot of the attacks have their genesis due to his visibility.

I read the column you linked to, and I think he hit the nail on the head with the lefty celebs, even though his show-by-show analysis was a bit strange.

[Bill]

"Bill -- I live in California too, which is exactly why I'm optimistic! Good weather, delicious tacos, crazy people ... what's not to love?"

True, and yet I'm tortured by the thought that some other nirvana (Arizona? Nevada? Barbados? Belize?) might be all that _and_ a bag of chips (and at half the tax rate)!

To wit, no Feinstein, no Browns (Willie and Jerry), no "for the children" bonds, no Reiners, no meat-free Souplantations, no smoking bans, etc.

Besides which, the water is frickin' freezin' out here!

[Kevin Carson]

Bill,

He generally tries to get both sides represented unless he's yelling "Shut up! Just shut up! Cut his mike!"

That's what he did when the guy from Not In Our Name suggested 9-11 might have been blowback from arming the Mujaheddin. I really had to doubt O'Reilly's integrity over that. He can't be stupid enough to have invited that kid on the show without some idea of what his position was and what kinds of things he was likely to say. So it follows that O'Reilly's outburst, rather than genuine or spontaneous anger, was disingenuous, demagogic grandstanding. And of course, O'Reilly was scoring points by feigning moral outrage at something he, by implication, invited the guy on the show to say.

That's never right, no matter who the guest is. When you invite a guest on a talking head show, there's an implied promise to at least allow him to state his position before you take it apart; and not pretend to be outraged and surprised by it, when you deliberately invited him BECAUSE his outrageous position would increase your ratings. It's no different from the afternoon talk-show hosts who invite incestuous freaks on their show because they know incestuous freaks sell, and then pretend to be outraged.

I absolutely despise David Duke. But I've hated Deborah Norville far worse, ever since she interviewed him. She KNEW he was on the Today show to drive up it's ratings as a cartoonish villain; he was invited so he could be used to sell Exlax, the same way as the 500 lb. guy in a diaper is used on Jerry Springer. She sounded, to me, like that smarmy talk show host in *The Running Man*, dripping fake moral outrage at the crimes of Ben Richards.

[Greg]

Far from a right-wing crazy(he's socially liberal people) he's just down-right funny sometimes.

He thinks he's really important, and that pisses a lot of wacky Liberals off. I just watch it for kicks. So. Darn. Funny. I'm glad he doesn't just bend over and kick people's shoes when he likes them too. He always loves confrontation, so why the hate against him?

[Brendan Perez]

My biggest problem with O'Reilly is that he makes his arguments personal. He's good at calling names and mudslinging, but not very good at rational, logical arguments.

A good example is when he had Jacob Sullum on the show. He basically argued "for the children" and "we have enough intoxicants" before calling JS a "pinhead".

One would think that the "No Spin Zone" on a "Fair and Balanced" network would have a commentator who can have a calm rational debate.

[Friend of Terry]

Logic in political discourse is dead. I prefer to accept or reject others' opinions by their facial expresions. O'Reilly has the disingenuous look down. Can't see what Terry Gross's facial expressions are.

[Ed]

I gave up on O'Reilly when he invited an ill-prepared atheist to explain - in 10 seconds - why atheism is rational and theism isn't. It was his typical formulaic setup and the poor thing was a deer in his headlights. Bullying can be fun when it's directed at a deserving victim, but in this case it simply demonstrated his gang-mentality ignorance.

[Douglas Fletcher]

I've only watched O'Reilly about 20 times -- the main problem I see with him is that he won't let anybody finish 2 sentences without butting in. I realize he has a lot to fit into 30 minutes but he really should keep in mind that many of the people on his show aren't trained attack dogs like so many of the usual suspects you see on these shows. If he would give people a little breathing room to explain themselves, the show would be a lot easier to take.

On the positive side, he does seem genuinely appreciative of people who do come on his show, unlike so many other of these TV schmucks.

[dhex]

o'reilly is vastly entertaining because he lives in a unique universe i like to visit once a week. much like long island.

a place he's very much a product of. the shithead ratio in nassau and suffolk counties is off the charts. something to do with white flight and cultural insulation, i think.

[HH]

"When you invite a guest on a talking head show, there's an implied promise to at least allow him to state his position before you take it apart"

It's not like the guy's mike was shut off five seconds into the show. He made his position quite clear.

[Peck Amy]

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DATE: 01/21/2004 07:25:10
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.