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Culture

Bill O'Reilly Breaks Out Some History

Koan of the day

Jesse Walker | 3.11.2014 11:55 PM

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So…this actually happened tonight:

Fox News

Don't try to process that rationally; it'll just make your brain hurt. But if you meditate on it, you'll achieve enlightenment.

Start your day with Reason. Get a daily brief of the most important stories and trends every weekday morning when you subscribe to Reason Roundup.

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NEXT: Tonight on The Independents: Death Row Man Freed After 30 Years, DiFi's Spy Cry, Obama Between the Ferns, Millennial Ennui, Snowden-Basher Jim Gilmore, Reagan-Fight on the Right, Sexy After-show, and Keepin' it...Moynihan?

Jesse Walker is books editor at Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

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  1. Lord Peter Wimsey   11 years ago

    I happen to know that Abe Lincoln was a damn funny guy. He had this schtick about gay, southern slave owners that used to crack everyone up.

    “What’s the deal with owning other human beings?”

    1. Agammamon   11 years ago

      Bill O’Reilly, I knew Abe Lincoln and you sir, are no Abe Lincoln.

    2. timbo   11 years ago

      Orily also said that oil speculators should be prosecuted during the gas hikes in 2008.

      He is a moron.

  2. William of Purple   11 years ago

    TV is over.

  3. cavalier973   11 years ago

    Funny stuff involving Abe Lincoln? Got it right here.

    Never gets old.

    1. Bardas Phocas   11 years ago

      I prefer this vision of Abe (the lincoln log).
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN6Du3MCgI

  4. JeremyR   11 years ago

    Some people actually believe in the concept of “dignity”.

    1. cavalier973   11 years ago

      We call those people “SoCons”, and shun them.

    2. Hugh Akston   11 years ago

      Eh, I think Galifinakis’ reputation will recover from this one.

    3. Brett L   11 years ago

      Bill O’Reilly couldn’t find dignity if you gave him a dictionary and Queen Elizabeth to help him.

  5. Caleb Turberville   11 years ago

    I haven’t watched cable news in years. I eventually realized I wasn’t learning anything new, so I switched it off. As I predicted, I am just as informed on current events as people who still watch. I just have a lot more time to do more productive things.

    1. Doctor Whom   11 years ago

      An acquaintance of mine said that he had gotten a perfect score on a current-events quiz “even though I don’t watch TV news, or perhaps precisely because I don’t watch TV news.”

  6. Derpetologist   11 years ago

    Not bad, but not as good as Bill’s best derp:

    https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4445358336/hB621A180/

    1. cavalier973   11 years ago

      Whaaaat?

      1. Dapple   11 years ago

        http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/…..plain-that
        The above is not an actual quote, however, it is a meme based off of one.
        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..05262.html
        O’REILLY: I’ll tell you why [religion’s] not a scam, in my opinion: tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.
        SILVERMAN: Tide goes in, tide goes out?
        O’REILLY: See, the water, the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always comes in, and always goes out. You can’t explain that.

  7. The Immaculate Trouser   11 years ago

    I have no love for O’Reilly or his politics, but I don’t see how the point he’s making is actually wrong. Going on a fucking comedy show to hawk Obamacare like some encyclopedia salesman is the height of pathetic, and one more demonstration of how unfit to rule our supposed ‘betters’ really are. Say what you will about the age of nobility — when that crowd was claiming sanction for a ruling the peasantry, they spent most of their lives in training for that, in no small part so that their demesne would avoid the pathetic displays of incompetence and lack of class demonstrated daily by the small man in the Oval Office.

    I wouldn’t appreciate tyranny from a bred noble anymore than from a naif like Obama, but the level at which Obama governs and condescend to us shows just how illegitimate this crowd’s claim to rule really is.

    1. cavalier973   11 years ago

      Are you saying that Democracy is the god that failed?

      1. The Immaculate Trouser   11 years ago

        +Hoppe

    2. Calidissident   11 years ago

      It’s not the point he made, it’s the way he made it. Seriously, just take another look at that image and tell me I’m wrong.

      1. The Immaculate Trouser   11 years ago

        WWALD?

    3. Len Bias   11 years ago

      I also don’t care what O’Reilly thinks about anything, but I fail to see the story here.

      O’Reilly is an annoying cable TV windbag giving dumb grandiose opinions, Obama is the president of the US using comedy to get people to sign up for health care in a shockingly pathetic attempt to salvage an unpaid for bill.

      The latter is a far more disturbing story than the former for so many different reasons.

      1. Calidissident   11 years ago

        I think this post is just a late night post pointing out something stupid a famous talking head said. There was an article earlier about Obama going on a comedy show IIRC

        1. Len Bias   11 years ago

          Fair enough. I just thought O’Reilly’s reaction was less shrill and over the top than usual.

  8. Stormy Dragon   11 years ago

    Um… wasn’t Lincoln kind of known for making points via “That reminds me of a story…” style amusing anecdotes?

    1. Super Hans   11 years ago

      I honestly don’t know.

  9. Stormy Dragon   11 years ago

    Anyways, we know a Republican would NEVER lower themselves to appear on a comedy show.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqvOzPKi6o

    1. Michael S. Langston   11 years ago

      Nixon appears on Laugh-In 🙂

      1. cavalier973   11 years ago

        I think he wasn’t actually President at the time.

        http://content.time.com/time/s…..55,00.html

      2. C. Anacreon   11 years ago

        Don’t forget, Sonny from that photo became a fairly successful GOP congressman from California, who actually was replaced by his wife in office after he did a faceplant skiing into a tree, IIRC. And Cher went on to briefly marry Gregg Allman, who no doubt appreciated her natural-hanging halter-style top (jeez, it seems like I remember every girl in high school wearing things like that back then, all braless, and usually filling them out better than Cher. Kids, don’t believe the stuff you hear about everything in the 70s being pathetic.)

    2. The Immaculate Trouser   11 years ago

      I don’t see a whole lot of people (Reagan himself included) arguing that Reagan’s ineffable qualities as part of some upper caste of society qualified him to rule over us. Indeed, seems like the people who supported him did so *because* of an opposition to technocratic/academic rule of elites of the sort generally favored by modern progressives and D Brooksian authoritarian conservatives.

      If you’re going to bitch about how America isn’t ruled by serious intellectuals and claim that you’re the right guy to do it, you better wear that hairshirt, bucko.

      1. Calidissident   11 years ago

        I don’t see Stormy’s point as unfair given that this was coming from Bill O’Reilly.

  10. Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat   11 years ago

    At least he didn’t invoke Reagan. Baby steps.

    1. cavalier973   11 years ago

      Trying to be funny, eh? O’Reilly disapproves.

  11. GILMORE   11 years ago

    This reminds me of other great moments in American history, and things you didn’t know about Lincoln…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI0hvm10AHo

  12. PM   11 years ago

    “I need more problems with this website like I need a hole in the head!”

    – Abraham Lincoln

    http://instantrimshot.com/

  13. Suthenboy   11 years ago

    “But if you meditate on it, you’ll achieve enlightenment.”

    Enlightenment is not all it is cracked up to be.

    1. Swiss Servator, alles klar?   11 years ago

      So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one – big hitter, the Lama – long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-lagunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.” So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.

  14. Steve G   11 years ago

    Yes OReilly, Putin is just testing us. He not acting in Russia’s interests in a regional issue centuries in the making…no, he’s just testing Obama’s mettle.
    American Exceptionalism – the ultimate narcissism

    1. Almanian!   11 years ago

      CLEARLY – Putin is testing Obama. CLEARLY.

      Thus spake Bill.

  15. Almanian!   11 years ago

    I found the President’s interaction with Galifjjnkajbdfohapfnous much more disturbing than O’Reilly’s relatively-subdued (for him) bleatings.

    You can’t explain that…

    1. Steve G   11 years ago

      Obama is one of those celebrities who although charismatic, when they attempt to do comedy, they’re unfunny…like Steve Martin

  16. sarcasmic   11 years ago

    Bill O’Reily is a dipshit.

    1. Super Hans   11 years ago

      Obvious statement is obvious.

  17. iEagleHammer   11 years ago

    I love this story.

    There is only one sentence and a picture, yet it’s crystal clear.

  18. Notorious G.K.C.   11 years ago

    “Lincoln biographer Benjamin Thomas maintained: “Much of Lincoln’s success as a story-teller was due to a talent for mimicry. ‘In the role of story-teller,’ said T.G. Onstot, son of the New Salem cooper, ‘I never knew his equal. His power of mimicry was very great. He could perfectly mimic a Dutchman [German], Irishman, or Negro.'””

    http://reason.com/blog/2014/03…..y#comments

    1. Notorious G.K.C.   11 years ago

      “Well, an Irish sailor was overtaken at sea by a heavy storm and he thought he would pray but didn’t know [how], so he went down on his knees and said: ‘Oh, Lord! you know as well as meself that it’s seldom I bodder ye, but if ye will only hear me and save me this time, bedad it will be a long time before I bodder ye again’.”

  19. Vampire   11 years ago

    Bill O’reilly is yet another war hawk. He sits at home advocating for war while my brothers and sisters are sent to fight, and if lucky to return are scarred for life. That douchebag attempted to label a war veteran that was against the Iraq war as “huring the troops”. That veteran was a help to us. O’Reilly has done harm through his blind advocacy for war. It is fake people such as him that are the greatest threat to liberty. He even lied about being in combat.

    They should be replacing these people with folks such as Tom Woods, Gerard Casey, and Thomas DiLorenzo whom could show viewers the real Lincoln. Not some fantasy version created by O’reilly.

    1. Mainer2   11 years ago

      Supporting the troops aught to mean you only risk their lives when truly necessary.

      1. Warren's Strapon   11 years ago

        Unfortunately that’s naught the way some people use the phrase.

      2. Vampire   11 years ago

        Should mean that, but not to the warmongers. That’s why many folks opposed standing armies. They knew long ago what a threat to liberty they were.

  20. Mainer2   11 years ago

    Says here that Bill O’Reilly is a bloviating douchebag.

    Everyone knows that.

    Well did you know there actually is an oldest trick in the book:

    (Fade to the renaissance)

    Trick number one. Lookest over there….Ha ha, madest thou look.

  21. rolf.obermaier   11 years ago

    I can’t understand how a comedian (because, you know, you can’t take O’Reilly seriously) can criticize another one. He hates competition.

  22. Juice   11 years ago

    No mention of Napolitano on TDS? I thought they were very merciful with him, but with that game show setup and a panel of “experts” I thought for sure they were going to dogpile him, but they let him off easy.

  23. AlmightyJB   11 years ago

    Can’t watch this but I’m quite sure it can’t lower my opinion of O’Reilly.

  24. HazelMeade   11 years ago

    What is much funnier is the fact that Obama has decided his job is to be insurance-salesman-in-cheif.

    Because insurance salesmen have such shining reputations that he thought it would improve his approval ratings.

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