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Bill O’Reilly is a man that cannot say the word “left” without appending modifiers like “far,” “ultra,” “committed,” or “looney.” He is a man who is convinced that every critic is a “smear merchant.” And his opponents are never merely disagreeing with him, they are “vile.”
BILL O'REILLY: PROPAGANDA PIMP
Even children are not exempt from his apocalyptic world view. There is also his laughably inept attempt at fiction, Those Who Trespass, which betrays his hostile tendencies, if not his fantasies. From the book's description: "One by one, high-level executives and news correspondents are being brutally murdered in the cutthroat world of television journalism." If it wasn't already glaringly obvious from watching his nightly bombast; if you hadn't already seen the acute paranoia in his red-faced shouting matches; if you need something more to conclude that O'Reilly is in a downward spiral of tyrannical propagandizing: well now you have it... Researchers at Indiana University have just published the results of a study that provides academic validation that O'Reilly is a textbook propagandist. Amongst the key findings is that:
The study itemized seven propaganda devices as defined by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis:
Of course, O'Reilly didn't invent these tactics. They have been used before by governments, churches and corporations. The notorious American racist/anti-semite/nazi sympathizer, Father Charles Coughlin, served a bit of each of those masters. But O'Reilly has an unprecedented platform from which to spew his bile. And he is not merely a pundit expressing his opinions. He routinely calls on his disciples to act on his directives, whether they be boycotts, petitions, marches, or political activism and voting. It will be interesting to see how O'Reilly reacts to the IU report. If he bothers to react at all, it is fairly easy to predict that he will aim both barrels at the vile haters and smear merchants that dominate the ultra-liberal academia with their looney far-left agendas. Update: Well, I called that one right. O’Reilly has responded to the IU study with a Talking Points memo dripping in sarcasm. And while he continues to slam George Soros and Media Matters (who masterfully debunk his nonsense), he doesn’t make a single coherent argument to counter the conclusions of the research. He does, however, accuse the university of being in Soros’ pocket along with the rest of the left-wing cabal that he fears is aligned against him. |
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