Day: 2/20/2008

Bill O’Reilly’s Lynching Party

Posted by on February 20, 2008 at 9:57 pm. NO Comments :

In what seemed to begin as a defense of Michelle Obama, Bill O’Reilly still manages to stick his foot in his fat racist mouth.

O'Reilly Lynching Party

A caller to his radio program started to offer some uncorroborated gossip about Ms. Obama’s personality. O’Reilly stopped her, saying that whatever she was about to say was unfair because it had not been checked out by, I suppose, him. He proceeded to detail the precise circumstances under which it would be acceptable to spread uncorroborated gossip. Then he let loose with this:

“I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that’s how she really feels — that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever — then that’s legit. We’ll track it down.”

How is this not worse than what David Shuster said? O’Reilly is saying flatly that he wants to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama if he is satisfied with some vague notion of evidence of something or other. Of course, I don’t believe for a moment that he’s in his Long Island garage practicing tying nooses, but this comment is so repulsively insensitive that there is just no justification for it.

Will he be reprimanded by Fox News? Will he be suspended? Will Fox News even report on the remarks? I’m not holding my breath.

Update: O’Reilly smirked through a pseudo-apology last night. As usual, it was not an expression of regret for despicable remarks, but an excuse to placate those who were offended, as if it were their fault for being too sensitive.

Bill O’Reilly Brings His Freak Show To Los Angeles

Posted by on February 20, 2008 at 2:36 pm. 2 Comments :

O'Reilly Fear FactorBill O’Reilly is broadcasting his “O’Reilly Fester” from Los Angeles all this week. We don’t particularly want him, but hey, it’s a free country – despite O’Reilly’s best efforts to promote authoritarian rule via his bullying brand of demagoguery.

The question I have is, “Why is he here?” Seeing as Billo is unlikely to return my calls, and I don’t have a producer like Stuttering Jesse Watters to ambush him at his hotel, I’m left with speculation.

One possibility is that the Academy Awards are being broadcast this Sunday. O’Reilly, well known narcissistic attention whore that he is, may want to rub shoulders with the celebrities he is so fond of bashing. It would not be the first time he has attempted to skim off some glory from those he routinely disparages. Two years ago, at the height of the Dixie Chicks controversy, he tried to shmooze Natalie Maines at a Time, Inc. party. She smacked that down in short order, but the same parasitic tendencies may have brought O’Reilly to Hollywood this week.

Newshounds theorizes that O’Reilly may have come to attend the winter retreat of the Republican National Committee at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. This $15,000 (minimum) per head affair featured appearances by Party big wigs including Karl Rove.

It should also be noted that we are in the middle of Nielsen’s February sweeps, one of the most important ratings periods of the year. O’Reilly may be hoping to goose his program’s performance by glitzing it up with Tinseltown glamour. Of course, the Oscars and the RepubliFest could both contribute on this measure.

But if the foregoing isn’t enough to hype the Nein-Spinster, it appears he is planning another event that can only be described as deliberately provocative and profoundly insensitive. O’Reilly is scheduled to appear at the Brentwood Theater on the grounds of the West LA Veteran’s Administration. That’s right – the Veteran’s Administration. The federal agency responsible for, amongst other things, programs to assist veterans who are homeless due to finances, emotional or physical disability, substance abuse, or other hardships. The agency that reports that there are a couple hundred thousand such veterans who are homeless. Now O’Reilly actually has the gall to show up at a facility whose purpose is to aid people who O’Reilly is on record as saying do not exist.

If anyone is in the Brentwood vicinity tomorrow, you might want to visit the VA and give Mr. O’Reilly the welcome he deserves. I wish there were more time to organize a proper reception, but a spontaneous turnout of some patriotic Americans (and hopefully some vets) to let O’Reilly know how we feel would be great. Here is the information:

Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008 – 7:00pm (get there early)
The Brentwood Theater.
West LA Veteran’s Administration
11301 Wilshire Blvd
Brentwood, CA 90049
Tel: (310)479-3003

Pundit Population Explosion?

Posted by on February 20, 2008 at 2:03 am. NO Comments :

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post penned a column today that looks at what he describes as an overpopulation of political pundits on television:

“With the cable news networks ramping up wall-to-wall political coverage, the demand for people to analyze, comment upon and speculate wildly about the presidential race has expanded accordingly. The nation’s economy might be coughing and wheezing, but there is no shortage of employment opportunities in Punditland.”

I have to wonder what cave Farhi just crawled out of. The TV pundit infestation has been festering for years on the cable nets. Like cockroaches that have evolved to be pesticide-resistant, these blunder-tolerant vermin proliferate and endure. A year ago, I wrote in The Pep Squad about…

“…the clubby environment that embraces the fraternity of professional opiners. Amongst the benefits of membership in the PEP Squad (Perpetually Erroneous Pundits) is that, no matter how much you screw up, you never lose your seat at the table. Commentators who have been wrong for a half dozen years or more, are consistently invited back to deliver more of their bad advice.”

Farhi seems to be misinterpreting the problem entirely. The recruiting fest that he suggests is simply not happening. In his article he rattles off a list of pundits as affirmation of his thesis, but his own list proves the opposite. Take a look at some of the names on the list.

On MSNBC: Gene Robinson, Pat Buchanan, Tucker Carlson, Chuck Todd, Howard Fineman, and Richard Wolffe.

On CNN: Bill Bennett, Paul Begala, Carl Bernstein, Donna Brazile, Gloria Borger, David Gergen, Jeffrey Toobin.

On Fox News: Eleanor Clift, Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, Michael Barone, Dick Morris, William Kristol, Juan Williams, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove.

That is not exactly the roster of a new generation of commentators. To the contrary, it is the same old team of hackneyed veterans that have been pawning off their specious viewpoints for years. I’m not sure which of those old-timers Farhi thinks have just fallen off the TV news van. Perhaps the flaw in his analysis is that these well-worn faces, while not part of a hiring boom, are being given more time to misinform viewers. The result is the opposite of a population explosion. In fact, the senior denizens of cable news are squeezing out newer, fresher voices by consuming all the broadcast oxygen.

While the nation is in the mood for change, with both Democratic and Republican candidates battling for the crown, it is high time for the media embrace the concept. The public approval of the press is nearly as low as that of the president, and we’re getting rid of him. So as we prepare to introduce some new faces to Washington, we would do well to swap out some of the hacks who are still pontificating on TV.