Will these people never learn?

So soon after Joan Walsh’s education about the purposeful abuse that is doled out to guests of Bill O’Reilly, Barney Frank is now scheduled to appear later today.

What could he possibly hope to achieve? There is simply no point to submitting oneself to a dishonest and sensationalistic pundit with psychotic tendencies.

You can’t win if your opponent is intent on humiliating you, and he has complete control of the environment – the audio, the visual, the editing, and any access to supporting material that he can display for the audience, but you can’t see or respond to in kind.

You can’t win if your opponent is unethical, and has no misgivings about lying or raising tangential issues with the goal of catching you off-guard and making you appear foolish.

You can’t win if your opponent’s strategy is to yell louder than you, and to goad you into a shouting match that makes you look insane, but doesn’t impact him negatively because it is just a part of his persona that his audience loves, and upon which he trades.

The only thing that can explain why people like Frank would lend O’Reilly their credibility is that they have egos so large that they believe that they can overcome a fixed fight and come out on top. They can’t! It has nothing to do with their ability or intelligence. It’s just an unfair forum.

What’s more, they are only validating O’Reilly and Fox News and, like lambs to slaughter, they permit him to boast about another victory which he will hype for weeks. He is still cashing in on Frank’s last embarrassing performance.

After her ill-advised appearance, Joan Walsh wrote that she, “was sandbagged, but that’s the O’Reilly game plan.” It is about time that these people recognize that there is nothing to gain by accommodating O’Reilly and Fox News. Even in the unlikely event that you achieve some relative success, you still come away empty handed because the audience couldn’t care less about you or your positions.

Stop it already. Now I’m going to have to follow this up tomorrow with a column about how miserable Frank was made to look. Would you people just Stay the HELL off of Fox News!

[Followup] As I expected, the interview was a complete waste of time. While it didn’t devolve into a verbal mosh pit as the last episode did, it was nonetheless pointless because O’Reilly’s audience isn’t going to be persuaded by anything that Frank says.

One notable exchange occurred wherein O’Reilly revealed the true nature of his programming philosophy:

Frank: Can we have a rational discussion without interruptions?
O’Reilly: No, no, there’s always going to be interruptions. You’ve seen the program.
Frank: No. I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that. This is more complicated than your yelling would make it look like.

At least O’Reilly is honest about his blatant trivialization and sensationalism of the issues he pretends to discuss. Frank seems to be aware of O’Reilly’s strategy, but still subjects himself to it. That is collaboration, as far as I’m concerned. It only helps O’Reilly and the effort to dumb down public discourse.