Bill O'Reilly

Overview

Bill O'Reilly is a commentator and the host of the Fox News program "The O'Reilly Factor". He was formerly a republican but now claims to be politically independent -- although he heavily favors the neoconservative agenda and generally attacks moderate viewpoints, which he terms "the radical left". He states that he is "against harmful, radical social changes and those causing them, i.e., the ACLU, activist judges, and secular humanists."

Conclusions

O'Reilly is a smooth, unprincipled demagogue, willing to take facts out of context and distort them in order to rally his viewership, which consists of the most lemminglike portion of the population (currently under the spell of the neoconservative movement) who are more interested in believing they are on the "winning" side, and in having that belief endlessly reinforced regardless of the truth.

Links

Reference

• Wikipedia

Video

• 2007-07-16 Bill O'Reilly smears Daily Kos and attacks JetBlue: The core of this piece was some quotes from the DKos web site which he believes to be hateful attacks on neoconservative icons and tropes:
  • "The world would be better off without him." -- on Tony Snow, after his cancer returned. -- Probably made off the cuff by a reader; see comments on Dick Cheney below.
  • "the Pope is a primate" -- completely accurate, in both the ecclesiastical and biological senses of the word "primate"; perhaps intended as an insult to the Pope (which it isn't), but more likely intended to irritate neoconservatives by reminding them of the existence of evolution.
  • "evangelicals are nutcases" -- well, they are... they believe impossible things, and are proud of it.
  • "Better luck next time." after an assassination plot against Dick Cheney in Afghanistan -- who among us hasn't felt that way, from time to time? Are there any real people around who still don't hate Dick Cheney, after everything he has done? People of honor who are willing to hold up their heads and openly defend their support for him, without resorting to rhetorical deception? I doubt it.
  • "some attacks against coalition forces in Iraq are legitimate" -- this is almost certainly taken out of context; the speaker's argument is certainly never actually mentioned, and it is assumed to be obviously wrong. O'Reilly is no doubt well aware that his audience will be happy to interpret the quote in support of their belief that "the Democrats/liberals want us to lose because they love terrorists", regardless of the absurdity of this often-repeated mantra.

Notes

• "Recently Bill O'Riely did a story on lesbian street gangs that were using guns and trying to force girls as young as ten to be lesbians. Everything in it was made up. Even the camera footage he used was actually recycled from an episode of Dr. Phil about the increase in violnce among teens. What was the fight actually about? One girl had stolen another's boyfriend. Doesn't sound very lesbian to me--how about you?" -- reader comment on Contrary Brin; BuzzFeed apparently has more on this...
  • 2007-06-27 O'Really, Bill? Pink Pistols Not a Gang: ironically, they are a United States organization supporting gun rights -- a conservative cause.
  • 2007-07-09 Fox News-er to Lesbian Gun Nuts: My Bad: apparently Bill himself did issue a fact correction on air, though that correction isn't quoted here. The "apology" of crime analyst Rod Wheeler is definitely a bit vague; he says he's not too proud to admit a mistake, urges those "personally offended" by the piece to accept his apology (for what? he never admitted making a mistake), and suggests that we move on to some real issues (implying that the offended parties are the ones harping on trivia, as if they had brought up the issue in the first place).
  • 2007-07-10 Fox News correspondent apologizes for errors about lesbian street gangs: more commentary