Spin This - The Trouble With Bill O'Reilly

Reason Magazine ^ | August 2002 | Cathy Young

[visagoth]

An interesting spin on the 'no spin zone'... posted for discussion and comment.

[TheOtherOne]

Sounds a lot like the O'Reilly show I watch.

[Puppage]

Consider a February discussion of the Supreme Court’s refusal to review a ban on the display of the Ten Commandments at the Indiana statehouse.

1 example....from February???? FEBRUARY? How many stories ago WAS THAT? Sounds like sour grapes to me.

[Don Corleone]

Contributing Editor Cathy Young is a columnist for The Boston Globe.

"Nuff Said!"

[gcruse]

"Where you stand depends on where you sit."

Drug warrior/gun grabbers/lifestyle police
won't believe anything that contradicts their
mindset and everything that supports it.
When you're right, you're still wrong with them.
O'Reilly is not immune.

[LibWhacker]

I like a lot of what O'Reilly has to say, but hate the other half. For instance, he's bought into the global-warming/evil-SUV nonsense with so much gusto you'd never know he wasn't a liberal.

[steve50]

He's a gun grabber and a shill for the neoconservatives. Used to like the show when klintoon was in office, since Bush got in he's useless.

[Gurn]

Sounds a lot like the O'Reilly show I watch.

Sounds more like the O'Reilly I can't watch. Lord, he's annoying. This column's right on the money.

What drives me up the wall -- so much that it's comical -- is the way he refers to himself in the third 'person'. "Frankly, Doctor, The Factor disagrees." It's even crept into his opening monologue, "The Talking Points Memo." "The Points thinks Vice President Cheney should come clean, and release his tax returns. And that's tonight's memo."

It's all about him. I mean, The Factor.

[Malcolm]

I don't agree with everything O'Reilly believes, but it sure is fun to see him assault those leftists who are used to "powder-puff" interviews on the networks. He had an AIDS proponent on the other night who thought the US was not doing enough about AIDS, ($2 billion a year, far more spent per person than on US cancer and heart disease, per Billy), and the idiot thought that by not emotionally reacting to BR's verbal challenges, he would win or break even on the interview. LOL, fat chance pinky! And although he has gotten some facts wrong, it's not like he weaves in and out of the truth as the ultraleft do on a minute to minute basis. He bludgeons his guests with the truth. After seeing Clinton and Co get by with everything but murder, and that with a pass from the liberal "watchdog" press, (ROTFLMAO!!!), it sho' is nice to see someone who will bite the nose of all these wackjob guests he brings on his show, just to hack them down to size. Dan Rather, please watch and take notes. As that car commercial said a while back, "this is what's next!!!"

[Jim Scott]

Actually, not a bad O'Reilly Factor review from the liberal Boston Globe.

Like many others, I generally like O'Reilly but I don't agree with him all the time (Global warming, death penalty, his skewed views on Christianity come to mind) but I understand his bombastic attitude and welcome it. He doesn't coddle guests and I like the way he states his position then asks the (usually opposed to him) guest: "Where am I wrong?" Imagine Chris Matthews doing that.

Sure, Bill blusters and gets stuff wrong but as a former Long Island guy I 'get' his in-your-face style and compared to other hosts, I like it, disagreements and all. Good TV and he's to the right on many issues, so much so that the liberals hate him - always a good sign. O'Reilly looks for government solutions too often and has a few dumb ideas but he's no dummy and his success is deserved.

He's a breath of fresh air in a stale wasteland of shouting talking heads and droning interviews where the subjects never get a pointed question - unless they're Republicans or Jerry Falwell. O'Reilly isn't successful because of his looks (as he'd be the first to admit) but because of his perceived honesty and skewing of pompous liberals. Works for me.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

"He is upfront about his biases"

I disagree. O'Reilly claims allegiance to no political party. But while some of his views stray from the Republican mainstream, there's no doubt that 99% of the time, he supports Republican politicians and policies.

I'm not complaining, but his "I'm totally independent and not an ideologue" shtick gets on my nerves.

[leadpenny]

I haven't watched O'Reilly for weeks. His constant interrupting is my biggest complaint. However, I just happen to tune in a few minutes ago and he made an absolute fool of Congresswomen Eddie Bernice Johnson (d-TX). She seemed to be too stupid to understand she had just been taken apart.

[browardchad]

O'Reilly's got a scatter-shot mentality, but he does manage to hit the bullseye on some issues.

He just had a black (racist) congresswoman on, and challenged her to tell him what the black caucus finds objectionable about Bush. She said the tax cuts were only for the rich, and he shot her down. She followed that with "Haiti" and he erupted in laughter. "That's a corrupt government, we can't do anything there." She proceded to Aids, and he responded that we could spend hundreds of billions, but "those people won't wear condoms, and nothing's going to change." Then, of course, there was the Florida election, to which he responded that major newspapers, such as the Miami Herald and USA Today, had found no discrimination against blacks in their investigation. She of course said that these were "white" newspapers and weren't speaking for blacks.

Finally, she latched onto global warming, and he agreed that "it's a problem."

Four out of five: typical, but better than the competition.

[clintonh8r]

Coulter on Factor NOW

[summer]

A wealthy graduate of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, O’Reilly positions himself as a champion of the common man

The above sentence is an interesting new description -- O'Reilly is also a former history teacher, who taught in Miami. And, most people are pretty quick to tlet you know that if you are a teacher, you are not much -- just a "common man."

[summer]

tlet = let

[old school]

Gimme Alan Keyes over O'Reilly any day! I was really quite stunned to hear that O'Reilly was a Harvard graduate! He's distinctly low-brow, and he would have you believe that he has the answer to everything. He's really full of sh*t! I stopped watching that guy long ago!

[LibWhacker]

Yep, I saw the AIDS interview. He did a real good job on that one.

[LibWhacker]

Coulter on Factor NOW

Oh, no, I missed it! I love Annie! Was O'Reilly ticked off because she said he wasn't a conservative?

[Consort]

O'Reilly tries to be fair, balanced, objective, neutral, non-partisan, etc.....I hate that.