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Sunday, June 18. 2006
Meet Dopey
Falafelmeister Bill O’Reilly
Just a short question on the ever-percolating Tomkat thing: Maybe it’s just my imagination, but hasn’t Katie Holmes been pregnant for about 18 months now? Maybe my imagination is exaggerating a little.
If you like to laugh at people, there’s a long list of programs – both television and radio – that will split your gut, but those programs will also get your blood boiling too and for a guy with two heart attacks under his belt (under the rib cage actually) that can be dangerous.
Take for instance Michael Savage. Here’s a public nuisance paid to annoy the public by uttering threats and slanderous rejectamenta. On his May 16, 2006 program, he called former President Jimmy Carter a “communist,” anti-American,” “Jew-hater,” and a “war criminal” because of Carter’s criticism of Israel’s policies in regards to the West Bank. Savage went on to compare Carter to Hitler.
Savage, what a name. He obviously picked it out himself in hopes people would believe he’s some tough guy scary enough to make Democrats cower in fear. His real name is Michael Alan Weiner. “Hey Weiner!” His classmates must have had fun with that when Weiner was growing up. It’s funny, you’d think such a tough-talking boy would have the courage of his convictions … but, like many of the politicians he promotes, Weiner (Savage) avoided military service during the Vietnam War.
Then there’s Rush Limbaugh. Most of the people I know like Limbaugh and think he’s an honest guy.
I live in ultra-conservative San Diego, a place where the voters elected a lobbyist over a school board member because the lobbyist talked tough on immigration and wants to build a fence/wall almost 2,000 miles long from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico to keep them brown people out of America.
Limbaugh is the dope fiend who gave us new words like “feminazi.” He’s also the one who made the practice of passing off stupid lies as fact acceptable radio (and now TV) fare. And swinish hypocrisy.
Example: “And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.”
"When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia (former guitarist for the Grateful Dead) destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he’s being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks.”
Unless it’s prescription drugs you’re abusing. Then it’s okay. No need to be accused, convicted and sent up.
But the clown with the most notoriety these days is Bill O’Reilly, with his “Factor” programs on that “Fair and Balanced” Fox TV and radio.
I get a chuckle just writing “fair and balanced” in the same sentence with Fox.
Apparently, in O’Reilly’s world, bloviating anything is good, informative TV or radio. He has, for instance, said the harpy-who-won’t-be-named was “right” with her hate-filled libel of the “Jersey Girls,” the four women who were instrumental in the creation of the “9/11” Commission.
He also said “No far right person in this country is going to get the cover of Time magazine as the Dixie Chicks are this week. There’s not a far right person in this country going to get on the cover of Time magazine. Not gonna happen.”
Well Bill, you’re oh so stupidly wrong:
February 27, 2006 featured the president and vice president.
January 16, 2006 featured Jack Abramoff
July 25, 2005 featured Karl Rove
April 25, 2005 the Harpy-who-won’t-be-named
December 27, 2004 President Bush
November 15, 2004 President Bush
September 6, 2004 President Bush
June 14, 2004 Former President Reagan
And that’s just the past two years.
But this is what got my goat recently. Several times now O’Reilly has claimed the viewers of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are “dopey college kids” who need to be “stoned” to watch his program.
His latest attack on Jon Stewart stemmed from a recent Daily Show segment in which Stewart lampooned O’Reilly after O’Reilly triumphantly returned from a brief visit to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba at the same time three Gitmo prisoners committed suicide. It was a pretty funny segment. People were speculating as to why the three prisoners ended their lives, the two most popular theories being A) it was a political statement, or B) They lost the will to live. Stewart had a possible third theory: They committed suicide because Bill O’Reilly had visited.
can you imagine: you’re held prisoner, without the rights prisoners enjoy when held in civilian U.S. facilities, without the rights guaranteed under the Geneva Convention; no visitors except the interrogators and – if you’re lucky – an attorney, and the only visitor you’re allowed outside of that is Bill O’Reilly. If my life was reduced to having only Bill O’Reilly as a visitor, suicide seems almost acceptable.
In a survey done by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the National Annenberg Election Survey, it was noted that viewers of The Daily Show “are more likely to know the issue positions and backgrounds of presidential candidates than people who do not watch late-night comedy.”
Geez Bill, that means Comedy Central’s young viewers are smarter and better informed than your geriatric viewership. O’Reilly, though, has proven he’s not one to let reality and the facts get in the way of an entertaining TV or radio program.
Unfortunately, the Annenberg survey didn’t address the question of whether or not Daily Show viewers were stoned. That would have accurately described me in the beginning of my college years, but not in the last two years when I didn’t drink or use illicit drugs. So, maybe we give O’Reilly that one, but we really haven’t seen any evidence to support his claim.
For my fun look at news I’ll stick with Comedy Central and the one brief hour we get to watch Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, secure in the knowledge that as a Daily Show aficionado I am one of the better informed voters in America.
Bill O’Reilly, I was about to write “Shut up!” but remembered, without the Big Red Face, we would lose half the stupidity that makes commentary on the Daily Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann so entertaining.
A short aknowledgment: Thanks to Media Matters for America for all the research they conduct. It really is a great assistance for those of us who can’t afford research interns. Heck, at the very least you have to spring for the interns’ coffee.
And a Final Note: Happy Fathers Day to all the dads of the world.
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