More Enlightening Dialogue from the O’Reilly Factor
Here’s an insightful, erudite conversation between Bill O’Reilly and former NBC News correspondent Jackson Bain:
O’REILLY: All right, well, listen, Jackson, we respect your opinion, but you’re dead wrong on this one. Now.
BAIN: Well, maybe.
O’REILLY: In the South, Richmond Times, for example.
BAIN: Right.
O’REILLY: Now this is a conservative city, Richmond. I mean, this is not Madison, Wisconsin, where you expect those people to be communing with Satan up there in the Madison, Wisconsin media.
BAIN: Sure.
A couple of things here.
First of all, I simply cannot believe that when O’Reilly accused people in Madison of worshipping the devil, the only thing Bain said in response was, “Sure.” Ladies and gentlemen, this is why we have been losing the national dialogue to these fucking nutbags- because we don’t challenge them when they accuse us of fucking communing with Satan. It may seem like a relatively obvious point, but it’s been lost on a lot of our supposed liberal media bretheren.
Second, what the fuck. If I had my own television show, do you think I could get away with calling people in Richmond a bunch of sub-retarded hicks, the same way O’Reilly accused Madisonians of being Satanists? How the hell did we get to the point when moron right-wing blowhards can go unchallenged when they accuse entire communities of worshipping the devil?
Moving on…
O’REILLY: All right, but not in Richmond. Richmond. “Bill O’Reilly: Christmas lies Under Siege. Unless defended, it could even disappear.” That’s a lie and they know it’s a lie.
BAIN: You know.
O’REILLY: And then they go, “Christmas vacation as winter break is in no way demeaning to Christmas.” Come on.
BAIN: Bill, try this. The Richmond Times Dispatch is a great newspaper, but it also is one of those that is, in fact, I mean has a great editorial board. They’re people who really are trying to define their community.
Seriously, what the shit is this? O’Reilly is lobbing softballs around and Bain is still flailing and missing. O’Reilly asserts that it’s “a lie” to say that referring to “Christmas vacation as winter break is in no way demeaning to Christmas.” The proper response to this is, “What the hell are you talking about, Bill? It’s a break that occurs over the winter. Ergo, it’s a goddamn winter break. Get back on your meds, cobag.”
But instead, Bain goes into this wimpy-assed defense of the Times-Dispatch editors, telling O’Reilly that they’re really not a bunch of Satan worshippers like those homos in Madison. I honestly don’t know how we expect to win debates with these people if we’re not willing to fight fire with fire and shove their words right back in their faces. It’s really the only way we’ll ever be able to shut them up. By trying to be polite, we’re just look weak and evasive. I sometimes think Jon Stewart is the only liberal on television who has any actual balls.
On a related note, Crooks and Liars points us to this letter sent to Jim Romensko by former FOX News producer Charlie Reina:
It?s no surprise, of course, that this phony call to arms, this ?Christmas (ergo, Christians) Under Attack? hysteria, emanates from the bowels of Fox News Channel. The network is, after all, ground zero in the culture wars that polarize so much of America these days. Make no mistake about it: Fox is on a mission. Its slogans say, ?Fair and Balanced? and ?We Report, You Decide.? But in the six years that I worked there, what I heard most from Fox management were mission statements ? about turning things around, taking news back from the liberals, and giving ?middle America? a voice long denied it by the ?east coast media elite.? In other words, using its news report to bring about change — in the media and, ultimately, in the direction of American culture.
Y’know, I lived in Ohio for four years. And even though the political culture out there was a lot more conservative than in Massachusetts, I found that very few people in the Midwest were actual fundamentalist loons like John Gibson and Sean Hannity. So when FOX News says that it “speaks for people in middle America,” I have to cry “bullshit.” And yet, there’s a real anger and resentment there that FOX News taps into.
My question is, how do we fix this? There must be a way we can communicate with people in the Midwest and South and make it clear to them that we Northeastern liberals aren’t sitting around scheming of ways to destroy Christmas. (And just to be clear, I’m talking about communicating with ordinary people here, not lunatic fundamentalists like James Dobson.)
UPDATE: Via David Neiwert, we learn that Chris Mooney has written a review of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, the latest piece of wingnut trash published by Regnery Press:
Overall, then, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science is a very saddening and depressing read. While they have undoubtedly made mistakes, and certainly nourish individual biases just like all the rest of us, scientists in universities and in government have generally worked very hard and have–thanks to the scientific process–come up with a great deal of important and relevant knowledge. But along comes someone like Bethell and, in a book that’s likely to be read by a lot of people, radically distorts and undermines their conclusions and findings, while whipping up resentment of the scientific community among rank-and-file political conservatives. That Bethell is finding such a ready audience underscores the severe threat to the role of science in modern American life and, most importantly, in political decision-making.
Once again, I’d like to know why this sort of phony right-wing populism has such a significant audience in the first place. The story that they’re selling people is that America is being ruined by a secret cabal of scientists, intellectuals and popular entertainers (OK, so I kinda agree with them about the entertainment industry, but that’s another story). Why is this shit so effective, and what can be done to combat it?
wow, did O’reily think he was being funny when he said that?
O’Reilly’s “humor” is pretty frightening. A coupla weeks ago, he “jokingly” encouraged terrorists to blow up San Francisco.
There must be a way we can communicate with people in the Midwest and South
How about we invite them to one of our satanic communions?
What I don’t get is why do we have to be the ones to win back midwesterners? Or maybe Wisconsin’s moved since I last checked a map?
What I don’t get is why do we have to be the ones to win back midwesterners? Or maybe Wisconsin’s moved since I last checked a map?
Well, like I said, there are plenty of people in the Midwest who agree with the left on a lotta issues, but they think we’re all a bunch of snooty, condescending atheist punks from the Northeast. And to be fair, they’re totally right in my case.
Personally, I think this bit sums the problem up perfectly:
If you only invite people on to represent opposing viewpoints who can’t even hit a softball like that, you’re guaranteed to look like an ace pitcher.
I know. If you invite milquetoast Alan Colmes types onto your program, that’s how you make yourself look tough.
Geographically speaking: EAT SHIT! Yup, all us stoopid midwesterners broadcast O’Reilly’s head-up-the-ass rhetoric to y’all elightened types on the coasts.
Dude, you can’t deny that they’re trying to play to people in the Heartland. They say so themselves. The question I have is, why has it been successful (and like I said, I know that most people in the Midwest aren’t fucking crazy. But let’s face it, that’s still the target audience.)
DUH, They know the swing vote moderates are in the midwestern states, they think we’re all idiots, but we ain’t.
Well I don’t think it’s about being “idiots.” I think there’s a real anger that FOX is able to tap into. My grandmother lives in Georgia. She’s a decent woman, but she just eats FOX News right up. I’m just wondering why it, and right-wing populism in general, have been so successful.
Because it plays on people’s fears and insecurities, creates an agenda and then only presents one side of it. Someone recently made a comment about egotism and paranoia being very closely linked, if you’re susceptible to either condition you’re easily manipulated. I also think that public perception is key when outlets such as FOX present an issue. It doesn’t matter what the truth is as long as it is the majority view (from their viewpoint, and the point of the government).
Um, when I spent a weekend in Madison, all they seemed to worship cheese curds and the Packers.
all they seemed to worship *was* cheese curds and the Packers.
Not that I blame them, mind you. Cheese curds kick ass.
They pander to fear, self-righteous indignation, greed, and yes, little old ladies who go down to vote in droves. This country is hopeless, utterly hopeless. We are doomed and dying. Help! Help! Abandon all hope. It’s the easier that way.
When has right wing populism not been popular in this country? That’s not even a flip, rhetorical question. We had a brief window – say, from just before FDR through the sixties – when liberals and hardcore lefties made a popular front to push back against that crap, but other than that, this country has been a haven of wingnuttery and pasty-faced appeasement.
It sure seems to be getting worse lately, but it’s a matter of degree. Maybe we’re just getting back to our roots.
It’s too damned cold up here in Madison for communing with Satan. We have a foot of snow on the ground and that makes pits of sulfur hard to keep lit, for God’s sake. Anyway, we’re way too busy with our War on Christmas; we’ve got to fight Santa up here so you guys in temperate climates won’t have to fight him down there.
My guess? Something in the water.
In the FOX News building.
Why? Simple: Bain would not be allowed onto Faux News to play the token “defender of liberalism” if he wasn’t willing to roll over and play dead like that. Anything else receives “Shut up!”, a cut mike, and a refusal to ever allow them in the studio again.
The only was to end this crap is to offer more compelling content to directly compete with it as TV “news”. It’s going to take someone with deep pockets like Murdoch has, and a willingness to take them to the mat. Until then we’ll have to kick their butts with only Jon Stewart.
Something similar takes place on “talk” radio, and AAR and Howard Stern are only now beginning to make inroads.
Man, I’ve been bugging O’reilly to let me on his show for 2 years.
I no expert debater, but whenever i’m at my buddies house (the one with the sat. dish) i get to see o’reilley, and he’s a fucking moron. he’s just a bully that yells because it tends to cow people. Me or anyone else on this blog would kick his in a debate.
“kick his *ass* in a debate i meant to type.
Anyway, we’re way too busy with our War on Christmas; we’ve got to fight Santa up here so you guys in temperate climates won’t have to fight him down there.
I hear Santa’s been having aluminum tubes shipped up to the North Pole lately. Oh, sure, he says they’re for making bicycles for the kiddies, but I have it on good authority from a certain Martian intelligence agency that those tubes can be used in refining reindeer dung into the components necessary for a “dirty bomb”.
I never trusted the fucker, anyway. “Jolly” is just a bit too close to “gay” for my taste.
Carry on the good fight, soldier!
D. Sidhe –
Funny you should mention that… wasn’t there a story a while back about pesticides being used in the FOX News bathrooms?
I simply cannot believe that when O’Reilly accused people in Madison of worshipping the devil, the only thing Bain said in response was, “Sure.”
Well, they do have that big [gasp] university up there. Who the hell knows what those liberal elitist intellectuals are up to?
The secret of Faux’s success? Simple, really: lie, rinse, repeat. One way to strike back at them would be for any left-of-center pol or pundit to refuse to appear on any of their crapfest programs. Never happen, though, as long as we have a few Joementum/Biden-my-time-’til-’08 types stinking up the Democratic Party. Whores.
Well, I’m a university professor in a science field, and I must say it’s high time someone blew the lid off of this so-called “science” stuff we do. It’s always “observation” this and “reproducable results” that. There’s no room for an honest difference of opinion! Everybody in my field believes the earth is a sphere, and no one wants to publish anything I write about it being flat. It’s censorship, I tell ya! I’m getting pretty sick of the Black Masses too, since I am the most junior member of the faculty, and it’s always my blood that’s used as an offering to our Dark Master.
If you don’t like science, stop using all our stuff.
“we don’t challenge them when they accuse us of fucking communing with Satan.”
I don’t know, man, you ever been to Mad-town?
I recommend we take up donations to buy all the Satanists in Madison some T-shirts.
Um, when I spent a weekend in Madison, all they seemed to worship cheese curds and the Packers.
Hmm… Brett Favre is Satan?
Gee, it couldn’t have anything to do with antisemitism, could it?
The source of the Right’s war on science is easy to see. Science is a fancified form of rationalism, more or less. Rational people are hella difficult to manipulate – things like “War on Christmas!” set off their bullshit detectors.
Hence, endless appeals to irrationalism, whether it be the fear of the icky gays or the promotion of Intelligent Design.
People who will believe one stupid thing are far more likely to believe *any* stupid thing.
Science RAWKS.
communing with Satan
All this time I thought that they were Santaists!
All hail our dark master, the Claus!
All I can tell you about Madison is that those of us in Milwaukee are happy there’s a hundred miles of God-fearing rural folk between us and their Satan-worshipping hippie university students.
Goose, what about UWM? The demons are next door to YOU! I think I heard somewhere that Wisconsin is the Ojibwe word for “communing with Satan”. It ain’t just Madison!