Stupid Guest Choice

  •  February 25, 2005

What the…

David Duke On Bill O'Reilly

From Fox News:

Tonight … “The O’Reilly Factor” is on from Los Angeles!
Is the mainstream media treating the Ward Churchill situation differently than similar situations in recent history? How did they handle controversial remarks by former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke, for example? Was he vilified more than Churchill has been by the press? And just what does David Duke himself have to say about the Churchill situation? We’ll find out when we talk to him from Moscow, Russia, this evening.

Why do we care what David Duke thinks about anything again? And why exactly is Bill O’Reilly giving air time to an ignorant racist?
It seems to me that there are better ways to grant perspective to the Churchill situation without putting David Duke on the air.
(via Pandragon)

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  • http://limeshurbet.com/ Robert

    It would appear arrogant bully is preferred over liberals and a man named Jeff Gannon:

    FNC O’REILLY 2,181,000 [VIEWERS]
    FNC HANNITY/COLMES 1,622,000
    FNC SHEP SMITH 1,386,000
    FNC BRIT HUME 1,318,000
    FNC GRETA 1,307,000
    CNN LARRY KING 1,004,000
    CNN ZAHN 673,000
    CNN AARON BROWN 551,000
    CNN COOPER 524,000
    MSNBC HARDBALL 388,000
    CNN DOBBS 379,000
    CNNHN NANCY GRACE 366,000
    MSNBC SCARBOROUGH 240,000
    MNSBC OLBERMANN/GANNON 208,000

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/ likwidshoe

    Gary Gunnels said, “Anyway, frankly I find that reading about a subject is a far better use of my time than watching a couple of talking heads go at it over the issue.”

    Then what are you doing here?

  • Toto

    Gary,

    Yes. And I’m sure that percentage was even higher prior to our general disagreement regarding the invasion of Iraq.
    My wife and I were in France on 9/11 (my wife was having a broken-leg cast removed in a French hospital before our return to the U.S.) . Never had I witnessed such widespread expressions of sympathy for and solidarity with the U.S. and our people. Wherever you went, you saw American flags being draped from balconies, flown on cars, displayed on storefronts and on T-shirts. When they heard there were Americans awaiting treatment in their hospital, doctors and patients came over to greet us, some with tears in their eyes. They even escorted my wife to the head of the line so she could be treated ahead of the others. The French people indeed have an unshakeable liking for the American people, even in the face of the anti-French rhetoric they see coming from some circles and the media in our country.

  • Jadegold

    I cringe when I see Americans attacking Europeans; they may as well tattoo “I am an ignorant yahoo” on their foreheads.

    Perhaps the biggest blunder of AWOL George’s many big blunders was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Certainly all of Europe and Asia and not a few Muslim nations were on our side and prepared to fight terrorism together. Instead, AWOL George squandered this great opportunity in favor of what one author notes was “to pursue policies which divided the West, further alienated the Muslim world, and exposed America itself to greatly increased danger.”

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17750

  • Gary Gunnels

    I have to ask, why do people watch these demagogues in the first place (and here I am referring to Duke, O’Reilly and Churchill)?

  • http://blog.xtremeramblings.us/ Brandon

    I guess it takes one ignorant hate-mongerer to know another ignornant hate-mongerer.

  • http://limeshurbet.com/ Robert

    Or to defend one…

  • http://limeshurbet.com/ Robert

    I saw it. I thought the exact same thing until I watched it – all O'Reilly ended up doing was shouting Duke down and, more-or-less, asking why anyone would listen to him (a racist) and Churchill(well, whatever the hell he is).

    After thinking about it for a bit, I came to the conclusion that O'Reilly likely invited Duke on to defend Churchill so he could make Churchill look even more uncredible.

    I mean, what better way to ostracize Ward Churchill in the eyes of your audience than by having him be defended by a high-profile racist.

  • http://slarrow.blogspot.com/ slarrow

    Ye gods, what part of "marginalize racists" is so @!%@# hard to understand?

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    I don't watch O'Reilly, but I can see his appeal to some. He certainly puts on a entertaining show, though he is pretty arrogant most of the time and seldom allows any meaningful discussion on his show.

  • Gary Gunnels

    Rob,

    I suppose so. I remember that when I used to watch Crossfire back in the 1980s that it would frustrate me to no end. It was all heat without very much light. So I can't imagine how O'Reilly's show would annoy me.*

    *I've never actually watched it. I have read transcripts of the show from time to time and I can say without a doubt that O'Reilly generally bully's his guests and has a difficult time forming logical arguments.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/ likwidshoe

    Gary Gunnels said, "I have to ask, why do people watch these demagogues in the first place…"

    Demagogue: an orator who appeals to the passions and prejudices of his audience

    That answer your question?

  • http://txfx.net/ Mark

    O'Reilly has changed. He used to be better, but honestly I think his ego has gotten the better of him. He simply will NOT back down once he has stated an opinion. He'll hold on to that opinion ad absurdum. And when he's called on it, he bullies. I've pretty much lost all my respect for him.

  • Gary Gunnels

    Anyway, frankly I find that reading about a subject is a far better use of my time than watching a couple of talking heads go at it over the issue.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    Anyway, frankly I find that reading about a subject is a far better use of my time than watching a couple of talking heads go at it over the issue.

    I have reached that same conclusion. In fact, I don't watch much TV period. We watch movies and such, and I watch baseball/football on the tube and the occasional show, but I seldom watch television news programs.

  • Gary Gunnels

    likwidshoe,

    Because this isn't an instance where a couple of talking heads are going at it over an issue obviously. :)

  • blistered fingers

    The people I know that seem to worship O'Reilly behave as if they belong to a of club. The hurray-for-our-team mentality must be both exciting and reassuring to them. It's this irrational identification I find the most disturbing. And look. There are 2.2 million of them….that's a pretty big team.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/ likwidshoe

    It’s this irrational identification I find the most disturbing. And look. There are 2.2 million of them….that’s a pretty big team.

    So you believe that all of O'Reilly's viewers "worship" him? Wow…pretty irrational conclusion!

  • Toto

    Bill O'Reilly is a phony. His ratings will certainly start tapering off as people get wise to him. Example of his baloney (from his show):

    O'REILLY: "You know, The Wall Street Journal has an article today about the attacks against FOX News, and they said well, Bill O'Reilly's nightly program only gets two million viewers. That's a lie. That's just not true. We get about five million viewers inside the United States, every night."

    How could anybody trust whatever the guy says?

    He'll also ask his guests do-you-still-beat-your-grandmother questions like "Why do the French hate us?" hoping his viewers will regard his question as establishing the fact that the French people don't like us and are thus deserving of "our" (his/GOP) hate.

    Has anybody checked the prime time shows competing with The Factor, which might explain why his ratings are so high?

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    His ratings will certainly start tapering off as people get wise to him. Example of his baloney

    I'm no fan of O'Reilly, but his ratings certainly seem to have stood the test of time thus far.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    You're partially right, Jadegold, but I wouldn't say that the "WWF mentality" only exists on Fox.

  • Jadegold

    I dunno, Rob. Fox certainly pioneered it and is the undisputed master of the genre. To the extent other cable outlets do it appears to be an attempt to copy Fox's success.

  • Jadegold

    Folks like O'Reilly will always do well on cable networks; the rightwing doesn't want news or reasoned discourse about policy and issues–they want spectacle. They want pro wresting.

    And O'Reilly gives them that. O'Reilly gets some lefty guest on and them proceeds to shout him/her down, cut off his/her microphone, and then proclaim he has destroyed all the guest's arguments.

    It's the WWF.

  • Gary Gunnels

    Lester,

    As I recall, a poll did about a month ago found that 56% of the population of France had a positive view of Americans. That was just 2% below Australia.

    People continually confuse dislike of the Bush administration with dislike of the U.S. Heck, I dislike the Bush administration, but I don't confuse his administration with the U.S.; most people in the rest of the world are smart enough to make the same distinction.

  • Gary Gunnels

    Jadegold,

    Fox didn't pioneer it. Writers have been complaining about this sort of activity since the time of the ancient Greeks.

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