O'Reilly Ain't So Smart

O’Reilly Ain’t so Smart

For me, reading Bill O’Reilly’s weekly column is somewhat like coming across a horrendous accident while driving on the highway. Deep down I know it’s wrong to slow down and survey the damage, but I do so anyway. As for O’Reilly’s writings, the intellectual disasters created by his obvious bias and shallow analysis of any topic always leave me bewildered and angry, and yet I just can’t say no!

Today O’Reilly targeted one of his favorite liberal punching-bags: actress and talk show host Rosie O’ Donnell. In particular, O’Reilly was crowing about O’Donnell’s upcoming departure from The View, which he attributed to advertisers’ belated pressures on the network to sever O’Donnell in light of her alleged history of intemperate on-air remarks.

Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of O’Donnell’s work (save for her appearance in “The Flintstones” movie). But what really galled me about O’Reilly’s column was how he used O’Donnell’s impending departure as more “evidence” of an alleged double standard in the so-called “liberal media.” Why, O’Reilly fumed, did Imus’ recent comments about the Rutgers University Women’s basketball team spark a firestorm of controversy and his precipitous firing, while O’Donnell’s comments about Donald Trump barely registered with the mainstream media? Or so O’Reilly claims.

Since O’Reilly seems a bit simple-minded, let me try and help him out. Let me attempt to explain why it’s patently unfair to compare the Imus case with O’Donnell’s.

First, O’Donnell did not call Trump a “nappy-headed ho.” Imus’ comment was unwarranted and reprehensible, especially for its blatant racism and sexism. Rosie O’Donnell initiated her feud with Donald Trump in late December 2006 by asserting that the messily divorced and re-married Trump was not the best spokesperson for morality in America (after Trump’s defense of the reigning Miss America who faced allegations of drug and alcohol abuse). Rude, perhaps, but not entirely unfair.

More importantly, there’s the issue of what I’d like to call “competitive advantage.” Both O’Donnell and Trump are established, wealthy, influential persons in their own right, with ready access to the media as a venue through which to feud. That was decidedly NOT the case when Imus launched his tirade against the young women from Rutgers. When he criticized the athletes, Imus was a veritable institution in talk radio, a highly regarded 1989 inductee into the Radio Hall of Fame with tens of thousands of fans. What comparable venue did the Rutgers women have, at least until the media picked up their story and ran with it? Frankly, Imus probably thought he was picking on another soft target that wouldn’t, and likely couldn’t, fight back in kind.

Wouldn’t it be nice if O’Reilly showed some intellectual rigor and stopped comparing apples to oranges?

Peace!
Historian