Are You Defaming Bill O'Reilly? I Swear To God That's Defamation. Yup, You're Defaming Him. [Oct 9, 2003]

(It's still me, Paul Fisher from Haypenny.com and What Would Kofi Annan Do?.)

Those of us lucky enough to catch yesterday's Fresh Air got to hear Terry Gross' hilarious and heartwarming interview with soft-boiled political commentator Bill O'Reilly. I'm not exactly sure what soft-boiled would mean in a context like this, but it sure as hell sounds like a dig to me.

O'Reilly actually brought Gross to laughter with his totally inappropriate tirade about how tough she was being on him. He claimed that it wasn't fair (ignoring, of course, that Gross never made promises of fairness - that's O'Reilly's department) that she keep reading quotes from magazines in newspapers to answer his patent misrepresentation of those quotations. It's really worth a listen. The part at the end where he storms out is incredible. It's radio history.

I have to admit that I'm not usually much of a Terry Gross fan. I find her to be typically under-researched (or should I say, poorly-researched: she once asked Tom Waits about the "godlessness" of his music), and maybe the incredible number of on-hand articles and quotations (so many that at one point she couldn't find one that she was looking for) is indicative of some desire on her part to trap or badger O'Reilly, but I have to commend her on a few points:

• When discussing some incident when O'Reilly accidentally claimed that Inside Edition had received a Peabody Award (he claims that he meant to say Pope Award, whatever the hell a Pope Award is), Gross resisted what I'm sure was the tremendous temptation to point out that Fresh Air, which O'Reilly had been treating as an unimportant show, is actually a Peabody Award-winning show.

• When O'Reilly was bullying her and asking her whether she was as hard on Al Franken when he appeared on the program, Gross did not make, as I would have, the following points:
  1. "If you're going to go around trying your damnedest to be a disagreeable, argumentative prick, then I'm going to call you on it, douchebag."

  2. "Have you ever heard of the parable of the vineyard? You like the Bible so much, check it:"

     Matthew 20:1-15. For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?

  3. "Answer the fucking question."

• When he started talking, she didn't punch him.

• And so on...

It's almost hard for me to write about it because I hate Bill O'Reilly so much. And it has surprisingly little to do with his politics - he's pro-choice, anti-death-penalty, pro-decriminalization-of-marijuana - but more to do with his complete disrespect for reasoned analysis or logic. Either that or his ass face.

No, no. I think it's the logic thing. And it wouldn't drive me so batty if it weren't for the fact that he claims to be such a "fair" and logical guy. I teach Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) classes to supplement the incredible income that I earn from blogging, and sometimes I tell my students that if they want more practice identifying logical flaws, that they should watch Bill O'Reilly's TV program. That guy couldn't take the LSAT if it came in an easy-to-swallow gelcap.

But here's the reversal: For all his terrible flaws, and for the fact that the sound of his voice drives me up a fucking wall, I actually got the sense from listening to him that he at the very least feels an incredible sense of duty, or patriotism, or something. There's something in him that's not all hogwash and denial and dishing-it-out-without-being-able-to-take-it. I just wish he'd stop using the word "defame" so often and so incorrectly.

Tomorrow's my last weekday here. Next week you'll have Chris Monks keeping things afloat. Until then, and even after then, feel free to email me, and make sure you visit Haypenny.com and What Would Kofi Annan Do?.

Also, don't forget to check Neal Pollack out when he comes to your town - particularly if your town is Ann Arbor: Haypenny's Matthew Tobey will be opening the reading at Shaman Drum and my band Havilland will be opening the rock show later on at The Blind Pig. That's all on October 15.

Until we meet again (tomorrow).