As I’ve said before, I just fail to see why some of my conservative friends are so impressed by Bill O’Reilly (remember, this is a guy who interviewed Gene Simmons about the Kiss founder’s views on terrorism). And this bit seems to really show O’Reilly losing it,
Nearly everyday, there’s something written on the Internet about me that’s flat out untrue. And I’m not alone. Nearly every famous person in the country’s under siege.
Today’s example comes from Web sites that picked up a false report from The San Francisco Chronicle that said a San Francisco radio station dropped The Radio Factor. If anyone had bothered to make even one phone call, they would have learned that Westwood One made a deal with another San Francisco radio station, weeks ago to move The Radio Factor. Thus the word “dropped” is obviously inaccurate and dishonest. We’ll see if The Chronicle runs a correction, but you can bet you won’t be seeing many corrections on the net.
Okay, lets get this straight. A newspaper incorrectly reports on O’Reilly’s show. That newspaper story gets cited on the web. Aha, see — O’Reilly told us that Internet was evil and there’s the proof. What sort of insidious technology gives people the ability to quote newspapers? Hell, the next thing you know web sites will be citing television broadcasts and maybe even books.
Plus the error seems to be a relatively minor one for Bill to be upset about, except that he’s clearly a fame whore. O’Reilly wants us to feel pity for him and his fellow famous folks. Gee, Bill, why not get together with Barbara Streisand over coffee and kvetch about how difficult it is to be a celebrity these days.
And then it gets worse, with the article devolving into the “the Internet’s a bunch of child molesters” nonsense,
The child molestation people have now figured out a way to chat about their crimes without being charged with obscenity. And the Supreme Court actually helped these people by ruling that virtual child porn, computerized images of kids being raped, are legal, an extension of free speech.
Apparently O’Reilly hasn’t taken his gaze away from the mirror long enough to notice the numerous busts of the folks who use the Internet to facilitate child pornography. And, of course, he gives the usual O’Reilly spin to the Supreme Court decision on virtual child porn which was eminently sensible.
Moreover, (emphasis added)
So all over the country, we have people posting the most vile stuff imaginable, hiding behind high tech capabilities. Sometimes the violators are punished, but most are not. We have now have teenagers ruining the reputations of their peers in schools on the Internet. Ideologues accusing public officials of the worst things imaginable. And creeps gossiping about celebrities in the crudest of ways.
Ohmigod. Ideologues making accusations against public officials. Holy crap, somebody call out the National Guard and lets put a stop to that right this minute!
I guess the lesson is you can take O’Reilly out of the tabloid but you’ll never take the tabloid out of O’Reilly.
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