Thursday, May 31, 2007

Fox Body Count

And another thing, Bill, those estimates by our government on the number of civilian casualties in Iraq - they're bogus. According to Newsweek and numerous other sources, ONLY those casualties that involve U.S. troops are counted as part of the carnage. All the rest of the violence (which probably adds up to about 80% of it, mind you) doesn't even make it on the radar screen. So, yeah, the number that Rosie O'Donnell (who, yeah, I pretty much agree with you is an idiot) came up with may in fact have some validity to it. Some validity, I'm saying, in that, certainly, the accurate number is somewhere between the 60,000 and 600,000 figures, dishonesty in the fabric of both extremes.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Hyperbolic Analogy, Take 1,000

In one of O'Reilly's most recent analogies, he actually makes a comparison between the South, during the days of Jim Crow, and modern-day Vermont - according to him a bastion of degenerate child molesters and their protectorate. Just as the southern states, he says, turned inward and resisted the change that the rest of the country (i.e., the more enlightened states) promoted, so, too, is Vermont resisting his pleas for more draconian forms of justice leveled against child molesters. An enlightened "us" against an archaic "them", in other words...........I mean, don't get me wrong here. A lot of the cases O'Reilly cites probably ARE injustices (this, though, please, keep in mind here that I, like O'Reilly, am not an expert on the law and don't necessarily know all the details of the cases). All I'm saying is that you cannot conceivably compare an essentially enlightened state that, granted, has made some isolated mistakes in it's judicial system to a time and place in our society when an entire race of human beings was being subjugated on a disgustedly massive scale. I mean, not only is that insulting to black people (never mind, to the citizens of Vermont) but it is an absolutely devoid-of-logic argument, as well. This, I'm saying, in that how can you conceivably make a comparison between the 2 situations - other than from a state of paranoia/ cut-and-dry mental status?........Bill O'Reilly, ladies and gentlemen!!!

Monday, May 21, 2007

Hannity's Romance Continued

Oh, and, yeah, Hannity forgot to mention how Reagan got the hell OUT of Lebanon - you know, back when THAT situation started to deteriorate. Of course, the very fact that he did so, should that not have entailed an analogy unacceptable to Mr. Hannity - a Republican president emboldening the terrorists, "cutting and running", etc? I mean, talk about an unacceptable situation - for Fox, I'm saying!! Leaving themselves so wide open and all.

History A la Carte

I love it, though, how O'Reilly (and, yes, Hannity, too, for that matter) constantly attacks the "mainstream media" for failing to report the "good news" coming out of Iraq.........Wow, huh? I mean, talk about a myopic/ historically illiterate interpretation of journalism here. This, I'm saying, in that what about Vietnam? I want to ask him. "You think that that same left-leaning mainstream media, as you so call it, went out of it's way to give us the good stuff coming out of that shit hole - with a beleaguered Democratic war president obviously being the beneficiary?" I mean, seriously though, I REALLY would like to ask him that - him and the rest of those SOBs from Fox cable news.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

You Can Actually Set Your Clock By It

Have you noticed how Mr. O'Reilly selectively/ only puts forth those points that make the Bush administration look benign? Take, for example, his "reporting" on the Bush justice department's firing of those 8 U.S. attorneys. He goes on to delineate, right, how at least 3 of these appointees were in fact deserving of their fate (parading out, of course, his usual litany of beefs; drugs, illegal immigration, etc.)..........Of course, what he failed to mention was how every single one of these 8 attorneys had a job-performance rating that was considered exemplary. That, and he conveniently left out the fact that at least 3 of these individuals have cited pressure from Republican politicians to conduct themselves in a partisan manner (Bud Cummins, David Iglesias, and John McKay, the attorneys in question). Conduct, in other words, that if in fact a Democrat had been involved in it - hell, it would have broken loose and rumbled. All the way to impeachment, don't ya think?

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Omission Granted

Don't you just love it how O'Reilly refuses to mention Keith Olberman by name? Of course, what's even more preposterous, I think, is his professed reasoning behind the decision - i.e., that he doesn't want to reward "him" with undeserved publicity. Yeah, right! Since when has this son-of-a-bitch ever, EVER been shy about mentioning a rival's or critic's name - not just mentioning his name, mind you, but using what has essentially become his personal "us versus them" bully-pulpit and lambasting them?.......... I mean, seriously, why doesn't he just act like a man and admit it. Keith Olberman's name (as opposed to, say, that of Chris Matthews, a person from the same network who he has in fact "called out") isn't mentioned because he's a competitor - A TIME-SLOT COMPETITOR!!! It's like, talk about transparency, huh? And he does it all the time, I'm saying, vices into virtues continuously.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

The Conspiracy Widens

What are you saying, Mr. O'Reilly, the military shouldn't have ANY critics? And are they necessarily all, these critics, "haters" of the military? Eisenhower, for example, in his very critical speech on the "Military Industrial Complex" ( a term, I might add, currently ridiculed by Laura Ingraham, etc.), did HE constitute an out and out hater of the Military? Was the speech itself nothing more than the rantings of a disgruntled former warrior? I mean, seriously, you haven't gone off the paranoiac deep end to that extreme, have you?

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Crumbling Reflections

Bill, just because the scientists can't explain EVERYTHING, that does not, my friend, give YOU carte blanche to fill in the gaps with absurdities. I mean, don't get me wrong here, maybe there is in fact a powerful/ unknowable transcendental force out there - dwarfing us, etc.. I don't know. All I'm saying is that for guys like you to assume that this force is nothing more than the spitting image of Bill O'Reilly (Bill O'Reilly on some sort of cosmically-derived steroid, no less) is itself absurd.............And the absurdities - they don't stop there, either. For just as the canons of science, I'm saying, fail to explain the world in it's complexity, so, too, does the bible itself....discombobulate, at times. Not a lot on the vastness of the universe, for example, the gazillion other places where this supposedly divine creation could have also taken place, the dinosaurs, for Christ!! And don't even get me going on Noah's Ark (this, I'm saying, in that, think about it, by the time he collected even two from every insect species on the planet, those collected at the beginning of the search undoubtedly would have either crawled off or died, causing him to have to start the process over again, ad infinity)............But even if you had in fact been able to keep it on the philosophical track, O'Reilly, the only thing that you can seemingly muster here is a dusting off of that old "watch-maker" theory. Yeah, that's right, the oooooooold debunked/ discredited Design Argument that nobody, NOBODY in his right mind (ah, yes, the operant term) uses anymore. I mean, look, I know you have a friggin' need for this stuff. It gives you comfort, strokes your ego, and buffers you. Fine. I'm fine with that. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't intellectualize it, defend it intellectually, etc.. That is just NOT something that even a true believer (a "believer", I'm saying, as opposed to a "knower") can sustain indefinitely. Which leads ME to ask YOU, Bill, who in the hell created God? I mean, seriously, something as intricate as that MUST have had a creator. And who in the hell created................

Friday, May 11, 2007

Cable......Network

O'Reilly, though, he's actually starting to remind me of that Peter Fynch character from "Network" ("I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!"). Remember, the crazy one - people tuned in to watch him, just to witness him self-destruct for their own amusement?.......Of course, the critical difference here is that there are in fact legions of people who actually think that this imbecile, O'Reilly, makes some sense. They don't see the son of a bitch as crazy, in other words. Incredible (embarrassing, too, even to be considered human.....these days), huh, the collective level to which our intellectual capacity has fallen?

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Straw Dog Babbage

I think what Jane Fonda was saying, Bill (not that the chick who played Barbarella necessarily needs me to speak for her, mind you), is that if in fact we had listened to the French (yes, the French) back in the early '60's......and stayed OUT of Vietnam then perhaps the carnage after the war wouldn't have been so pronounced. This, I'm saying, in that perhaps it was the escalation of the war, our involvement in it, the bombings of innocents in Hanoi, etc. that caused the level of post-war reprisals to reach such an epic level. I mean, obviously, I don't know for sure if that's what she actually meant. I'm just saying it's a possibility, that's all, and that Jane Fonda (who, let's face it, was EXTREMELY hot in Barbarella) isn't necessarily as whacked-out as you and the rest of the right-wingers consistently make her out to be.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Square Pegs, Rounded

Mr. O'Reilly, do you simply think that by repeating something often enough any facts that DO NOT FIT will automatically assume the shape of this paranoid mold you've created? Seriously, though, the hiring/ continued employment of Tucker Carlson, ditto Joe Scarborough, the regular contributions of Pat Buchanan, John Fund, ad nausea (all those generals, for Christ!) - what's the deal with not recognizing those components of MSNBC? Is it blindness/paranoia......or are you simply a liar WHO, with the limited capacity of his base audience, continues to herd his sheepish flock of dumbells to grander pasture (saving the universe from George Soros, etc.)?.........And even with Keith Olberman (oops, I said his name), I'm saying, apart from his vitriolic opposition to Bush's war, how the hell do you even know if HE'S a liberal? Maybe he's a friggin' libertarian who thinks that foreign adventurism of this magnitude is, let's just say, idiotic. But even if he is a liberal, I'm saying, is he any more "off the charts" than Sean Hannity, John Gibson, YOU, and Neal Cavuto are.....on the othe side? Of course, he isn't. Well, except, that is, for that part of his show when he actually hammers guys like you (though, not really here, either, huh?). "The........ worst........ person........IN THE WORLD!!!!"

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

The Glass Basement

Don't you just love it, though, when O'Reilly starts to question other people's credibility? Take, for instance, when he goes after Bill Moyers (get this) for supposedly contradicting himself; things he says he didn't say.....that he actually said, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. It's like, he goes around playing gotcha with this guy, right, and all the while he, O'Reilly, continues to deny that he, O'Reilly, said that that certain young kidnapped boy was having "fun" with his kidnapper. I mean, it's on a friggin' tape, for Christ's sakes. He said it, period......... And on a lot of other issues, too, I'm saying, Media Matters quotes him.....and quotes him accurately. Or, at least, I'm assuming they do, being that O'Reilly can never cite specific distortions - choosing his usual tack instead; "they take me out of context", "they get their money from George Soros", they're part of the far-left smear industry on the Internet", etc., etc.. Entirely credible stuff, in other words.........Alright, I'm done laughing now.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Spinning Yarn

On a silver-platter, the Bush administration gave it him - wounded war veterans living in squalor. Of course, what did Mr. O'Reilly do with this opportunity? Well, first of all, he ignored it (sensing, quite obviously, that by covering it he'd be embarrassing the president). Then, when he clearly couldn't ignore it any farther, instead of holding the Bush administration accountable, he uses the "failure" as an opportunity to lambaste government bureaucracies, in general; "can you imagine what national health-care would look like?".........Of course (and, yes, in his inimitable fashion, as well), he fails to commend the Washington Post (an actual journalistic enterprise) for exposing this atrocity - choosing, instead, to cite his own "investigation" (yeah, right!!) into who the actual "villain" is. Oh and, yes, the facts, how conveniently these little INconveniences are swept under the carpet by Mr. O'Reilly. For instance, he fails to underscore the fact that it WASN'T government but private contractors who were in fact responsible here - private sector ineptitude, in other words. I mean, seriously, talk about a spinmeister spinning.....and spinning some more. This kinda' takes the cake, don't you think?

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Illegally Offensive

You know what's really amazing, though? Even when I basically agree with O'Reilly on an issue, he still succeeds in alienating me. Take, for instance, this whole preoccupation he seems to have with illegal immigration. I tend to agree with him that, yes, we do in fact need to tighten up our border security and secure, as well, a much more orderly process of people entering our country (I'm certainly not against legal immigration from Mexico, etc.). What I don't approve of, however, is when he scours the country looking for anecdotal evidence, mostly in the form of illegals committing atrocities, and uses these examples as a cheap political tool to fire up his largely yahoo viewership against this population (the overwhelming majority of whom, let's be honest here, are decent people). I mean, what if he stumbled upon an illegal alien performing selfless acts of kindness, heroism, whatever? You think he'd go out of his way to report that? Kind of doubtful, don't you think?

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

I Knew Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan was a Friend of Mine.......

As for Sean Hannity, let's just say that he, like O'Reilly, is prone to hyperbole. Take, for instance, this particularly idiotic analogy. He goes on to say that George W. Bush's "staring down" of Islamic extremism (inclusive of this, ostensibly, his war in Iraq) is comparable to Ronald Reagan's taking on of the Soviet Union during his administration. This and, yes, since Reagan was right, he continues, so, too, must Bush's actions be of necessity to the survival of our nation. Of course, what he doesn't point out is that Reagan (and, yeah, kudos to Reagan for negotiating from a standpoint of strength back then) never invaded ( alright, Grenada) and occupied a sovereign nation halfway around the world, advocated a unilateralist perspective, held in disdain a diplomatic approach, etc.. Details, in other words, the likes of which Mr.'s Bush and Hannity cannot/ will not get themselves bogged down in.