1 Boring Old Man

O’Reilly Attacks Moyers For Interviewing Rev. Wright:

BILL O’REILLY: "[they should] take a long vacation, perhaps in Iran."

…

BILL O’REILLY: Can you figure this guy out, Moyers?

NEWT GINGRICH: Sure. Bill Moyers is a hard left sympathizer for anybody who dislikes America. And Reverend Wright’s sort of his perfect interview. He doesn’t lay — from what I’ve seen so far and the things that I’ve read tonight from the interview tonight, he doesn’t lay a glove on him.

Referring to a July 13, 2007 edition of Bill Moyers Journal, discussing the possible impeachment of President George W. Bush, and featuring guests from opposing ends of the political spectrum, both in favor of impeachment, PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler praised Moyers for his initiative in highlighting different topics, but felt he could have used a more balanced approach. Moyers disagreed, saying, "The journalist’s job is not to achieve some mythical state of equilibrium between two opposing opinions out of some misshapen respect — sometimes, alas, reverence — for the prevailing consensus among the powers-that-be. The journalist’s job is to seek out and offer the public the best thinking on an issue, event, or story."

I frequently list something I’ve come to think of as the Machine – the Media arm of the Republican Party – Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter. But I frequently forget Bill O’Reilly. I might be forgiven as he could be considered a part of Fox News, but truth is, he’s a phenom all to himself. I know why I leave him out. It’s psychological murder. It’s as if not thinking about him "unexists" him. That’s one of those foolish ways the mind protects one from pain – because it’s pain I feel when I hear his contemptuous, sarcastic voice coming out of his snarling face [he reminds me of an evil clown in a slasher movie]. This quote is a classic. Bill Moyers is an American prize. A Minister turned Journalist. He was the Press Secretary for a President, but he’s excelled as a Journalist. His series on Myth and Joseph Campbell has become an all-time classic, one of his many. Like in the quote above, he’s a thinker of the first magnitude.

Bill O’Reilly, on the other hand, is a sarcastic, dismissive sour-puss who makes a good living, like his clones Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, trafficking in disdain. If any of them were to be hit by a truck, they’s be forgotten in an instant, replaced by others who are equally capable of spewing venom on demand. In this quote, O’Reilly dismisses, "Can you figure this guy out, Moyers?" as if no one has ever heard of Bill Moyers. Gingrich reduces Moyers to "a hard left sympathizer for anybody who dislikes America." But then he goes on to deliver his high-minded standard for journalism – "he doesn’t lay a glove on him" – as if it’s not journalism if it’s not in the mold of his pal, Bill O’Reilly.

Speaking of "forgettable," Newt Gingrich is so forgettable that he wove it into his own  history. After rising to the level of Speaker of the House, he resigned in a gathering storm of scandal – personal, ethical, political. People were so glad to see him go that he was forgotten and pretty much got off scott free. He hid in the bowels of the American Enterprise Institute for fourteen years, dreaming of a comeback. Recently, he made one, and sure enough, for a time, his history was forgotten. He’s got a strong "presence" like Limbaugh, Coulter, and O’Reilly and he made it back on to the national stage. He spent a year or so coyly hoping someone would draft him to run for President, but there were no takers. So he finally gave up and moved to pundit status on mostly Fox News.