I rarely pass up on opportunity, in life, to say nasty things about FOX News talk show host Bill O’Reilly and the putrescence for which he stands. In the pages of this very paper (if it makes sense to talk about "this paper" in a paperless medium), for instance, I wrote the following:
There were a few months, in early 1999, when I was a big fan of The Factor, Bill O’Reilly’s rancid talk show on Fox News. I was such a fan, in fact, that I applied for an internship with the show, writing a sycophantic email to one of the producers that said, more or less, "Mr. O’Reilly is one of the few television talk show hosts who can really lay claim to being a journalist, rather than just a pundit."I’m not so embarrassed, now, by the error in political judgement–O’Reilly pretends to be an iconoclast, and it takes a little while to recognize the ways in which everything he says reinforces the sadistic and macho chorus of the conservative movement–as I am by the fact that I was insensitive enough to appreciate that kind of television punditry at all.
There’s nothing on television… that’s as repulsive, vulgar and corrupt as what’s regularly produced by CNN, Fox News and MSNBC as "news" and "opinion." Donald Trump might look more like the wax reproduction of "Donald Trump" that sits in Madame Tussaud’s than like a real human being, but there’s at least an implicit honesty about his own triviality. At least Clinton and Stacy on TLC’s What Not to Wear, for all the self-help nonsense with which they drape their makeovers, know that at the end of the day their job is to buy people pretty clothes and get them nice haircuts.
The repugnance of the cable news shows begins with the lie of them, with the pretense that the hosts and guests are all smart, serious people who are thinking out loud for our benefit and whose mission is to inform us and to elucidate the issues of the day. But they’re not serious people; they’re ghouls. The structure of their shows, the bullshit they pass off as argument, and the recycled conventional wisdom that masquerades as "objectivity" actually make the rest of us more stupid, and make it more difficult for us to think flexibly and holistically about the world.
In many cases, and this is actually quite fascinating to think about when you’re watching, their souls are so putrid that it’s visible in their faces. O’Reilly’s not even the worst of them, though he is breathtakingly grotesque.
That said, I have to very mildly come to Papa O’Reilly’s defense in this fooferaw over some supposedly racist comments he made on his radio show recently. The offense is summarized, by liberal watchdog group Media Matters, as follows:
During the September 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, discussing his recent trip to have dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s, a famous restaurant in Harlem, Bill O’Reilly reported that he "had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful," adding: "I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship." Later, during a discussion with National Public Radio senior correspondent and Fox News contributor Juan Williams about the effect of rap on culture, O’Reilly asserted: "There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’ You know, I mean, everybody was — it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all." O’Reilly also stated: "I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They’re getting away from the Sharptons and the [Rev. Jesse] Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They’re just trying to figure it out. ‘Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it."
It sounds pretty bad, I grant, but if you listen to the radio clip of his conversation with Juan Williams, it really is pretty clear that Bill, for once in his godforsaken, racism-infused career, is trying to advocate tolerance to his presumably racist listeners. He’s actually trying to wrestle with his complicated feelings on the subject rather than just doing what he usually does, which is find a black person who’s done something wrong or obnoxious and use that person to vent his racial hostility without quite being overtly racist.
I realize there’s complexity here. It shouldn’t have to be said, for instance, that the black patrons of a black-owned restaurant are respectable just like white folk. Alas, it does have to be said, and when Bill O’Reilly is trying to be thoughtful, in his admittedly awkward way, then the anti-racists out there should be, at the least, somewhat thoughtful and sympathetic in response. Just calling him a racist doesn’t cut it. O’Reilly should be called out on his racism (and Williams should have pointed out how often O’Reilly does his subtle racism thing), but he should also be supported when he backs away from it. Attacking him when he’s trying to be tolerant seems like precisely the wrong approach.
