(I'm cheating. I swore a might oath that any new diary I might want to write about would be presented here as VIDEO ONLY. You may subtract points accordingly.)
Yesterday Senator Dodd's campaign responded to Bill O'Reilly's hit piece on YearlyKos/ DailyKos. Bravo! In the comments were many references to Bill's temper. One recalled a radio interview with NPR's Terry Gross where O'Reilly walked out without completing the show.
I was just trying to find audio of that. It is hysterical.
It is hysterical! But it's more than that. Flip with me and read my take. But first, take a listen:
FRESH AIR | Oct 8, 2003
http://www.npr.org/...
Billo was not happy. He did a segment on his "Factor" show the next night ridiculously titled "National Public Radio Comes Clean".
Then, a year later, he revisits the subject, inviting Terry Gross onto his show: (Sept 2, 2004) "Terry Gross and Bill O'Reilly: Round Two".
Listening to that interview, it was hard for me to get into the "funny" mindset. It's so symptomatic of the polar divide in America.
But I know why it bothers me more personally.
For me, everytime I hear O'Reilly, I see and hear my little brother, a staunch conservative like the rest of my family in New Orleans. But my little brother, over the past 10 years, seems to have acquired more and more of O'Reilly's angry finger poking, loud, dogmatic, angry voice, scrunched up face "lemme tell YOU the way it is, pal", set-people-straight traits thru the osmosis of watching O'Reilly and FoxNews as a steady diet.
Too much O'Reilly I believe is harmful to your health.
A few people on dK have followed a bit about my conservative family down south, and a number of my dairies deal with all those dynamics. Just in the past week, I posted "Americans: The biggest crybabies, most dumbed-down spoiled people in the world. Why?". It wasn't widely seen, but that's okay because nonetheless, an excellent discussion ensued.
That diary is related to this one, but one doesn't need to read the former to process this one. But I do need to set the stage further:
Terry Gross' radio interview of Bill O'Reilly (from October 2003) occurred when he O'Reilly was promoting his new book "Who's Looking Out for You". This was during the same time period when Al Franken took on O'Reilly at an L.A. Book Fair where Al was promoting "Lies & The Lying Liars". In that memorable TV milestone, Franken moved from his normal brilliant snarkiness, to serious, and eventually to pissed, as O'Reilly threw a bigger and bigger temper tantrum, revealing his underlying bullying character -- which was no surprise to anyone other than to the enraptured O'Reilly fans who were there in the audience.
This was a sea-change moment in America, I believe; though it wasn't seen as such then. The un-checked Right had gone too far.
Howard Dean, at this time, was now on fire in his Presidential race, following the catapuling "Sleepless Summer Tour", drawing throngs of disgusted Americans thirsty to hear the ONE VOICE who was unafraid to blatantly, forcefully criticize President Bush -- and directly call him out on his disasterous policies. But Dean mostly stopped short from using the L word. Not Liberal; the other one.
As O'Reilly cavalierly denounced Social Security as another failed government program, Al Franken broke off into a very personal and emotional recounting of how Social Security had helped his Mom survive, when she was deep in economic crisis. I'd never seen Franken out-of-character. There wasn't a sliver of snark. He'd had it as an American. This was beyond books or careers. O'Reilly's blustering behavior so disgusted him that any veil of guardedness Franken would normally have as a professional humorist was pierced.
And for the first time ever, as far as I knew, someone in a public venue, someone with a name and a reputation, used the L world and called O'Reilly a liar. No varnished approximations. But the plain truth -- a liar. And O'Reilly was apoplectic.
I believe the events of that day, and Franken's ballsiness, totally took O'Reilly off-guard. Whatever feud there had already been due to Al's book, this marked the beginning of War for O'Reilly. In the post 9/11 world of liberal repression, caused by daily accusations from Ari Fleisher or Cheney that any opposition to Bush or his policies were unAmerican, unpatriotic, and supportive of the terrorists, it had been full-throttled assaultive shock-n-awe every day for the coordinated, White House-protected, GOP Media Noise Machine. O'Reilly served as Grand Poobah, and he could smell liberal fear miles away. It gave him unabashed license to grow more and more vicious, skewering any Hollywood types that even dared open their mouths.
The very idea that someone would dare stand up to him was unthinkable. And Franken has people laughing at him. I believe you could probably trace something new as of that day in the TV and radio rantings of one William O'Reilly.
Thus, by the time Terry Gross had him on for a radio interview as promotion for Bill's book, the tide was starting to turn, and he'd no longer be able to steamroll over everything in his path, no matter who's studio he was in. Franken had called him out at the Book Fair: "This isn't your show, Bill."
Let me return to my brother -- and the harm O'Reilly and his ilk are doing to America.
One of the themes I have written deeply about over the years is how our society has lacked LEADERS who not only stand up to this constant bullying, but ALSO lead and openly and repeatedly address this angry psychology of this nation (on the right). It's so far beyond ideology - way beyond that - and it deals with the continual programming that has emanated from the 40-year-old R&D project of the GOP Thinktanks, who studied the science of polarization and influence-messaging, media distribution methods, and the strategizing of how to orchestrate memes to inject them into the mediaspace, reinforce them through multiple methods, and radiate them inot the homes and car radios throughout America.
To me, we have lacked BIG THINKING leadership that goes deeper than the policy and ideology layers of the citizenry, and presents to America an understanding of the very means being used to pollute discourse and critical thinking in this country.
In addition to it being restorative to the mental health of this nation, reducing the extreme anger seething underneath it all, there are economic benenfits. Because the dumbing down of America is polluting the respect for science and intelligence -- and the beneficiaries of that dumbing down will be China, among other nations, who will increasingly compete against our population for the design & manufacturing of products desired by consumers all over the world.
In other words, well beyond the debasement of political discourse in America, the results of this GOP longterm strategy of sewing seeds of discontent in our population will lead to a crippling of our competitiveness in an increasingly global economy.
So I believe there is way more to deal with re this kind of abusive O'Reilly/Hannity/Gibson behavior than the top-level venom-spewing, pot-stirring and blatant hypocracy.
Following up on a comment "ET" made on Senator Dodd's thread, this is precisely the kind of leadership someone mature and wise like Senator Dodd could inject into this campaign, and move the whole debate off the same old blah blah blah of EVERY 4 year cycle.
What I have articulated is not easy to engage or confront or solve. But this seething anger is dangerous, it's hurting America, and if it isn't addressed soon, the next tragedy we face in America may well be more home-grown than a result of terrorist conspiracy.