Ironically, in this photo Bill O'Reilly asked Donald Trump whether "some TV folks are too close to the candidates."
Well Bill, we hope you enjoy your vacation. Wherever you’re going, we hope you have a pleasant time….And we hope you stay a spell. A good, long spell, there big guy! But please, please, Bill, don’t scream too much at motel maids, elevator operators, taxi drivers, short-order cooks, sundry types of bellhops and busboys, waiters and waitresses, and any unassuming little woman who happens across your wide swath.
With a throng of advertisers bailing out on The O’Reilly Factor due to Mr. O’Reilly’s alleged sexual harassment transgressions, the big guy might not be back. It’s old news, really, and I’ve decided that instead of beating a dead horse here, I’d just post some of my favorite tirades that O’Reilly has had over the years, in which this egregious bully has exploded, intimidated, talked over, screamed at, belittled, disparaged, maligned, and even threatened guests on his show.
And although Mr. O’Reilly’s fall from grace most likely came because of a litany of sexual harassment episodes, costing Fox News an estimated $13 million in settlements going back a decade and a half, I honestly feel that O’Reilly should have been given the heave-ho long before this because he is hardly a journalist. No, he’s more of a pugilist.
Towering over most, at a large and in-charge 6-4 height, Bill O’Reilly casts a shadow over Fox News peer pundit Sean Hannity, who stands at an above average six-foot even. And he dwarfs former Fox News pundit and foxy lady Megyn Kelly, who stands at only 5-foot-six, which, if I may editorialize a bit, is an impressive height for most women to try to rise to — and according to a recent post in the Chicago Tribune, Megyn Kelly, as a young buckaroo, was rejected by Syracuse University's communications program, so she majored in political science instead and now earns about $10 million a year in the communications business. Wow, what irony! Even though O’Reilly may have called her "shorty" a time or two, the girl hasn't done too awfully bad for herself. And she “made it” in a profession that her old alma mater had kicked her under the bus over! Imagine that!
And why am I mentioning this? Why does height or overall bodily size matter, anyhow? Well, it matters in any type of bullying contest: Whether it’s in the paint under a basketball rim, on the front line of a football game, or, for that matter — even on the playground, in the boxing ring, at the dojo, or sometimes even at the laundromat after midnight, and yes, yes, yes, on a TV news show. And Bill O’Reilly is a big bully. He’s so good at it, in fact, that he’s made it a career.
One of my all-time favorite episodes of O’Reilly blowing the cork out of his jug was posted to YouTube in February. This video pertains to a joint news conference that President Donald Trump had with Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu. To be fair, not only Bill O’Reilly, but also Eric Bolling, co-host of FNC's "The Five" and Geraldo Rivera, Fox News Correspondent at Large, all get into a "so you're talking over me, so I'll talk over you" sort of fiasco. In my opinion, Bolling makes some valid points early in the video but in his omnipotent and omniscient way, O'Reilly just casts Bolling's compelling arguments off as mere psychobabble, to abbreviate and simplify things a bit. O’Reilly, in his usual sarcastic way, introduces Mr. Rivera with an insult, saying something about "If you were the President, Rivera, oh my God!…," which further convolutes this implosion in what is supposed to be a major cable news network’s tackling of a very tough and controversial issue that in the end, is made to look a lot more like three guys on break in a factory farm in Kansas insulting one another over mere mishmash.
Rivera, however, hits O’Reilly with the very good argument to start his oral discourse by saying, “...You have a situation here — and people have to get their arms around what this is - there are between four and nine internal sources saying that there were four people in the Trump campaign, and then his transition team, who were in repeated and constant communication with Russian intelligence, meaning the KGB.”
And so O’Reilly interrupts Rivera in the middle of his argument. And what does the 6-foot-4 monster say? Well, believe it or not, O’Reilly says, “But that doesn’t matter.”
What?! It doesn’t matter that four people on the Trump campaign transition team allegedly were in repeated and constant communication with Russian intelligence? This doesn't matter, Bill O'Reilly? Well, Bill, if this "Doesn't matter," what in the hell matters?!
So, Rivera goes on, talking in his normal voice, trying to explain his point and O’Reilly starts talking over Geraldo. “Bill, Bill,…,” Geraldo pleads, trying to get some airtime. So what does O’Reilly do? He calls Mr. Rivera “un-American”.
What?! Yes, believe it or not, that’s exactly the tag that the big guy hit Geraldo with — that Geraldo’s “un-American”.
“I resent that,” Rivera protests. “I deeply resent that.” So, O’Reilly goes on to hit Rivera with the fact that he’s using “anonymous sources.” I would have really liked to have seen Geraldo a little more on top of his argumentative game here, maybe more prepared with some factual bullets to shoot O’Reilly's way, but Rivera hit O’Reilly with the rhetorical question, “As you sit there tonight, do you believe there was no conversation with the Trump Campaign and (inaudible because O’Reilly is screaming loudly at Geraldo by this time, but I think Rivera said “Russia”). Then Rivera asked O’Reilly why Flynn was fired and O’Reilly said “Because he misled Pence.” Then Bolling jumps right in and joins the screaming match and O’Reilly ends the segment by saying, “You guys shut up now.”
What?! You guys shut up now! Is that any way to treat guests on a TV news show? Especially members of the same Fox News family? Is Fox News an actual news source or is it, maybe, just maybe, a training camp for human hyenas?
Yikes! Is it a rake? The infamous and nefarious “slender man” who some who dabble in the paranormal claim haunts these Internet hallows? Oh, no, it’s only angry and mean-spirited Bill O’Reilly, the junkyard dog of the Fox News crew. Keep your distance now. Those who say know this man claim that he bites.
Moving on, another oldie but goodie showing O’Reilly’s horrid temperament and the vile and repugnant ways he treats guests to his so-called “news show”, The O’Reilly Factor, had to do with O’Reilly calling Mark Steven Ferrandino, now former Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, ‘openly gay’ and the subsequent line of argument O’Reilly came up with concerning this factual tidbit.
According to O’Reilly, Ferrandino did not allow the legislature in Colorado to vote on Jessica's Law. A key cog in Florida’s original Jessica’s law is that anyone raping a victim under age 12 will be considered a life felon and will be sentenced to prison for at least a quarter of a century for such a despicable and heinous act.
A Fox News reporter interviewed Ferrandino and asked him, "A 41-year-old soccer coach repeatedly raped a 13-year-old girl and only got two years in prison.”
So, Jesse Watters, this Fox News "Man on the Street" shoves the microphone under Atty. Ferrandino's mouth and a surprised Ferrandino, wide-eyed and obviously terrified, starts rambling, "Ick. Ick. Ick. Specifically. Ah. Well...I do not know the specifics of the cases you're talking about. I'm happy to look at them and if we need to toughen the laws in Colorado, we should and we will." And then Watters flips the mic over beneath his own mouth and snaps, "You do need to toughen the laws, with all do respect, Sir." And to editorialize a bit, I think that any adult who repeatedly rapes a 13-year-old girl , or a boy, for that matter, should be given the Angel-of-Death needle. With one caveat, that is — and that is if the perp is found guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt by a jury of committing such an evil atrocity.
Believe it or not, though, the whole segment on this particular YouTube video has nothing to do with pedophilia or sexual predation. It has to do with classifying gay people as being pedophiles, or possibly, being sensitive and supportive of pedophilia, which through a roundabout train of rhetoric, O'Reilly seems to do, in his own boneheaded, Neanderthal-like way. The real target here is not the teacher who raped the juvenile victim, but a state legislator who just so happens to be “openly gay,” O'Reilly mentions several times in this segment. And therefore, since this legislator is gay, he also must be supportive of pedophiliacs and their criminality.
Now anyone who knows one inkling about sociology, psychology, or just those who know one or two things about sexual preferences realize and understand that many, if not most, pedophiles, are not homosexual or even heterosexual. No, not at all — they have their own sexual preference known as being a “pedophile,” which can be synonymous in the legal vernacular with “sexual predator.” Yes, child rapists are in a class all their own. Their sexual preference is that they like to rape children. Case closed. Adults don’t appeal to them, either men or women. Pedophiles are sexual predators of children. Our friends in the LGBTQ community have far too many nasty stigmas and overall ‘bad gunky’ thrown their way than to hit them with this erroneous tripe! O’Reilly, if anyone is truly a snake oil salesman of the first order, it’s you, you snaggletoothed wanna-be pontificator of “news”.
The Denver Post’s editorial page editor wrote, “It may not surprise you to learn that a fact-challenged, bigoted line of attack came courtesy of Fox News Channel Talking Head — specifically Bill O’Reilly...O’Reilly's fear-mongering should offend all Coloradans. He was saying "gay" but what he wanted his listeners to hear was 'pervert-pedophile'" and this snippet of the editorial editor’s column takes up the entirety of the video for a time.
Afterward, the screen is cut in half and we meet for the first time Curtis Hubbard, the editor of the Denver Post’s editorial page. Big Bill jumps right on his guest, snapping, “You have a nerve calling me a homophobe because, number one, you can’t back it up and besides, your editorial is libelous speculation, is it not?.”
In firm voice, Hubbard says to O’Reilly, “Let me correct you on a couple of things, just to start. Number one, it’s not an editorial. It’s my column that appears each week on Sunday so it’s my opinion, not the opinion of the editorial board.”
And then there was some back and forth statements and O’Reilly’s booming voice comes crashing down, saying, “For you to say, no, now you’re not telling the truth….Look, he’s protecting the trial lawyers. That’s who he’s protecting. See, you are ridiculous. You’re a ridiculous person. And a journalist? This is disgraceful. To say...” And Hubbard, bringing back the main point, again, asks O’Reilly, “What does Ferrandino’s sexuality have to do with the passage of Jessica’s Law?” And the Denver Post’s editorial page editor even tells O’Reilly that “Nobody in law enforcement or the justice system in Colorado was supporting passage of this bill.”
“You, saying that I described him (Ferrandino), as openly gay, which is true, equates to me calling him a pervert-pedophile, which is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace in any column, it's a smear. You're a smear merchant, that's what you do. You can’t back it up," O'Reilly said in a vicious ad-hominem attack on the columnist.
Then O'Reilly asks Hubbard, "Do you oppose Jessica's Law or not?" and Hubbard responds, "I don't know enough about it." So O'Reilly screams, "YOU DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT IT?! SO YOU WRITE A COLUMN ABOUT OUR REPORTING AND YOU DON’T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT IT!" So Hubbard says calmly, “If you had simply said that Democrats in Colorado oppose Jessica’s Law, and here’s why…, I probably never would have brought it up, but the fact of the matter is that you used his sexuality to impugn his character to imply to your viewers that it was his sexuality,” but Hubbard didn’t get a chance to finish his statement. No, red-faced and insanely angry, O’Reilly hit his guest with yet another ad-hominem attack, saying this time that Hubbard was “a charlatan”. There was more of O’Reilly’s hideous angry attacks and name-calling.
It’s amazing that this so-called national journalist and best-selling author can act in such a vile, antisocial, demeaning, and preposterous fashion and keep his job at Fox News. This sort of “anchoring” is uncalled for — and in the end, I think Hubbard came out looking much better than O’Reilly because the opinion writer kept his composure and acted calmly throughout this raging madman’s tirade against him. And the base argument that Hubbard had - his main beef with O’Reilly that because a legislator is openly gay, and because this openly gay legislator is against Jessica’s Law - does not mean that gay people are pedophiles or sexual predators of our most defenseless and hapless little victims.
*****
Well, it’s time for an intermission and a much needed break for a bit of levity and humor. According to yesterday’s edition of Deadline Hollywood, "Bill O’Reilly announced at the end of tonight’s (Tuesday, April 11) The O’Reilly Factor that he’s going on vacation, returning later this month, and announced a “Guess Where Bill Is Going” online contest….Navel lint-gazing ensued immediately after he made his announcement; pundits wondered if he actually would return; if it had, in fact, been planned in advance; if the vacay would help quell the controversy and the major advertiser bailout from his program – more than 70 companies at last count – in the wake of the report. Also, what exactly did O’Reilly mean when he said, `We all need R&R. Put it to good use?’”
Bill, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but being that you have the emotional makeup of beast of the Jurassic age and have absolutely no feelings to hurt, I don’t give a damn where you go to, where you vacation, or what the hell you do during your time off. I just hope you stay gone for a long, long time and you don't injure or maim too many people while doing so - either physically or emotionally.
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly shoved an aide to Barack Obama during a campaign event in Nashua, N.H., in early January of 2008, prompting the Secret Service to intervene and instruct the TV personality to cool it, according to the New York Daily News posting of their online edition. This incident, which occurred at Nashual High School North in the Granite State, unfolded shortly before noon as Obama chatted with voters, just three days before New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. "[O'Reilly] was just a crazy person," a photographer who witnessed the altercation told The New York Daily News. "He throws a complete fit, and then the Secret Service came in." The aide, Marvin Nicholson, the senator's national trip director, was shadowing Obama as the senator worked the rope line.
Continuing again, another gem of an episode in which Big Bill blew his top involves Bill O’Reilly flipping and freaking out, screaming to his technical crew at what seems to be a local TV station somewhere. No, wait, it’s a big show he was involved with - Inside Edition ! O'Reilly, looking to be spaced out on blotter acid, screams at the TV camera, "I don't know...I don't know what it is....I’ve never seen that. (Big Bill licks his lips nervously and strangely, his eyes sort of get glazed over and he looks a bit reptilian for a little while) So Bill O’Reilly continues, “I can’t read it! There’s no words on it! There’s no word there to play us out! What does that mean, to play us out?! I don’t know what that means to play us out, what does that mean?! To end the show?!” (Booming Bill flips his left hand in the air and looks totally disgusted) “Alright, go, go!” Blasting Bill screams. (O’Reilly snaps to the technical crew and a male voice begins counting down, `Again, five, four, three…’ Bill O’Reilly snorts through his nose like a racehorse at the starting gate, ready to lurch, then he says, “That’s tomorrow. Or today. I can’t do it. (So an angry and agitated Bill O’Reilly rises from his chair and screams, ‘We’ll do it live!’) Then O’Reilly moves around a bit, slams back down into his chair and screams, “WE’LL DO IT LIVE! FUCK IT! DO IT LIVE! I’LL WRITE IT AND I’LL DO IT LIVE!!! (Bombastic Bill now flips out his left hand in an upside-down haito-type movement in which the last time this writer saw such a move was about 25 years ago in a point-sparring contest at the Toledo Whirlwind Karate Tournament off the chilly shores of Lake Erie) FUCKING THING SUCKS! (he screams, with all the aplomb of a skeleton saint) So the male voice comes back on the audio and softly says, “5, 4, 3”…And Bill O'Reilly says, "That's tomorrow, and that' it for us today. I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thanks again for watching. We'll leave you with Sting and a cut off his new album. Take it away.” The camera pans to a high-above-the-newsroom view, and O'Reilly jumps off his chair, tears off his sports jacket, screams something that's inaudible (there is no audio now) and the scene fades to black.
Wow. How did O’Reilly ever get a job on Fox News after this mishap? To call this a meltdown would like saying a volcanic explosion was a mere spark. Why wasn’t a mental health facility or the local sheriff’s department called after this horrid fit of anger, rage, and near-violence? This is a very angry, desperate, horrible man. O’Reilly’s innate nature of being a bully is ever-so-clear in the Inside Edition video. Does he act like this with the women that don’t like his “charming ways”?
Now nobody has ever accused me of being the most sane or rational person in my town, but I don’t carry on like this — as Bill O’Reilly did sometime way back when — even when I’m alone in my abode without a soul around.
This man is insane. And so this begs the question, Is this the real Bill O’Reilly and the Fox anchor that we’ve seen in all the other videos are just a tamed-down version of a true Tyrannosaurus Rex in the middle of a terrible tear? Even when he’s screaming, shouting, and hissing at guests, is he somehow pulling the wool over our eyes, hiding an inner werewolf that lurks inside? I don't know, I cannot really understand this sort of rage. Even as nasty as he gets in many videos showing his temper in a plethora of YouTube offerings, this one ranks as the worst of the worst, I feel. Getting near-violent over a technical difficulty is strange and unacceptable behavior.
Even if you didn’t open up any of the other videos, you’ve got to open this one up. In this particular segment, Bill O’Reilly has one of the funniest guys in the world, who can also be one of the most daunting and the most menacing, on as a special guest. Stephen Colbert, in all his madness and genius, gets the first rhetorical punch in here by saying, “Bill, thank you for having me on. This is an amazing honor. Now I want you to know that I spend so much time in the world that is spinning all the time that to actually be in ‘The No Spin Zone’ actually gives me vertigo.” O’Reilly doesn't really know how to answer so he says to Colbert, “OK, are you ready for the interview?” And Colbert says, “I’ve been waiting for my whole life for this, Sir. I'm at the heart of O'Reilly now. This is the holy of holies. Hit it,” And again, O’Reilly, not really knowing how to respond to this, says, “So Colbert, that’s a French name, isn’t it” So, Stephen Colbert sort of floats back in his desk chair a bit, pondering this question, then answers, “It’s a French name just to get the cultural elites on my side, Bill. I’m as Irish as you. I’m a Tormey. I’m an O’Neil, I’m a Tuck, I’m a Fee, I’m a Connelly. I could sit toe to toe at the potato table with anyone (O’Reilly looks very agitated and cuts Colbert off) So, Big Bill snaps, “I talked to your second-grade teacher and she said back then you were ‘Little Steve Colbert (O’Reilly pronounces the name Cole-Burt)” And then the mean-spirited Slender Man returns to O’Reilly’s persona and in a menacing voice, O’Reilly hisses, “You, once you got here from South Carolina to Manhattan, you turned from being ‘Little Steve Cole-Burt to Stephen Coe-bear.”
Colbert’s rebuke to O’Reilly’s nasty snub is, “Bill, you know you have to play the game that the media elites want you to play. You and I have taken a lot of positions against the powers-that-be and we’ve paid a heavy price. We have TV shows, product lines, and books. Okay? That’s the price we pay.” Again, O'Reilly doesn't seem to really know how to answer Colbert and he says, "It is tough being me. Is it tough being you?" So Colbert answers, "It's tough for me to be you - I'll tell you that much."
From out of the blue, O’Reilly asks Colbert, “Now don’t you owe me an enormous amount of money?” And Colbert, looking a little angry now, answers, “Well, if I were imitating you, I would, Bill. But there’s a difference between imitation and emulation. And I’ll tell you the difference: If you imitate someone, you owe them a royalty check. If you emulate them, you don’t. There’s a big difference. Check with your lawyer.” So, O’Reilly just answers, “I will. I will.” Taking charge again, Big Bill asks Colbert, “So, what exactly do you do on your program?” And Colbert answers, “As I catch the world in the headlights of my justice, I shine my light no matter where that light takes me. I'm not afraid of anything. Okay? Now, I might be afraid of you but other than that, I’m not afraid of a thing in the world. We on my show, and by ‘we’ I mean ‘me’, usually, turn the cameras on and I go.” So, O’Reilly asks, “It's just you, right, No writers, no anything?” And Stephen Colbert, looking even a big more agitated now, but still composed, says, “No. I improvise my show just like you do, Bill. We don’t even use teleprompters. We’re making this stuff up as we go."
And when O'Reilly can't really trap somebody so as to bake them alive with his nuclear rhetoric, well, he changes the subject again and again and again, by asking, "Now who watches your show?" And Colbert answers him, "Well, Bill, that's one of the reasons that I want to do my show. Okay? I emulate you and I want to bring your message of love and peace, which I understand is your message (O'Reilly cuts him off and says, "Yes, it is.") and Colbert continues, "Well, we take your message of love and peace to a younger audience - people in their 60's, people in their 50's. People who don't watch your show." (O'Reilly mumbles something about understanding that Colbert has a younger audience on his show than he has on "The O'Reilly Factor". Then O’Reilly says his team of investigative reporters did a study on Jon Stewart's show and O'Reilly said, "It was stoned slackers who watched Stewart’s show). And so, Colbert snips, “Absolutely, you have to be high to understand Jon Stewart. That guy, man, he's pinker than an Indian River grapefruit.”
Again, not really knowing how to respond to all this, O’Reilly again switches the topic. Again, to: “And how is it that you are now more famous and successful than he is?” Colbert sort of gets a snide grimace on his face and answers, “I don’t know. We don’t talk.” Taking this seriously, O’Reilly says, “You don’t? Does that drive him crazy?”
Anyhow, there is more and more of this senseless gibberish on both parts and Colbert says he only works about a half hour a day, four nights a week, but he hasn’t seen his children in 18 months and he tells O’Reilly, “I’m losing calcium in my bones. My doctors say I should stop but I’m not gonna...”
It goes on and on and on. Ridiculousness at its absolutely most ludicrous. To call this a news segment would be like calling one of those long outdated test patterns a comedy show.
O’Reilly doesn’t know how to handle it all, or maybe, just maybe, this thing was rehearsed. But I don’t think so. Judge for yourself. It’s so obtuse and crazy that it’s almost like a scene out of a Samuel Beckett play. In fact, it’s more absurdist than most absurdist lit.
I don’t know….
Truthfully, if Stephen Colbert was actually being interviewed by Bill O’Reilly, which it appears like he was in this segment, he sort of kept an upper hand throughout by his clever wit, sarcasm, and on-air satire. If so, he left O’Reilly helpless.
I could post a lot more videos of segments of Bill O’Reilly at his worst. And I will give him some slack here, these videos encapsulate his very worst moments on air. But there are plenty of others. Just fish around on YouTube and there are plenty of them online. You don’t have to be an investigative anything to come across these gems. But Bill O’Reilly at his worst shows a very mean-spirited and hateful man. Anyone who would get into an actual shoving match with the people guarding a sitting U.S. President is far too crazy to hold such a responsible position in journalism as O’Reilly has done for decades now. His employ should have been immediately terminated right after this despicable act. That stunt he pulled in New Hampshire in January, 2008, is inexcusable!
So maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing to see “The O’Reilly Factor” off the air for good. Mr. O’Reilly is age 67 now and he’s had a long career in the TV news business. With a net worth of $70 million, O’Reilly should enjoy a long and prosperous retirement, unless he does something really harebrained in his personal life and winds up in some civil and/or criminal fiasco. With his long history of sexually harassing women, it’s not just erroneous speculation to ask this question.
Anyhow, Bill O’Reilly, enjoy your vacation. And if you return to Fox News, the guys on the other side of the political fence aren't going anywhere. We'll be here to watch you. And we'll always be here. Rest assured, you always have our ears and eyes, big fella....