Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Friday, August 20, 2004

by Wayne Besen

Has Bill O’Reilly become unhinged? It seems he can’t decide if he’s a pundit or a pugilist.

It was late at night, I was bored and flipping through the cable TV channels looking for an action flick. I finally found one, but to my surprise it was on C-NBC. Tim Russert was refereeing a political prizefight where Fox blowhard Bill O’Reilly almost came to blows with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

Ironically, the name of Krugman’s new book is “The Great Unraveling”, while it was his opponent who had a great unraveling on the air. Meanwhile, O’Reilly’s new book is “Whose Looking Out for You”, and by the end of the show Krugman must have wondered if O’Reilly was looking out for him so he could smack him.

Watching the show I could envision a booming announcer in the center of the ring: “In the blue trunks, academic heavyweight and champion of fair economic policy Paul Krugman. In the red meat colored trunks, intellectual featherweight and champion of tax cuts for the rich, Bill O’Reilly.”

Round One began when a frustrated O’Reilly lied about Krugman’s writings on economic policy and Krugman replied, “That’s a lie.”

Clearly outwitted, the larger O’Reilly turned from brains to brawn and had an Incredible Hulk-like transformation into Big Bad Bully Bill.

“Don’t call me a liar, pal. That’s what you do all the time, and I’m not going to sit here and take it,” snarled a glowering O’Reilly, looking like he was going to bitch-slap the smaller economist.

In Round Two, an enraged Bully Bill refused to let Krugman speak, rudely talking over him. Finally, Krugman parried and said, “This is not your show, you can’t cut off my mic.

“Another cheap shot,” erupted a fuming Bully Bill.

The next few rounds got even testier as The Bully seemed on the verge of a Howard “Dean Scream”, but was saved by the bell as the network went to commercial break.

With O’Reilly losing the fight in the eighth round, things spiraled out of control. Painted into a corner, Bully Bill painted Krugman as a pinko, calling him a “quasi-socialist”.

“I’m not a socialist. You know, that’s slander,” said Krugman.

The punch-drunk Bully came out swinging for the rest of the show with bizarre fits of uncontrolled anger, character assassination and name-calling, accusing Krugman of having “paranoid delusions”.

Sure, Bully Bill stung like a bee, but viewers had to wonder whether he should float away in a butterfly net. After the show should he return to the studio’s greenroom or a padded room?

This threatening behavior, of course, is nothing new. On C-SPAN, Bully Bill once called author Al Franken an “idiot” and told him to “shut up”. But it was still scary watching him on CNBC with his menacing tone and intimidating body language.

Once upon a time I actually enjoyed The O’Reilly Factor. While I almost always disagreed with him, he was at least entertaining. Lately, however, he has morphed into just another Bush mouthpiece. The master of the No Spin Zone is suddenly spinning so hard he is in the Twilight Zone, dizzy in his own deception. He even had the audacity on CNBC to suggest that Fox isn’t a conservative news outlet. That’s beyond spin. If it were closer to Hanukah I’d think O’Reilly was a dreidel.

My other problem with his show is that it’s unnaturally obsessed with gay issues. More gay people appear on the O’Reilly Factor than on Showtime’s Queer as Folk. I know that sounds strange coming from a gay columnist who has twice appeared on his show. But it seems like he’s had on every gay person in America to use as his personal political piñata. When even gay activists are tired of watching gay segments, it’s time to find a new culture war issue.

Before O’Reilly debates on television again, he should call Rush Limbaugh for some Happy Pills to help calm him down. Or if he insists on playing on-air bouncer, he should at least pick on someone his own size. One wonders if O’Reilly would adopt the same tough guy pose if his opponent were Jesse Ventura or Arnold Schwarzenegger?

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