While channel surfing this evening, we devoted a few expendable minutes to Bill O’Reilly’s show. We learned the guy’s lost none of his ability to pack a short segment with his own special blend of attitude and ignorance.
First, he showed a brief clip of the speech Hillary Clinton delivered at the Democratic Leadership Council gathering this week. Then, using Dick Morris as his foil, O’Reilly launched into a tirade about what Clinton didn’t say.
The gist of O’Reilly’s complaint, repeated several times within the space of a minute, is that the senator offered fanciful phrases without getting into any specifics.
I want to know what she’s going to do and she never — never ever — actually says what she’s going to do, he complained. She goes on an on and on, and she never really says anything . . .
O’Reilly went on and on and on.
Foil Morris opined Clinton is at every opportunity saying things that bespeak values and moderation, and is raising her favorable ratings handily as a result. He said when she makes speeches, she keeps her message light and reassuring, with emphasis on values.
Clinton gets specific, according to Morris, by appearing/speaking/acting jointly with others. He cited her linking with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., to push for a universal, computerized system for health care billing and recordkeeping. (Wasn’t that actually a link-up with Newt Gingrich?)
O’Reilly blew by all that to reiterate, snarling loudly, what he had already repeated several times: “I listened to find out what she wants to do and she didn’t tell me anything, nothing, not a thing. Not a single thing!”
Suddenly, specifics matter: We recall that last year, when Sen. John Kerry was the Democratic candidate for president, O’Reilly didn’t manifest his current mania for specifics. Maybe he was too busy flogging the easy, mindless and misleading flip-flopper mantra whenever Kerry’s name came up.
In fact, Kerry trotted lots out more specific plans and proposals than most presidential candidates ever do. His Web site was studded with them — a fact universally ignored by the media throughout 2004. Maybe they were too busy reporting the swiftboat veterans’ lies and distortions.
For that matter, we don’t recall O’Reilly getting all bent out of shape about the utter lack of specifics when George W. Bush was running for president in 2000.
Double standard at work here? We report, you decide.
Bottom line: If O’Reilly knew as much about politics as he does about heaping scorn, dishing innuendo and knocking down strawmen, he’d know Clinton would be foolish to advance specific proposals for what she’d do as president now. This far ahead of the next election, she’d just give the opposition that much more time to demagog and lie about her, her plans and her motivations.
We came away thinking O’Reilly and Morris would be a lot more informative and entertaining if they were to discuss the relative merits of making lewd comments to co-workers over the phone. That, while snacking on felafel or maybe sucking toes caked with felafel. Whatever.
