Entering the ‘No Restraint Zone’

April 6, 2007

I can’t very well call myself a blogger and not let readers know about Bill O’Reilly’s stunning meltdown on Fox News last night. (If you’re watching at work, turn the volume down; the screaming gets kind of loud.)

I’ve seen O’Reilly get angry on the air, but this buried the needle on the rage-o-meter. In all sincerity, I really thought this was going to get violent. This was a full-scale meltdown.

The issue itself was a tragic local incident in Virginia Beach, in which a young girl was killed by a drunk driver. Because the crime was committed by an immigrant who entered the country illegally, O’Reilly wanted to use the story to go on a xenophobic rant about immigration. Geraldo Rivera, to his credit, said, “It’s not an illegal alien story, Bill. It’s a drunk driving story.”

And then the fireworks started.

For what it’s worth, in addition to this being the quintessential scream-fest that television news is supposed to be getting away from, the exchange was an interesting statement about O’Reilly’s control of his show.

Georgia10’s take on this struck me as spot-on.

Bill O’Reilly’s “interviews” follow a simple pattern: invite a guest on, introduce them, and then spend the next five minutes cutting them off and challenging their love of country. As we know, O’Reilly never debates the person he has on the show, never engages their points or responds directly to their arguments. No, O’Reilly doesn’t do that type of debate because he simply can’t win that type of debate. Rather, O’Reilly’s m.o. is to debate a false caricature of the opposition. He pummels his guests with non sequiturs, shoving absurd statement after absurd statement down their throats until…well, until he decides to cut off their mike….

But what happens when the guest refuses to take it? What happens when the guest refuses to shut up and throws his insanity back at him? A complete and utter meltdown.

As for the reaction in Virginia Beach, O’Reilly specifically targeted local Mayor Meyera Oberndorf for saying that it’s not the city’s job to enforce the borders, an opinion backed by the local police chief who said immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. The local reaction has been largely incredulous.

O’Reilly told Allison Kuhndhart’s father and sister during his show, “The authorities in your town would not obey the law, defied the law of the land and somebody needs to be held accountable sir. I want you to keep in touch with us. We’re gonna get the mayor, Oberndorf and the judge, Whitehurst, because they’re the villains.”

During the news conference, Mayor Meyera Oberndorf said she has never even O’Reilly’s show and did not mention him by name throughout the conference.

The mayor and Tessa Tranchant’s father both said that making an issue out of immigration loses the focus that the girls were killed by a man that police said was driving drunk.

Ray Tranchant said, “We need to heal, and to bring immigration, that’s disrespectful to a family who’s just mourning.”

As for O’Reilly, I can only encourage him to get some help before he hurts someone. And try decaf.

If BillO has lost Geraldo, he’s really hit a new low.

Not that he can’t go lower, I’m sure he can, but for now this is pretty impressive.

  • I’ll check out the video later; the kids are in the house, and my 6-something daughter calls O’Reilly “devil-man.”

    Another reason for not having “live” television in the house. Having O’Reilly on is a bona-fide form of felony child abuse….

  • In the invironment where I live and work a person who talked to people as BillO does would soon find himself on his back nursing a broken jaw.

  • “…making an issue out of immigration loses the focus that the girls were killed by a man that police said was driving drunk.”

    And here I thought “DWI” meant “Driving While Immigrant.”

  • There’s a similar reaction trying to build here in Los Angeles over the death of Bob Clark, the director of “A Christmas Story,” who was killed by a drunk driver in an SUV driving south in the northbound lane of Pacific Coast Highway. Mr. Nava, an unlicensed, “undocumented immigrant” was a .22 BA. He killed Clark and Clark’s son in the head-on. Yes, it is “a drunk driving story,” but if immigration was enforced, he wouldn’t have been there driving by “Mexico City Rules” (there’s an article earlier this week in the LA Times about how traffic laws are “enforced” and “obeyed” in Mexico City). Here in Los Angeles, your chances are about 1 in 4 that if you’re in an accident it will be with some unlicensed, uninsured illegal who will high-tail it back to Mexico before he can be deposed or dealt with.

    It’s really not hard to want to see the Federal government control the border when things like this happen, or when the slumlord who owns the property next door lets the illegals he rented to turn the property into a Tijuana colonia with people putting up “tool sheds” and cardboard “shanties” on the property to live in and using the bushes alongside your garden as their “rest room,” so long as they find a way to come up with the $4K/month he’s charging.

  • Is it a shock that immigrants sometimes do stupid things?

    I wonder what Billy Boy would do if the drunk asshole was a white guy named Al Roberts, an illegal from say Canada, not Alfredo Ramos.

    Billy’s sense of history is limited. It wasn’t that long ago that Irish were treated badly in the US like Gypsies are in Europe and sometimes even worse than Blacks and Chinese workers.

    Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles captured some of that hatred with the line, “we’ll give some land to the N***s and the c***s, but we DON’T WANT THE IRISH”

    Bill O’Reilly is a very very angry man. He’s never going to stop being angry and probably going to get worse because most everything he’s uttered is being proven wrong. I would not be surprised that one day he attacks a guest. If that day ever happens, I hope that the guest is a black belt in Karate.

  • It certainly looked like it got out of control–both of them did–and yet…right at the fade of the clip I saw, when they pulled themselves together and were going through the wrap-up niceties, I thought it was very telling that Geraldo was about to say something about “the great thing about our network….”

    I assume Geraldo was about to say “the great thing” is that Fox is so fair and balanced, and allows so much freedom and room for differing opinions.

    Suddenly, the whole thing seemed staged. Anyone else notice this?

  • The issue itself was a tragic local incident in Virginia Beach, in which a young girl was killed by a drunk driver.

    O’Reilly told Allison Kuhndhart’s father and sister during his show, “The authorities in your town would not obey the law, defied the law of the land and somebody needs to be held accountable sir….”

    …

    The mayor and Tessa Tranchant’s father…that the girls were killed by a man that police said was driving drunk

    Can someone help me out here, I’m a bit confused. Was it one girl or two?
    If one, was it Allison or Tessa? help!

  • A quick google search led me to (of all places) an anti immigration site (it was first on the list!) which had an article on the incident. The moron killed two people, Allison K and Tessa T.

  • thanks Former Dan. A simple typo was the logical answer, but I wasn’t sure.

    More on topic, way to go Geraldo. You’ve got a long way to go to redeem yourself but this was a step in the right direction. And as for O’Reily, I think it was Geraldo’s comment “…it could have been an Irish drunk” that really sent him over the edge. Get a grip Bill. Meds will only do so much to prevent a cardiac arrest.

  • I can’t believe anyone takes Bill O’Reilly seriously. It’s one thing to have a difference of opinion, but that’s not what’s really going on with him. I have no time or interest in listening to someone who uses others as props, so that he can essentially argue with himself while appearing to give someone the opportunity to be heard.

    Bill O’Reilly is the dressed-up version of The Jerry Springer Show; if someone asks you to go on Springer, it’s for certain it’s because your significant other is not the gender you thought, or your kids are really someone else’s or your spouse is boinking one of your relatives. If someone wants you to go on O’Reilly, there will be less bleeping, the audience won’t be screaming and no one’s going to take off his or her clothes…but it’s not going to turn out any better, either.

  • I’ve never actually minded Geraldo – a major league self-promoter to be sure and sensationalistic to boot, but imho, I never thought he was a dick. I feel like you could have a beer with him and call him on his BS.

    O’Reilly on the other hand is just an outright prick and lives in the relative safety of being totally assured of his own viewpoint.

    I don’t happen to think it was staged – Geraldo was literally getting red in the face and I thought O’Reilly was going to start having some Charley Steiner spittle on his face. Plus, the “cheap political stunt” comments would not likely be sanctioned by the powers that be over at FauxNews. Of course, they’ll bask in the sunlight of just how ‘fair and balanced’ they really are.

    Maybe they should invite Lauer on to be a guest host.

  • I don’t disagree with O’Reilly’s point that if this man had been deported and kept out of the country this probably wouldn’t have happened. We had a similar situation here in North Carolina two years ago. A family was driving home from Myrtle Beach and was hit by an illegal who was driving drunk. He had been convicted of several crimes including DUI’s previously, but was still out on the road. The father driving the vehicle was killed, the mother is still in a coma and the two little children are living with their grandparents. It is a sad situation.

    It is too bad O’Reilly is so worried about somebody proving him wrong that he can’t have a civilized debate on his show. And it is too bad that people continue to watch this stuff and think that is is “journalism”.

  • I think the whole thing was staged to allow O’Reilly to argue that he treats everyone the same on his show, regardless of thier political leanings. A couple of months ago, he and Geraldo were massaging each other’s back on the show, and now O’Reilly “turns” on him? Given his recent treatment of Colonel Ann Wright (who taught soldiers about the Geneva Convention) and Jonathan Turley (a constitutional law expert), he probably sensed he didn’t come off well in how he treated those people. Now he appears to be an equal opportunity meathead.

  • Is this a good time to mention Laura Bush’s adventurew ith automobile physics that killed her boyfriend?

    Maybe not. But the “If only illegal X weren’t here Y would still be alive” formula doesn’t do it for me.

    As in any case where someone intentionally or negligently causes another person’s death I get stuck at “If only X hadn’t been such a dick, Y would still be alive.”

    But I live in DC/Metro where you’re far more likely to be taken out by a fully legal cretin who is trying to drive a SUV, yak on the phone, change the channel on the radio and scratch his arse all at the same time.

  • The sister wrote:

    “I don’t disagree with O’Reilly’s point that if this man had been deported and kept out of the country this probably wouldn’t have happened.”

    Though in this case (and the case you mentioned) this is technically true, I think BillO is trying to imply that illegal immigrants are the source of nothing but trouble and should be shipped off, either to their home country or maybe camps of some sort. It’s a typical argument where one generalizes from an individual to an entire class of people, be they illegal immigrants or African-Americans or the Irish. It results in racism, sexism, xenophobia, and so on. The argument is specious, because as Geraldo pointed out, the illegals evidently have a lower crime rate than the general populace, and it is undeniable that we’ve developed a huge dependency on their labor. I’m guessing that at this point this makes them a net positive in our society, and makes the problem of illegal immigration very complicated, but BillO wants us to ignore that and have an emotional reaction to a single tragic accident (BTW, I fully agree that this particular illegal should be locked up pretty much forever).

    Wow, this week I’ve found myself with grudging respect for both Snoop Dogg and Geraldo. It really is amazing how disgust for BillO can bring people together.

  • Any time BillO is showing his anger, we are one step closer to better news.

    BTW someone should send Mr. O a copy of the movie “Gangs of New York” as a history lesson on the way the Irish immigration wave was received…

  • Geraldo put up a pretty good fight. May he keep it up, and may others join him. Fascists like O’Reilly need to be confronted with their shameless exploitation of other people’s misfortune.
    Bruce

  • I’d suspect part of this is the general meltdown of the wingnut fantasy world. Bill’s stuck in a place where his mental playground has broken down, and what does he really have?

    Anger.

    That’s it. All he has is anger and yelling. And it’s what he’ll resort to more and more over time.

  • I REALLY enjoy watching BillO slipping off the rails into complete insanity. I’ll definitely be watching Keith Olbermann tonight who will hopefully throw some gas onto this fire.

  • I must admit that when I first clicked on this post I was really hoping it refered to a melt-down by BushBrat or Dicky Deferment.

    Maybe they’ll follow B.O.’s lead…

  • Wasn’t the object of O’Lielly’s snuff book murder fantasy Geraldo himself?

    Amazing there wasn’t blood on the studio walls last night.

  • gg – thanks for the clarification (you’re my hero ;-))

    To further clarify my post for the answer is orange, the situation that OReilly was foaming at the mouth about did not involve a previous offender, true. But, I still stand by the fact that an illegal alien who is convicted should be deported and not allowed back in the country. Whether you chose to believe that the situation with the family in North Carolina would not have been avoided is your choice and I respect that.

  • This kind of exchange is just too familiar. One of the reasons I don’t understand a lot of conservative arguments is that I can’t hear them. Their anger and screaming passes for discourse. Usually it’s a tactic to blot out an opponent’s words entirely.

  • Looky folks….
    He wasn’t foaming at the mouth.

    Billy really is a Professional Wrestler.
    It is all show.
    It is all pretend.
    All fake.
    All BS.
    All the time.
    Faux.
    Got it?
    Faux.

    It is all distraction for the little peeps….
    Because the last thing the little peeps should know is that the only thing that matters now is GLOBAL FUCKING
    WARMING!

    Everything. Else. Is. BS.

  • Geee…after watching this clown on the short, I’m surprised he didn’t pull a Mr. Creosote right there in front of the cameras—and explode all over the studio. Maybe we could send him to a deserted island, and let him scream himself to death….

  • I am terrified of anyone who is under the influence that slides into the driver’s seat, but especially the current President of the United States. I don’t know if it’s booze, coke or just a plain ol dry drunk, but the nation is swerving all over the road with Bush at the wheel…….. DWI (deciding while intoxicated)

  • When manical O’Reilly can make Geraldo look like a decent person, the world is taking a turn for the better. They deserve each other, but was all this scripted? This (volume) level of disagreement among the right-wing lunatics suggests they are in self-destruct mode. About time. The best entertainment would be watching O’Reilly’s head explode on live TV. But they would need to advertise it first to get the highest audience share during sweeps week.

  • if ramos would have been deported the first time, he wouldnt have had a chance to get drunk and kill the girl. True, she could have gotten killed by another drunk, but ramos shouldnt have had another shot at breaking our laws.

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