Losing A Sense Of Proportion

July 25, 2008

Guest Post by Adam

Bill O’Reilly has absolutely no sense of proportion, as befits someone who is essentially a walking violation of Godwin’s Law. But earlier this week, he outdid himself, as he sometimes does:

While discussing MoveOn.org’s “Petition Against Fox’s Racist & Hate-Filled Smears” on the July 23 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly said, “[Sen. Barack] Obama must condemn organizations like MoveOn and the Daily Kos if he truly wants to run without a race component. These are the people that are dividing Americans along racial lines. It is not a stretch to say MoveOn is the new Klan.”

Just to put this in perspective, almost 5000 people in America, mostly black, were lynched between 1880 and 1968. The Ku Klux Klan were responsible for many of those deaths. So what Bill O’Reilly is essentially saying is that when Americans signal their frustration with Fox’s coverage or his in particular, they are committing an act analogous to the torture, murder and mutilation of Americans based on their race or religion. One of the complaints on the petition, incidentally, was regarding O’Reilly’s statement about not being ready to “go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama…unless there’s evidence”.

O’Reilly isn’t the only one this week who displayed a sense of self-pity beyond common sense.

The Washington Times had an article about a conservative group of actors in Hollywood organized by Gary Sinise, and David Horowitz described conservatives in Hollywood as “victims” living in “terror”.

“There’s a kind of … intellectual terror in this town. People are terrorized; they’re afraid to say what they think. So what Gary is doing to provide aid and comfort to its victims is admirable, and I applaud him for it,” he said. “But my concern is it’s not going to be much more than that.”

Yes, conservatives in Hollywood are so terrorized that one of them is the governor of the state. More importantly, if Hollywood conservatives can’t face down Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, how are they going to face Al Qaeda?

I think it says a great deal about both O’Reilly and Horowitz that the most horrible things they can imagine include people disagreeing with them about politics. And it also makes sense that both regularly lapse into dehumanizing language to describe people who face genuine hardship, or people who are simply different from them–they don’t have any empathy left, they’ve used it all on themselves.

Nothing causes clans to solidify more than a sense of shared peril, hence the tendency of every demagogue to whip up outrage against offenses committed against their base by The Enemy. What the right wing morons fear most is serious discussion. They live in terror that the moderates among them might ever say out loud “You know what? I don’t hate those people [wingnut X] tells me I should hate. They’re just people like me, even if we disagree about stuff”.

Real dialogue is like poison to them, so they try to poison it every chance they get.

  • Adam wrote: “More importantly, if Hollywood conservatives can’t face down Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, how are they going to face Al Qaeda?”

    Sweet! I’d be a lot more impressed with Gary Sinise et al if they compared the current environment in Hollywood with the black balling of liberal writers and actors in the 1950s. But I suppose they are afraid to go there.

    The same thing can be said of (5’9″) JSMcC*nt. He’s afraid of a 6’1″ black man. How the hell is he fit to protect this country?

  • they are committing an act analogous to the torture, murder and mutilation of Americans

    Well, considering how much this administration has attempted
    to dilute these words, I can almost see his mistake…

  • Gosh, people—I’m guilty of “committing an act analogous to the torture, murder and mutilation” of Bill O’Reilly on a daily basis.

    It’s called “defending the Constitution.”

    It’s called “telling the Truth.”

    It’s called “giving a damn about my Country and my fellow Citizens.”

    And—Bill O’Reilly lacks the synaptic capability to understand those things….

  • Rich, triangulating pundits get too much access to our public airways from the corporations who currently also own most of of our government and policiticians.

    I am repulsed by the garbage (pap+ propaganda=papaganda) that is spewing out of the cable networks…sometimes even unto the non cable networks. I am disheartened by the void of policitical journalism that should be correcting the papaganda.

  • –they don’t have any empathy left, they’ve used it all on themselves.

    Good line! Come to think of it, Sinise hasn’t worked in a while. Maybe his leg prostheses broke.

  • They’re schoolyard bullies. They pick on the weak and run home whining to Mommy when somebody fights back.

    Nothing wrong with any of them that keeping them after school wouldn’t fix.

    Crankily yours,
    The New York Crank

  • Like “Bush derangement syndrome,” this slimy rhetoric is simply an attempt to render criticism of conservatives and the conservative agenda beyond the pale of polite discourse.

    Gasbags like O’Reilly should be asked just what, exactly, is radical about MoveOn’s agenda. And to this Klan bullshit, as Steve suggest, “How many people has MoveOn lynched”?

  • Well I guess I won’t be seeing CSI: NY any time soon, if that’s what’s going down…

  • It’s interesting that Horowitz would go there in the first place. I thought the whole conservative rant was that “Hollywood-types” shouldn’t use their popularity to push political agendas. You know, like Tim and Susan, the Dixie Chicks, Clooney and everybody else. They’re just “liberal elites” cashing in and trying to turn us all into gunless gay communist tax-and-spenders.

    Except, of course, for Reagan and Ahhnold and Charlie Daniels and Sonny Bono [RIP] and so on. They’re just “good Americans” trying to make a difference.

  • Bill O’Reilly has absolutely no sense of proportion…For me first line Journalist of CNN, Fox and MSNBC all fall in this lost proportion.

    IMUS contactors are more like the core problem, this guy, IMUS or O’reilly knows what they are doing, and there is no proportion to ethics of their ends, only money talks. Neat huge things are leaking out as an example Keith Olbermann mildly said and admitted in one of his video interviews that the Mainstream Media was complicit to the Swift-Boating that was going on the last election against Kerry. Sheesh for Olbermann as a key player in Mainstream Media admitting they, members of the media, lied to America. That’s huge…Some of the following is from a “comment by curious” which hits the target.

    These talking heads get paid to serve up hatred and controversy daily. And let’s not forget just who listens to them, or who hires them. People who have deep dislikes and prejudices of their own listen to this stuff. This is the core in hate based culture of talkers like O’Reilly, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest, lately Savage.

    They appeal to the hate base in all of us. These are paid skilled contextual masters of word manipulation, finely crafted as those of the ancient sophist that could twist right to wrong or wrong to right. They give a kind of legitimacy for those hatreds. People think they are understood by these talkers. It says to them that no matter how much they resent others for whatever reason, it must be ok. Because Savage or whoever agrees with me.

    These Journalists are of a new age in free speech treachery delivered to us by our so called free market and now identified by the transparency of the Internet and this blog.

    Currently looking at C-Span and the hearings about impeachment, for me sitting here in anger out raged at all those Republicans who support Bush ignoring the secret prisons in other countries using torture and fraud in fixing Intelligence running up to the war in Iraq. Please Adam lets talk about this stuff. Here today Mainstream Media is complicit to the actions in this war, and O’reilly with others like him have aided Bush and Company in fraud and profiteering to the tune of trillions.

  • I’ve met more conservatives at the major Hollywood studio where I work than I have anywhere else. Just for the record.

  • #1, Arnold is no conservative. Conservatives believe in shrinking the size and scope of government, which he has certainly not tried to do in any way. His support of environmental lunatics like the Sierra Club and EDF rules him out of the “conservative” label regardless of all other policy positions. O’Reilly’s language is unacceptable in the public sphere, and he should be held accountable. But someone, somewhere, please tell me where the connection is between Bill being an idiot and a limited government is? I just don’t see it. Unless you are conceding the factual and objective case and trying to win only by focusing on the subjective opionion of a couple morons….

  • “#1, Arnold is no conservative. Conservatives believe in shrinking the size and scope of government, which he has certainly not tried to do in any way.”

    Spoof Alert!!!

    Seriously, when you start with a line like that, no one on this plane of reality is going to do anything but fall about laughing.

  • It saddens me to know tht Leuitenent Dan is a con. And he was my favorite Gump character.

  • An actor’s political views don’t really matter. I like Clooney, and I like some of his films, but I don’t care that he’s liberal. I’ve liked a few films with Sinise in them. Not many, but I attribute that more to his complete lack of charisma than to his politics. But seriously, who cares. These people don’t make policy. They just have a loud speaker to yell through.

    What I find curious is that it is almost always conservatives who scream about how “Hollywood liberal elites” keep sticking their noses into politics…but so far most actors who have turned politician have been conservatives. Is it just a case of them knowing that if dem actors decided to really push a liberal campaign, they’d get more votes just on charisma than any GOP slime machine could hope to counter?

  • For Aaron @ #16, I’m reposting from a previous thread. So, Aanohld is no conservative, well, neither is George W. Bush:

    Do not forget that W is not really a “conservative” as the assclowns are trying to distance themselves from the disaster that is Commander Codpiece.

    Remember, Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed by heretics that don’t worship sufficiently at the alter of free markets, tax cuts, and tribal hate.

  • for BuzzMon: why do you inject the “tribal hate” line into that? I am almost sure that the only time race has been from the Dems. I do not recall incidents where the McCain or Barr (the only conservative in the race) have brough race or gender into play. Neither side is doing anything to unite people of different races, both seem focused on “divide and conquer”, but Obama moreso. We need a candidate who will stand up and say “It is irrelevant what color your skin is, or whether you are a man or a woman, I promise that I will get out of your way and let you, the people, make this a better nation”. Racism is no longer accepted in America, when it is exposed it is always condemned. We need policies that allow people to ignore race, instead of further engendering hatred by highlighting differences and making it acceptable to say “I am a (insert race)” instead of “I am an American”

  • Aaron – Tribal is not Racial.
    Tribal is hating Catholics because they are not “true Christians.”
    Tribal is hating “Liberals” because they believe that government can and does work with the correct people in charge.
    Tribal is hating Homosexuals, no need to elaborate there.

    Are you getting the picture?

    There are 4 major groups of “Conservatives” and you are expousing the credo of the least inluential of the three, the Libertarians.
    The others are the big business, let the corporations (and the rich) rule the world Conservatives (the most influential), the fundamentalist “Christians” (who hardly ever follow Jesus’ teachings), and the Confederates, the ones that race is a major factor. Many Republicans can fit into more than one of these groups.

    Why don’t you just vote for Ron Paul, like my silly best friend will do?

  • Buzz – first of all, it is refreshing to have a response that actually advances the dialogue somewhat.
    My issue is exactly what you have pointed out – those are not really Conservative, Republican (the principle, not the party) groups. They are no more Conservative than Joe Liebermann is liberal. I will agree that government can work in certain limited ways, such as defense, (constitutionally provided) police powers, and protection from oppression. Where government has no place is in restricting competition in markets (be they Big Oil or education or healthcare), establishing that everyone is “entitled” to a certain standard of living, or promoting any one race over the other in the present in an attempt to make up for past inequalities. I find it interesting, for example, that we consider it an outrage when an eyewitness to a crime uses skin color to describe a suspect, yet the government can set hiring quotas, or determine that a company is using racially motivated hiring practices based solely on raw data. These are the problems, not “Big Business”, big businesses are responsible for almost every advantage that we as US citizens have. Are they imperfect and greedy? Sometimes to often, yes. Are they also the #1 payer of all social services, either as the largest taxpayers or through corporate giving, which FAR outpaces private donations to charity nationwide. Are there Ken Lays out there? Yes, there are, and they go to prison just like him. But there are many, many more Warren Buffets and Boone Picketts.

  • Wignuts are such victims. Hmmm…. maybe the reason they want the rest of us to live in fear is becease they do. If we would only come to our senses and submit to the Great He-man Superhero Dictator who will protect us from the Enemy then they could stop cowering in face of the Fear and be the tough hombres they really are.

  • Adam, you’re asking for the impossible to happen. One cannot develop a sense of proportion, when one is working for a corporation which is programmed, on purpose, to be both unfair and UN-balanced.

    • Comments are closed.