{"id":10433,"date":"2007-04-06T13:15:12","date_gmt":"2007-04-06T17:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10433.html"},"modified":"2007-04-06T13:15:12","modified_gmt":"2007-04-06T17:15:12","slug":"entering-the-no-restraint-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/entering-the-no-restraint-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Entering the ‘No Restraint Zone’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.)<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

And then the fireworks started.<\/p>\n

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.
\n
\nGeorgia10’s take<\/a> on this struck me as spot-on.<\/p>\n

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<\/i> he has on the show, never engages their<\/i> points or responds directly to their<\/i> arguments. No, O’Reilly doesn’t do that type of debate because he simply can’t win<\/i> 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….<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Ray Tranchant said, “We need to heal, and to bring immigration, that’s disrespectful to a family who’s just mourning.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for O’Reilly, I can only encourage him to get some help before he hurts someone. And try decaf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}