It is time once again to check in on a couple of people who have been enshrined into the Hater Hall of Shame, and see what kind of antics have thrust them into the headlines recently.  Today’s update involves two of the biggest voices of “conservative America,” and some comments they made that sound completely crazy, even by their lofty standards.

Becksaggeration

Pundits and politicians alike have been trying to make sense out of the pointless and tragic shooting that took place over the weekend in Arizona, which left six people dead and 14 wounded.  And of course, by “make sense,” I mean pointing the finger and trying to lay blame at the feet of whoever doesn’t fit their demographic.  Instead of looking at the tragedy as a whole, and viewing it as yet another example of senseless violence, everyone has their own opinion on the motive which drove a 22-year old nutjob to gun down innocent people.  At one time or another, the person behind the shootings has been described on TV as a “Loner Schizophrenic Conservative Republican Democrat Atheist Skinhead Pot Smoker who read Mein Kampf and Marx’s Communist Manifesto.”  No one knows the true motive as of yet (I say the smart money’s on “insane”), but more than a few people believe the hyperbolic rhetoric that’s often spouted by politicians like Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin was a contributing factor.  Some point to the fact that Palin targeted certain state representatives that she wanted to lose during mid-term elections, and her penchant for gun-related quotes, like “don’t retreat, reload,” or the famous “We’ll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion – and you can keep the change.”  Now, I don’t know if there is another person alive who despises Sarah Palin and everything she stands for as much as me, but it’s ridiculous to think that her idiotic actions or words had anything to do with what happened in Arizona.

In the wake of the shooting, TV personality and prophet of doom Glenn Beck felt the need to publicly give his support to Sarah Palin on his talk show, and offer her some words of advice.  In a response to her critics, Palin emailed Beck and had this to say: “I hate violence. I hate war…Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence.”  It’s hard for me to believe someone who hates violence so much would have as many different pictures of themselves packin’ heat on the Internet as Palin has, but I’ll take her at her word on this for now.  The part of the exchange that really caught my eye was Beck’s response to Palin, in which he said: “I want you to know you have my support…But please look into protection for your family. An attempt on you could bring the republic down.”  First of all, I kind of see this as a slap in the face of the six people who died (which included a judge & a 9 yr-old girl) and the fourteen who were wounded (like US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords), because it downplays the importance of their lives.  Neither an attempt on Ms. Giffords’ life or Judge John Roll’s death “brought down down the republic,” and both of them were actually government employees.  So why would an attempt on a former beauty queen-turned-VP candidate who enjoys hunting and making up words crush the entire country?  People who think like Glenn Beck always say this nation is unified by the blood, sweat and tears of all those hard-working Americans who came before us, and yet they continually put their faith and support behind people whose only mission is to divide and conquer through the use fear and bipartisan politics.  But then again, Glenn Beck isn’t the smartest guy in the world either.  I mean, could anyone look at this picture, which was found on Beck’s website right next to his thoughts on the shooting, and honestly say this guy knows what’s best for America?

Bill O’Rei the Non-Science Guy

Last Tuesday on The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly invited a man by the name of Dave Silverman to be a guest on his show.  Silverman is the head of the American Atheists, a group that caught O’Reilly’s ire-filled Christian eyes after putting up billboards in various states that promoted their organization of non-believers.  Now, everyone has their own reasons for believing life was brought about by an omniscient being, big bang, extraterrestrials, or whatever other theory in which you happen to prescribe.  Yet one common thread among all of these groups is that inevitably they think they are right, and will defend their position using logic they learned or were taught when anyone disagrees with them.  Bill O’Reilly employed this tactic while speaking with Mr. Silverman, and sought to prove God’s existence by bringing up the patterns of the oceanic tide:  “I’ll tell you why [religion is] not a scam, in my opinion,” he told Silverman. “Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.”  This sounds like a mystery fit for Scooby-Doo and his van-dwelling pals, right?  Well, not really.  However, it turns out Bill’s response did change my opinion about him in one way.  I used to think paying this blowhard money to voice his opinions in a televised setting was the worst possible job he could have.  But just imagine what the downtrodden state of our current education system would be if O’Reilly ended up becoming a middle school science teacher:

“There must be a God, because I don’t know how things work.”

(I’d say that pretty much sums it up, but they left out sexual deviant)
Bill O’Reilly,  Born September 10, 1949

William James O’Reilly Jr. was born in New York City to William James Sr. and Winifred Drake-O’Reilly; his father worked as accountant for an oil company, and his mother was a homemaker.  At a young age, his family moved from Fort Lee, New Jersey to Levittown on Long Island.  Bill attended St. Brigid parochial school, and then Chaminade High School – a private Catholic boy’s school in Mineola, NY.  After he graduated in 1967, O’Reilly attended Marist College at the urging of his father.  At Marist, he was a punter on the football team - I would have pegged him as more of a defensive back – and wrote for the school newspaper.  His junior year, he studied abroad and attended Queen Mary College at the University of London.  This is a surprising educational background for someone who once told the New York Observer, “You don’t come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale.” – I don’t know many kids from dirt-poor families who attended private school and studied in Europe.

After graduation, O’Reilly moved to Miami and began teaching English and History at Monsignor Place High School, where he worked for two years.  In 1973, O’Reilly returned to school and received a Masters in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University.  While there, he was a reporter and columnist for several local newspapers; he would also go on to attend Harvard University’s JFK School of Government, earning a Masters in Public Administration.  His television career began at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and led him to other local TV gigs in Dallas, Denver, Portland, and Boston, among others.  In 1991, Bill became the anchor of a sensationalistic tabloid/gossip program called Inside Edition, and began to hone his skills as an opinionated, self-righteous blowhard.  In 1996, his unique brand of douchebaggery caught the eye of Roger Ailes, who was the chairman and CEO of the newly formed FOX News Channel.  Mr. Ailes believed O’Reilly would be a perfect fit for their opinion-based brand of news - probably because he was both stubborn and stupid – and The O’Reilly Factorwas born.  Since its debut on October 7th, 2006, this program has become one of the most-watched cable news-ish shows, and averages around 3.5 million viewers a night.  The show has also had its fair share of detractors, and is constantly under fire for “distorting facts and providing misleading information to the masses” - I’m pretty sure that is FOX News’s slogan too.

I’d like to end this with my favorite tidbit of info about Bill, which involves the sexual harassment case brought against him by a female FOX News producer back in 2003.  Andrea Mackis claimed that over the course of her employment, O’Reilly had repeatedly spoke to her about topics like “phone sex, vibrators, threesomes, masturbation, the loss of his virginity, and sexual fantasies.”  He publicly denied any wrongdoing, and claimed to be the victim of an extortion plot; but O’Reilly and Mackis ended up settling out of court for an undisclosed amount of money, meaning the lawsuit was eventually dropped.  Luckily, The Smoking Gun was able to obtain a copy of the Mackis’s complaint, which is rife with all kinds of sordid details and alleged vomit-inducing conversations.  Here are a few excerpts describing the “quid pro quo” harassment – most of which are too detailed and explicit to be untrue, in my opinion - including O’Reilly doing his best Tony Montana impression:

• “O’Reilly advised Mackin to pick up 23 year-old men in bars…and to use her vibrator to blow off steam. He also informed her that he advised another women to purchase a vibrator, and taught her how to masturbate over the phone.”
• During one phone conversation, “O’Reilly informed Mackis that he was watching a porno movie, and babbled perversely regarding his fantasies concerning Caribbean vacations”.  Then O’Reilly began to go Penthouse Forum on her, and described what would happen if they went on this type of vacation together.  At one point, Slick Billy started describing a shower fantasy:  ”I’d be rubbing your big boobs and getting your nipples really hard, kinda kissing your neck from behind…and then I would take the other hand with the falafel thing (?!?) and I’d put in on your pussy but you’d have to do it really light…just kind of a tease business.”
• When the subject of previous exploits with former female employees was brought up, Mackis hinted to O’Reilly that one of them might tell someone.  To which he responded: “If any woman ever breathed a word, I’ll make her pay so dearly she’ll wish she’d never been born”.  He would also go on to say, “If you cross FOX News Channel, it’s not just me, it’s Roger Ailes (FOX President) who will go after you…Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day BAM!  Look at Al Franken, one day he’s going to get a knock on his door and life as he’s known it will change forever.  That day will happen, trust me”.

  (Entire transcipt found Here)

I’m not as surprised at the freak out as I am by a Journalism major who can’t figure out what the term ”play us out” means:

Stephen Colbert goes toe-to-toe with “Papa Bear”:

Lil’ O’Reilly rips Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank a new one:

(Original interview w/ Barney Frank here)

While I don’t consider myself to be affiliated with any certain political party, it’s definitely harder for me to identify with the Republican talking heads that I hear on a daily basis - whether they’re on Capitol Hill, or polluting the TV/radio airwaves.  This is not to say that Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, or U.S. Pacifists are any better, but I would consider any of them the lesser (and usually younger) of two evils.  One of the undeniable truths that I took away from the 8 years under Dubya is that there are few things Republicans love more than some good, old-fashioned fear mongering  – another was that you can get elected to your 2nd term as President of the United States even if you go “full retard“.  This mode of not thinking was bad enough during the Republican run, but their political fearscape switched into high gear when Big Bad Barack Obama moved on up to that deluxe Oval Office in the sky.  I have no problem with people thinking Obama has done nothing of note with the power he’s been given so far, and I would somewhat agree with that assessment; but when I hear things like 1 in 3 NJ conservatives think he may be the anti-christ, and people drawing comparisons to Hitler, it makes me think that there may be greater powers of suggestion at work.  Well, the people at SuperNews have now confirmed that suspicion in one of their most recent videos.  Move over H1N1, because Fearus Ignoramia is sure to be the hottest epidemic since the Salem Witchcraft Trials.             

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  Franklin Delano Roosevelt