If you see a man's name repeatedly printed on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list, might you be tempted to think he is perhaps a dangerous character? What if the description of this wanted man included that he was "dangerous, year in, year out"; do you think that might get your guard up, at least just a little? What if the man was described as a terrorist, or what if he was your neighbor? What if the CIA, or the President, or your wife and children, told you that "so and so" is dangerous, year in, year out, and that he was repeatedly named the "Worst Person" in the world by authorities everywhere? Do you think you might find yourself a little anxious, a wee bit cautious? And would it upset you if, in the normal course of everyday life, the man deemed the "Worst Person in the World" was to meet an untimely or unfortunate death?
Let me ask you this: Could it have been possible during the 1930s and early 1940s that Adolf Hitler was considered the world's worst person? It seems reasonable to think so. But if that's the case, do you think it would have been unreasonable or immoral for someone to KILL the worst person in the world, Mr. Hitler? After all, what's the right thing to do with the world's worst person, one who is dangerous, day in, day out? Don't you wish for him to find the grave?
Tonight -- again -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann listed Fox News' Bill O'Reilly as the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. That Mr. Olbermann is obsessed with Mr. O'Reilly is well-known; tonight he even alluded to critics who have pointed out his fetishistic fascination with Mr. Bill. But what was interesting tonight about Mr. Olbermann's scolding of Mr. O'Reilly is that he presented Mr. O'Reilly as a threat to humanity; that Mr. O'Reilly was literally "dangerous, year in, year out." Mr. Olbermann even averred that Mr. O'Reilly is not a mere provocateur, but a hatemonger, inciting violence against politicians and other public servants. In Mr. Olbermann's opinion, Mr. O'Reilly is directly responsible for the assassination of George Tiller, the infamous late-term abortion doctor who was shot last year while attending church; apparently, or so Mr. Olbermann thinks, Mr. O'Reilly was culpable in that shooting because he opined on his national TV show that Tiller was an incorrigible killer of unborn babies, which, if I am not mistaken, was a statement of fact nearly tautological in structure.
But the irony, the sad, brutal irony, is that Mr. Olbermann is blind to his own hate. He claims Mr. O'Reilly incites violence with his hateful rhetoric. But I think Mr. Olbermann would be hard pressed to find a bit of evidence that Mr. O'Reilly has repeatedly labeled any person on the planet "THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD." There is ample evidence, however, that Mr. Olbermann has indeed relentlessly abused Bill O'Reilly, reducing him to a hatemongering bigot who is "dangerous, year in, year out." Whose language, really, is likely to lead to violence? Whose rhetoric is aimed at creating animosity, hate, and a thirst for retribution?
Of course, Mr. Olbermann will dismiss his critics: "I am the good guy, and what I do is satire, parody; I tell jokes!" Indeed, Mr. Olbermann is nearly exclusively about jokes. But Bill O'Reilly also tells jokes, and his comments about kidnapping Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, though not hurting them (and MAYBE waterboarding Pelosi), clearly WERE a joke, absurd and silly on their face. Moreover, this is not the sort of joke Mr. O'Reilly tells over and over. But Mr. Olbermann "jokes" repeatedly without humor, without a wink or a smile, that Bill O'Reilly is the world's WORST person; that he is "dangerous, year in, year out" and that he really "is dangerous to Nancy Pelosi." Obviously Mr. Olbermann is not joking, and he knows we all know it.
Mr. Olbermann fails to see that his act of denouncing Bill O'Reilly as a man who "encourages hatred and violence" itself encourages hatred and violence -- against Bill O'Reilly.
This writer is no Bill O'Reilly enthusiast, not even close. In fact, I've hammered him here. But O'Reilly is no Olbermann. Without a doubt the former is a blustering buffoon; but the latter is undeniably and unapologetically hateful, seething with resentment.
What Mr. Olbermann did tonight is really just the bright side of stupid.
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20 comments:
Mr. Olberman is nothing but parody. That he continues to garner interest and maintain his job despite his dismal ratings is a mystery to me. If anything, I think it demonstrates the continuing tone-deafness on the part of certain people in the media.
Specifically, their thought process goes something like this: The hoi polloi are incapable of forming any well reasoned opinions themselves, absent some leader to tell them what to believe. Fox News and its pundits function as that leader in a vacuum of media leadership. Therefore, we will provide a counter in MSNBC/Olberman, etc. which will constitute leadership for progressivism, i.e. the one true religion.
Of course, the fallacy is that Fox News, et al. did not create the center-right philosophical inclinations of most of the denizens of this country. They were always there. Fox merely identified a pre-existing, unserved market and created a product to cater to it.
The reason Olby is becoming increasingly shrill and unhinged is that he expected to lead the great unwashed back to the promised land of social justice and the politics of grievance. It hasn't happened, and he's just a three year old who's pissed off because nobody came to his birthday party.
Cheers.
Increasingly unhinged? Nah. He's been there a while. I wrote two years about how creepy his obsession with O'Reilly is. He once blurted out on the Dan Patrick Show that O'Reilly was a threat to American democracy.
Not only did this strike me as hyperbolic, but a logical fallacy as well.
How can a commentator offering opinions protected by the Constitution be a "threat" to a democracy? If anything, he enhances it because he speaks out of free will.
Ironically, it's Olbermann who threatens the right for people to speak. He can't muzzle O'Reilly so he obsesses over him. I don't see O'Reilly (who is not without his own faults) returning the fire. Moreover, his musings have become not only irrational but plain mean-spirited (see his comments about Michelle Malkin). He's not worth it.
Now. Some may think, whoa! Why so hard on him and not O'Reilly? Here's why: Olbermann is "supposed" to represent progressive and mainstream minds. He's meant to be a "rational" counter to an "irrational" force (Fox). He failed in my opinion.
Last, anyone recall Montel (I forget the spelling) saying on his radio show Palin should "kill" herself?
Imagine if, say, Limbaugh said it. And why didn't he make Olbermann's infantile "WMINTW" bit for that awful comment?
It's too bad. Olbermann clearly is smart and has a solid knowledge of sports. He should be applying that intelligence differently.
Reminder: Hitler won Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1938. That said...
Worst Person in the World vs. kidnapping and waterboarding...
Since I'm choosing to have no sense of humor for the purposes of this comparison, one of those is indeed encouraging violence and crime and is clearly more thoughtless and cruel than the other.
Seriously, how are you a conservative? Most conservatives have balls so big they have elephantiasis. Bill's a big boy, I'm sure his feelings aren't hurt.
Ginx,
O'Reilly was obviously kidding. Olbermann is not. O'Reilly's fans know he's kidding. Olbermann's fans agree with him.
Hence, the only man in this case who is hate-mongering is the one who claims to be speaking against hate-mongering.
Be well.
As dumb as Republicans are, as often as I have watched sarcasm soar miles over their empty heads, your assertion that O'Reilly's fans can be trusted to assume anything is just a joke is hilarious. I have heard conservatives say they pray, literally pray, for the death of Obama. Your argument is full of shit, and your inability to turn the mirror of crticism on anything conservative is ridiculous. Olberman and O'Reilly are hacks cut from opposite sides of the same turd.
Without any shadow of a doubt, O'Reilly is a giant douchebag... he just isn't the worst person in the world, and he's not even in the top 100 for worst people in the US.
Ginx,
If you heard O'Reilly's comments offered in context, what would you have heard? That's right -- the audience laughing. Olbermann's comments are not meant as humor. They are indeed a direct attack on a person.
Funny, but I know liberals who pray for the death of conservatives all the time; and if they do not pray, they surely wish for it. Not only that, they treat conservatives as if they should be killed for being less than human: They are a courteous, gentle lot.
I'm sorry if I implied liberals don't wish people dead. I do it frequently. Neither O'Reilly nor Olberman have a studio audience. That was you laughing about kidnapping politicians and waterboarding them, just sack up and admit it. It doesn't make you wrong, only human.
I finally found the audio, and you're right that there is an audience. I find his remarks to be typical of him, certainly not any more offensive than other things he has said.
Well, we can only hope O'Reilly says something one of these days that literally makes Olberman's head explode, I just hope there's a camera filming it.
To anyone interested, the O'Reilly audio is available here.
Ginx,
O'Reilly's comments were NOT made during a TV show. He was speaking before a live audience with Glenn Beck during their "Bold and Fresh" tour.
Forgive me for assuming you knew the details:
'O’Reilly went off on a little fantasy sequence and said to the audience, “So, I told Obama that the best thing he could do would be hire me as his main advisor. I actually got a nice not from the president yesterday, on Friday. He didn’t respond to that, but if he did hire me, first I would lavishly decorate my White House office, but after that, don’t tell anyone I said this please but, I would get Leon in. I would have Leon Panetta come in and I would say Leon look I’ve got a (inaudible) problem for you. This has got to be between me and you. I am the presidential advisor. Nobody can know. You gotta kidnap Pelosi and Reid, don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them. Take them to an undisclosed location. No waterboarding, well maybe with Nancy.”'
(What O'Reilly was essentially saying was that Pelosi and Reid are hurting President Obama, was he not?)
All in all, pretty harmless stuff, but the New Puritans on the Left have stopped their ears: "That's hate speech! That's inciting violence!"
Olbermann is guilty here.
Let me just mark another mistake for me on the big board... there we go, I'm over half way to a billion, now.
It doesn't even matter if it is "hate speech." There's no law against saying you wish someone were dead, nor should there be. It's not illegal, just immoral and certainly rude.
One thing I think you ought to note in the audio (the comment is made at 37 seconds, the response lasts several seconds afterwards): there is an initial laugh, no doubt, but this gives way to hooting, hollering and applause. That is the kind of childish response I would expect from the teen audience of the Daily Show, not the decrepified almost-corpses who populate the Republican ranks. I didn't even know they were capable of laughter. Apparently I just need to try using darker humor...
Errrr...yeah, I dont know if I'd call some of O'Rielly's comments just good-natured harmless joshing . I googled up this on the Net about the Dr George Tiller murder and O'Reilly's involvement.
"(George) Tiller’s name first appeared on The Factor on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O’Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as “Tiller the Baby Killer.”
Tiller, O’Reilly likes to say, “destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000.” He’s guilty of “Nazi stuff,” said O’Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. “This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union,” said O’Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006."
Wow, this is really strong stuff. Free speech, yes. Harmless, probally not. Is O'Reilly blameless in a man's murder? Thats up to everyone's individual consciences, but while O'Reilly did not actually call for Tiller's death, he did seem to actively demonize Tiller to the point where a disturbed nut may have finally felt entitled to commit murder.
But Fox does seem to specialize in this sorta scapegoating. I checked a little further, and found this gem as well.
"Transgender people were repeatedly used as punching bags by Fox News Channel and guest Laura Ingraham, even as violence and harassment against transgender people continued with disturbing frequency throughout 2008. While guest hosting Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor on February 8, Ingraham interrupted a guest by saying that a transgender conference was "killing the culture." Earlier this year on The O'Reilly Factor, she questioned how parents of a transgender youth "aren't embarrassed" by their child,
Wow, Billy G., that makes this debate a little less academic for ME. Heck, no ones accusing you and yours of killing America on FOX, but I gotta wonder a little now if another disturbed nut listened to this and maybe eying yours truly at the Clinic where I work, or on the bus that I ride, or at the Mall where I shop. Now, I'm getting a small taste of what Dr. Tiller must have worried about, and having a bulleye put on my back doesn't seem all that funny to me. Must be my sense of humor, huh?
"Olberman and O'Reilly are hacks cut from opposite sides of the same turd."
No argument here.
It's like choosing between a douche and a turd sandwich.
I kinda like and hate both at the same time. If that's possible.
Dear Danni,
There is no evidence -- NONE -- linking Bill O'Reilly to the death of a man who was indeed killing babies. Sorry. That's just a fact. Well, that's actually two facts.
In other words, it is mere vicious slander on Mr. Olbermann's part to turn his non causa pro causa fallacy into an accusation of culpability: Olbermann believes O'Reilly really did incite the violence against Dr. Tiller. By the way, Dan, did you do any research on Dr. Tiller's attitudes about his own work?
As you already know, I believe the TG argument is essentially irrational. Sorry, again. So, if I may be so bold, let me say that I agree with this statement, which is my own: if a good and orderly society is a rational one, then TG arguments, being irrational, do not contribute to the orderliness of society. Now you are free to disagree with this; I do not love you any less; and you may call me a hateful for saying what I've said here, but I should think that you, of all people, would be slow to call me a hater.
Fare well, my old friend.
PS. Danni,
I just wanted to add one thing: this is no academic exercise for me, either. I am intimately aware of what it is like to be hated, vilified, mocked, ostracized and attacked -- verbally and physically, in public and private -- for who I am.
Ginx, et al.,
I just want to return to something that may have been lost in all of this: I am not defending Mr. O'Reilly, at least not in total. I am criticizing Mr. Olbermann for being blind to his own hateful rhetoric. What did he call Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown, someone he does not know? Were those words meant as a joke? Could they not be rather easily understood as hateful? Could one not reasonably extrapolate that they are meant to incite vitriol, derision, and yes, perhaps even violence?
It's odd that anyone here should turn around my words, or to obsess about O'Reilly's words, that they somehow justify Olbermann's. They don't. Olbermann of course is free to speak his mind, just as I am free to speak mine if solely to point out his glaring contradiction(s). But IN CONTEXT, O'Reilly's words were clearly offered as comedy; and Mr. Olbermann, refusing to see that, chose to paint Mr. O'Reilly as "dangerous, year in, year out."
O'Reilly was playing the absurdist while Olbermann is the absurdist.
I don't think your a hater, Bill, and I always considered us friends(Through the "Old" part I can do without-LOL!)I just sent you a "Friend" request for Facebook actually.
But I do disagree with you on a fundemental issue-you said that you view life as being orderly and rational,thus the Transgendered cannot exist in such a universe, whereas to myself life as I've seen it is chaotic, gritty, bloody, messy and disorderly and totally irrational.
Plato notwithstanding, I don't think a society such as you discribed can ever exist for a significant length of time, be it Sparta, South Africa, or the Puritans. And how enjoyable would such a society be to live in?
My bedrock belief is that society needs to allow for people to have the freedom to be accepted as they are meant to be, be it Gay, straight, quiet, outgoing, thin or fat. No-one religion or cultural mode can fir all its citizens and any society that tries to impose an idealogical straitjacket such as I think you are proposing does not prosper in the long view of things.
Thats my basis for arguing how someone like me CAN exist. I think, I live, I get PMS, I changed my legal name to Danni , therefore I am. I'm sure we could argue until the Second Coming about the latest findings by scientists and doctors about gender, hormonal changes and brain structure in TS women, but that would just be futile on both ends and would honestly bore me silly, and probally you as well. But being who I am works for ME and that right should be respected, not trammeled on by the likes Of Dr. Laura.
As far as your being harassed or attacked physically in public, I am very sorry to hear that. People may not agree with someones views , but no one has a license to go head-hunting in a free society, be it after you, or after Pro-choice providers.
Commentator sort of summed it up for me. They're both trains wrecks, and I sometimes watch them when flipping for the same reason I stop at the 700 Club: just to see what crazy thing they'll say next.
I guess my point was people don't take Olberman seriously, and the few who do are like O'Reilly and his fans: paradodies of real people, exaggerated stereotypes piped into our homes nightly for our amusement.
I'm just embarassed that all these years I've been saying "Gn-nard" but I just learned that it's 'Gnade (pronounced guh nod) 'Color me red-faced and names-challenged! LOL!
DL.,
I just read your reply, and I want to thank you for it. I sent you a note before having read this. I am sorry. It seems I've responded out of sequence.
Peace.
BG
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