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Mike Miller wrote:
On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
Mike Miller wrote:
This is the one I had in mind:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200501250001
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502010001
The first one introduces the topic and shows what Barbara Boxer
really said and what he said she said. In the second one callers try
to correct his mistake. He yells at the caller, takes a really
superior dominant tone and, well, you can see what he says in the
last paragraph. The crazy thing is that the caller was definitely
right and O'Reilly was definitely wrong. I'm not saying he was lying
because he might have been confused, but look at how off base he can
be and still have that smug, superior tone.
I think that much of this is over-zealous hyperbole rather than out
and out lying. But I do agree that with the second example, he did
show himself to be a bit of a jerk. And it does tend to corroborate
the Peabody/Polk award event. It looks like he doesn't take to
admitting his own mistakes easily. (A common fault amongst many
people, it should be said.)
I don't know if he was lying or just remembering incorrectly. I think
probably the latter, but he gets so confident, even when he is clearly
wrong, that he gets really indignant when anyone disagrees.
This is one of the things, if not the only thing, that is making
O'Reilly a big star: His loud-mouthed angry style. It keeps people
watching and talking about him. They write whole books about him. He
makes $10 million per year. It isn't because he knows his stuff, it's
because he's such a pompous loud mouth. It's so extreme that you have
to watch, just like you have to look at a car wreck when you drive past
it on the highway.
That's a little bit unfair. Certainly his loud-mouthed style helps him
a great deal. While it is something that you or I might not like so
much, most people seem to love it. However, I see it more as a
stylistic issue more than something substantive.
I do think that he knows his stuff. Even if he doesn't know his stuff
to the last detail, he certainly knows a lot more than most people.
Reading the first web page you cite, the criticisms, except for the
first and the second to last, really are a matter of interpretation. So
for example, with the Syria Accountability Act, you cannot really judge
its effectiveness by the fact that Syria opposed it (because they would
oppose anything like this), nor from the fact that Rice praised it (I
have noticed that she can be extraordinarily tactful, only sparingly
criticizing when she absolutely has to). And mixing a sponsor with a
co-sponsor really can't be regarded as an inaccuracy, more a matter of
language. And the last criticism of this mediamatters page really comes
across as very disingenuous, definitely exposing a liberal bias on their
part.
Stephen
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