George Will skewers Bill O'Reilly fittingly! on his new Reagan book

[SuperDemocrat]

Pompous Bill O’Reilly, constantly telling us how wonderful his books are, constantly promoting himself, etc. Hey guess what Bill? If you have the highest rated cable news program for 10 years and you are on there every night begging your viewers to buy your book, you will have an enormous edge over all the other authors. Still, you act like you are such a wizard.

Now it may be that I agree more times than not with O’Reilly’s positions, but his lording it over his guests, his pompous attitude, his audacity to say “good debate” after allowing his guest maybe 2 minutes of actual speaking time is laughable. Now George Will (who bothers me in his own right) has called out O’Reilly and his latest creation, the Reagan book. Without further investigation I do not doubt George is right and O’Reilly is an attention seeking scoundrel. I say he is using and misusing the former president for his own self-aggrandizement.

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O'Reilly Gets It All Wrong on Reagan

By George Will | Thursday, 05 Nov 2015 03:28 PM

Donald Trump is just one symptom of today's cultural pathology of self-validating vehemence with blustery certitudes substituting for evidence. Another is the fact that the book atop The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list is a tissue of unsubstantiated assertions.

Because of its vast readership, "Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency" by Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and his collaborator Martin Dugard will distort public understanding of Ronald Reagan's presidency more than hostile but conscientious scholars could.

Styling himself an "investigative historian," O'Reilly purports to have discovered amazing facts that have escaped the notice of real historians.

The book's intimated hypothesis is that the trauma of the March 1981 assassination attempt somehow triggered in Reagan a mental decline, perhaps accelerating the Alzheimer's disease that would not be diagnosed until 13 years later.

The book says Reagan was often addled to the point of incompetence, causing senior advisers to contemplate using the Constitution's 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

Well.

Reagan was shot on the 70th day of his presidency. In the next 2,853 days he produced an economic boom and the Cold War's endgame. Among O'Reilly's "explanations" for Reagan's supposed combination of creativity and befuddlement: He was brave; "on his bad days, he couldn't work" but on good days "he was brilliant"; Nancy Reagan was in charge; it was "almost miraculous."

When Reagan's unsatisfactory Chief of Staff Don Regan was replaced by Howard Baker, a Baker aide wrote a memo that included slanderous assessments of the president from some disgruntled Regan staffers.

This memo, later regretted by its author, became, O'Reilly says, the "centerpiece" of his book. On this flimsy reed he leans the fiction (refuted by minute-by-minutes records in the Reagan Library) that, in O'Reilly's words, "a lot of days" Reagan never left the White House's second floor where he watched "soap operas all day long."

The book's pretense of scholarship involves 151 footnotes, only one of which is even remotely pertinent to the book's lurid assertions.

Almost all contain irrelevant tidbits ("Reagan's hair was actually brown"). At the Reagan Library, where researchers must register, records show that neither O'Reilly nor Dugard, who churn out a book a year, used its resources.

The book's 2 1/2 pages of "sources" unspecifically and implausibly refer to "FBI and CIA files," "presidential libraries," and travel "around the world." They also cite Kitty Kelley's scabrous 1991 Nancy Reagan "biography," a sewer of rumors and innuendos that probably is the source of the sexual factoids O'Reilly and Dugard recycle.

Ed Meese was, from Sacramento to Washington, Reagan's longest-serving adviser. George Shultz was Reagan's confidant and secretary of state. James Baker served Reagan as chief of staff and Treasury secretary.

None was contacted in connection with the book. Scores of Reagan's White House aides would have shredded the book's preposterous premise, which might be why they were not interviewed.

For example, Mari Maseng, now Mari Will, worked with Reagan at the beginning and the end of his presidency. She worked with him as a speechwriter from 1981-1983. (As author of the speech he delivered at the Washington Hilton, she was walking ahead of him when the would-be assassin fired.)

She returned to the White House in 1986 as director of public liaison. In 1988, as communications director, she worked down the hall from the Oval Office, having constant interactions with him. She saw no diminution of his physical energy or mental acuity.

Dugard sought research advice from former Rep. Christopher Cox, who served in Reagan's White House counsel's office. Cox put Dugard in touch with former California Gov. Pete Wilson and several Reagan historians.

Wilson and Cox warned that historians' criticisms could hurt the book's reception. Then O'Reilly charged on Fox that Wilson and Cox somehow threatened him, adding gratuitously and falsely that Cox, as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, "presided over the mortgage debacle that collapsed the economy in 2007," an explanation of the autumn 2008 collapse that is simply weird.

Cox put the book's publisher in touch with Annelise Anderson, who, with her late husband Marty, a longtime Reagan adviser, has authored and edited serious books about Reagan. She was offered $5,000 and given just one week to evaluate the manuscript. Having read it, she declined compensation, saying mildly, "I don't think this manuscript is ready for publication."

The book's perfunctory pieties about Reagan's greatness are inundated by its flood of regurgitated slanders about his supposed lassitude and manipulability.

This book is nonsensical history and execrable citizenship, and should come with a warning: "Caution — you are about to enter a no-facts zone."

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George F. Will is one of today's most recognized writers, with more than 450 newspapers, a Newsweek column, and his appearances as a political commentator on Fox news. Read more reports from George Will — Click Here Now.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com O'Reilly Gets It All Wrong on Reagan

This post should be removed because he clearly copied this without someone else's permission.

 

[turzovka]

This post should be removed because he clearly copied this without someone else's permission.

Copied what???

Do explain.

[to the moderator, out of curiosity] -- And why was this post moved to the "history" forum? The gist of this post is a criticism of Bill O'Reilly and his machinations by another conservative luminary, George Will.

I really do not understand the moving of posts to these forums that are too often uninhabited.

 

[turzovka]

I miss Larry King's radio show, he would talk civil to people and allow them to express themselves freely. This conduct is simply shameful, both come off as idiots.
.

​

Oh, my is O'Reilly a sensitive little pussy. His ego has been bruised or his sainthood challenged. What a joke he is to me.

This exchange here is a perfect example of his bullying where he gets to ask all the questions, he gets to interrupt and talk over any answers he does not like the flavor of, and so on. I will tell you what I really despise --- the way he and Hannity put out these grade school "Yes or No" questions and demand a Yes or No answer immediately from their guest. As though any answer that does not begin with yes or no is some kind of obfuscation of their petty point. As though there is not gray in every matter where an explanation of a position better serves the truth than their demand of Yes or No. So because they do not hear their Yes or No, they immediately interrupt, quite vociferously, the guest. It is of extreme childishness.

O'Reilly makes conservatism, and indubitably Christianity, look small-minded, arrogant and exclusive. He is a HACK! As he so unprofessionally pointed his finger at George Will and yelled it out calling him that twice or more. What a little baby who cannot imagine he has faults. What an arrogant ass.

 

[Rotagilla]

LMAO..you people get so wound up about propaganda, show biz and "celebrities"...comical

 

[mdk]

They should have settled this debate like how gentlemen used to back in the day, creamed corn wrestling. lol

 

[turzovka]

LMAO..you people get so wound up about propaganda, show biz and "celebrities"...comical

We get wound up about the media and how they choose to cover a story, or worse, choose to hide a story.

Do you think the media does not influence the way this nation thinks and acts?

Hint: Cable news is a major source for how many voters are informed and influenced --- right or wrong, it is still a fact. And O'Reilly is, for all intents and purposes, media and journalism and an information provider. As is Comedy Central's heroes, Jon Stewart, Colbert, and Bill Maher (whatever he is on). So like it or not, this "propaganda" is a major factor in influencing opinion and votes. And, guess what, liberals are winning big on that score.

 

[ogibillm]

PC will be on shortly to regurgitate the more ridiculous assertions as her own

 

[Rotagilla]

LMAO..you people get so wound up about propaganda, show biz and "celebrities"...comical

We get wound up about the media and how they choose to cover a story, or worse, choose to hide a story.

Do you think the media does not influence the way this nation thinks and acts?

Hint: Cable news is a major source for how many voters are informed and influenced --- right or wrong, it is still a fact. And O'Reilly is, for all intents and purposes, media and journalism and an information provider. As is Comedy Central's heroes, Jon Stewart, Colbert, and Bill Maher (whatever he is on). So like it or not, this "propaganda" is a major factor in influencing opinion and votes. And, guess what, liberals are winning big on that score.

*Pro Tip*
Operation Mockingbird.

No one should be surprised about infiltrated "media"...what's comical is how wound up you get over celebrites...Look...you just referenced 3 more...
television is for idiots...a weapon of mass distraction to keep the herd mesmerized and passive...

 

[turzovka]

LMAO..you people get so wound up about propaganda, show biz and "celebrities"...comical

We get wound up about the media and how they choose to cover a story, or worse, choose to hide a story.

Do you think the media does not influence the way this nation thinks and acts?

Hint: Cable news is a major source for how many voters are informed and influenced --- right or wrong, it is still a fact. And O'Reilly is, for all intents and purposes, media and journalism and an information provider. As is Comedy Central's heroes, Jon Stewart, Colbert, and Bill Maher (whatever he is on). So like it or not, this "propaganda" is a major factor in influencing opinion and votes. And, guess what, liberals are winning big on that score.

*Pro Tip*
Operation Mockingbird.

No one should be surprised about infiltrated "media"...what's comical is how wound up you get over celebrites...Look...you just referenced 3 more...
television is for idiots...a weapon of mass distraction to keep the herd mesmerized and passive...

I explained to you why it is not about "celebrities."

The fact you do not agree or do not comprehend is beyond my control.

It is about the media (however you or anyone else cares to define 'media') influencing public thought, right or wrong, fair or unfair. It is a far bigger matter than merely discussing a celebrity.

 

[Rotagilla]

LMAO..you people get so wound up about propaganda, show biz and "celebrities"...comical

We get wound up about the media and how they choose to cover a story, or worse, choose to hide a story.

Do you think the media does not influence the way this nation thinks and acts?

Hint: Cable news is a major source for how many voters are informed and influenced --- right or wrong, it is still a fact. And O'Reilly is, for all intents and purposes, media and journalism and an information provider. As is Comedy Central's heroes, Jon Stewart, Colbert, and Bill Maher (whatever he is on). So like it or not, this "propaganda" is a major factor in influencing opinion and votes. And, guess what, liberals are winning big on that score.

*Pro Tip*
Operation Mockingbird.

No one should be surprised about infiltrated "media"...what's comical is how wound up you get over celebrites...Look...you just referenced 3 more...
television is for idiots...a weapon of mass distraction to keep the herd mesmerized and passive...

I explained to you why it is not about "celebrities."

The fact you do not agree or do not comprehend is beyond my control.

It is about the media (however you or anyone else cares to define 'media') influencing public thought, right or wrong, fair or unfair. It is a far bigger matter than merely discussing a celebrity.

yet you keep mentioning celebrities as if they and their opinions are important.
I referenced operation mockingbird...it's ongoing..believe that.

 

[Steven_R]

Bill O'Reilly is now is nothing but a joke.

Now?

 

[g5000]

LMAO..you people get so wound up about propaganda, show biz and "celebrities"...comical

Unfortunately, clowns like O'Reilly and the entire Fox News organization have been taken seriously by a lot of rubes, including the ones on this forum. The rubes guzzle down their piss and line up for more.

 

[Steven_R]

Meh, MSNBC is just as bad, but from the other end of the scale. The problem is the talking heads have an agenda, too many people treat politics like team sports, and we're not really given the information we need to make informed decisions by anyone.