Bill O'Reilly

O'Reilly; not shouting, just talking

Parroting squawkbox Pundits

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“”... cleanse the Muslim world ...

—Bill O'Reilly, on taking quotes out of context

“”Tide goes in; tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that.

—O'Reilly proving the existence of God

Bill "You Can't Explain That" "Fuck It, We'll Do It Live!" "Papa Bear" Oh, Really O'Reilly (1949–) operated as a right-wing commentator on Fox News, where he presented The O’Reilly Factor, until he was fired after yet another sexual-harassment case. He is now teaming up with Glenn Beck in a sad attempt to stay relevant, after very few people in his largely elderly audience listened to his "No Spin News" podcast.

O'Reilly has a reputation as a fan of Middle Eastern food, particularly falafel (perhaps because of the word's passing resemblance and alliterative relationship to a sex act). He is also notoriously bad at phone sex — more on that later.

Political views

While certainly a proponent of center-right populism, O'Reilly differs from most of the conservatives he shares a channel with in his claimed support for gun control, acknowledgment of the existence of global warming, support for civil unions and gay adoption, as well as his anti-death penalty views. O'Reilly has also shown support for a limited form of affirmative action but one based on the applicant's income level and "character" (criminal history, or lack thereof), rather than race. Whilst believing the media to be biased against Donald Trump and exposing the double standards the media employs towards his candidacy, even Bill couldn't stomach Trump harping on about a "rigged" election and begged for him to stop.

O'Reilly also leads (from the rear) his legions into battle every December against the vile secular progressives in the War on Christmas (despite his own sabotage to the cause), in the name of traditional Christianity (by his definition of the term, anyway). In 2012, he justified his pro-Christmas attitude by arguing that Christianity was not a religion.

"Shut up!", "Shut up!", "Shut up!", ad nauseam.

Independent?

O'Reilly's 1994 Voter Registration Form

During his earlier years, O'Reilly would constantly make the point that he's registered as an independent--not a Democrat nor a Republican. This, it turns out, was a lie--O'Reilly had been a registered Republican since 1994. When O'Reilly was called out on this, he claimed that the registration forum he filled out did not have an option for "Independent," which, it turns out, was another lie on his part. Before he was popular on television, O'Reilly considered running for Congress twice, both times as a Republican. (Oh, there's also the small fact that the network his show was on was first pitched as "GOP TV.")

Ideologically, despite O'Reilly's insistence otherwise, there is no doubt he is much more on the side of the right. A 2009 poll found that sixty-six percent of his viewers consider themselves conservative, compared to only three percent who identify as liberal. O'Reilly has at least acknowledged that is audience is mainly "moderate conservatives," but won't translate that to just admitting that he's one of them himself.

This is not to say that O'Reilly is nothing more than a blind partisan, he does have views that clash with conservatives from time to time. However, O'Reilly's occasional left-wing views are much more timid than his bulldog style right-wing views. Regarding climate change, for example, O'Reilly says things like "I believe there is global warming. I mean, I know that's controversial. For every scientist who say there is, there's one who says there isn't."

The same timid shyness comes when O'Reilly has to attack Republicans. When one guest said that President Bush should be held accountable for making up a report from the IAEA which said that Iraq was only a handful of months away from developing a nuclear weapon, O'Reilly said "Well you could make that argument. And that's the argument that the electorate has to make . . . The American people have to make that argument and that decision." In the same regard, he said of the Trent Lott controversy "It's up to you, the individual American, to form an opinion about Mr. Lott." That's rather soft coming from the man who is known for loudly shouting down his political opponents based on the smallest example of "spin."

Andrea Mackris

In October 2004, he was sued by a former Factor producer for sexual harassment. He is reported to have phoned her and advised her to use a vibrator and a "falafel." The multi-million dollar suit was settled out of court. The terms are, of course, confidential, but it is believed that O'Reilly paid multi-millions of dollars to her as "hush" money. It is unknown whether falafels or vibrators changed hands in the transaction.

The settlement occurred one day before audiotapes of the calls would have been reviewed in court. As part of the settlement, the tapes were destroyed, but thankfully we have complete transcriptions in the original lawsuit. It's cringeworthy stuff.

Fun with Bill and Al

An episode of The O'Reilly Factor from May 2013 began with a graphic featuring of a photo of conspiracy wackjob theorist Alex Jones with the words "Hate Speech" next to it. Jones reacted with the amount of dignity you might expect, calling O'Reilly a "coward", "punk", and "rat bastard" on his way to challenging him to a pay-per-view boxing match. Jones then kept on going a day later, referring to O'Reilly as resembling a "giant ferret" and bringing up the aforementioned 2004 sexual harassment incident. No word on the odds that this brouhaha will result in an actual boxing match between the two or something equally comedic.

Family values

Bill O'Reilly is divorced, and his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy, has accused him in court of abuse. He's also tried to get her excommunicated from the Catholic Church, annul their marriage (despite it producing two children), bought off their "neutral" child therapist, and tried to ruin the career of her new husband.

Those Who Trespass

In 1998, O'Reilly published his homicidal fantasies wrote a crime novel, Those Who Trespass, about Shannon Michaels, an Irish-American TV journalist who seeks revenge for the loss of his job at Global News Network by systematically murdering everyone he holds responsible. The hit list of this roman à clef includes a woman named Hillary and a portly gentleman named Martin Moore.

Want a better idea of what a lewd phone call from Bill O'Reilly would sound like? Listen to these excerpts from the audiobook.

Although vulgar and violent crime novels are a dime a dozen, what makes this book particularly interesting is O'Reilly's own stance against violence in the media. For example, in 2003 O'Reilly infamously launched a campaign against Pepsi for doing advertisements with the rap artist Ludacris on the basis of the violence in his music. However, although Ludacris's album Word of Mouf contained four depictions of murder, O'Reilly's own book contained six.

Shoo out the clown

Amid allegations that O'Reilly had paid almost $13 million in hush money to women he sexually assaulted, Bill O'Reilly was forced out of Fox News (not for the alleged assaults, for the loss of advertising money).

The O’Reilly Factor

The O'Reilly Factor (also known as the O RLY Factor) was an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by Bill O'Reilly.

Although it claims to be a "No Spin Zone" it is, in fact, spinning so quickly that viewers are often taken ill and feel nauseated. The idea is similar to the rotation of helicopter blades. If they spin fast enough, they appear to be very slowly spinning in the opposite direction, or not at all.

Breakdown of the show

Talking Points

Bill will rant comment on a "pressing" issue of the day, usually having to do with the Obama Administration in recent shows and most particularly the dropping of Obama's approval ratings according to his polls. His rant speech is also right in front of him and viewers so he will have it in case he forgets what to say his points will be reinforced.

Top Story

Bill will have a person who is usually like-minded such as Karl Rove (usually it is Rove) and will "discuss" the issue in the Talking Points "unintellectually" and "without spin" (and apparently without awareness of irony).

Impact

Bill will discuss some usually unimportant "crime" scene with some random people, usually with other right-wing blowhards. Also a good time to bash Obama's handling of the War in Afghanistan.

Unresolved Problem

More propaganda stuff (usually of a bigoted nature) that Bill may feel is not sufficiently covered by other media even though he pays no attention to other media.

Barack and a Hard Place

A bad pun, as well as a weekly segment for more Obama bashing. At least he has some opposing viewpoints from Alan Colmes as well as his friend Monica Crowley.

Children at Risk

A front to make it appear as though he cares about the kids, though this segment has been used to bash McDonald's.

Culture War

Social conservatism gone rampant as Bill talks about the "issues". Sure not homophobia!

Did you see That

Usually explicit video clips are shown and a poor "Warning!" is given.

Dumbest Things of the Week

Friday pop culture commentary program showing Bill's behind-the-times attitude with guests: stuff that probably doesn't belong on a cable news program.

Factor Investigation

Bill uses his bullying punditry powers to criticize people or groups he disagrees with and has guests who "investigate" (read: slander) the people or groups.

Fridays with Geraldo

Bill discusses stuff with Geraldo Rivera that probably has no importance to the average viewer.

Kelly File

Where Bill talks to "lawyer", or pundit, Megyn Kelly.

Great American News Quiz

Where Bill asks some stupid trivia questions. More like Jeopardy, rather than news.

Is It Legal

Lis Wiehl and Megyn Kelly argue with a steaming hot Bill about the legality of certain issues for a pointless waste of a segment.

Miller Time

"Comedian" Dennis Miller makes even more of a laughingstock of The Factor by even making Bill seem smart when they discuss a certain issue.

Policing the...

More obscene material being discussed by Bill and guests who just show content and say a few words with Bill insulting the Internet that makes Bill millions.

The Ingraham Angle

Bill invites the human nasal passage, Laura Ingraham, so he can talk with her. Sometimes she substitutes for him, possibly making the "no-spin zone" even more openly banal, nonsensical, and paranoid than it already is, which is saying a lot.

Tip of the Day

Bill gives "advice" and usually promotes his gear or some other product.

Factor Mail

Bill reads snippets of viewer mail usually only from premium members of his website and rants about what they say. Or he advertises his "Factor Gear" or new books.

Word of the Day

Bill uses his "above average intelligence" to come up with an obsolete word, and then insults his viewers by making them look it up in a dictionary (if needed) at the end of the show. "If I tell you what it means, you'll forget it."

Evidence of O'Reilly being a hypocrite and poor moderator

Boulder High School Incident

Bill invited two high school kids to have a discussion on an incident that happened on their campus which Fox News tried to use to their advantage. However, in the course of the debate, Bill realized that Jesse Lange, one of the two students, was completely deconstructing Fox News' false reporting. In a desperate attempt to try and look credible, O'Reilly took a quote out of context and tried to interrupt Jesse when he realized that he was being outclassed on live TV. Jesse Lange then pointed out O'Reilly's hypocrisy by taking a quote from his book and was willing to read the whole paragraph, but Bill hastily stopped the debate and said the quote was out of context, even when Lange said that he would read the entire paragraph.

Bill then went so low as to call Lange a pinhead when he realized that what very little credibility he had was completely shattered by an intelligent high school student.

The no spin zone?

“”Ironically named zone in which spin occurs in great abundance.

—Urban Dictionary's Top Definition for "The No Spin Zone"

“”Once you lie, you're out of the box. That's the No Spin Zone.

Easily, the most infamous thing about O'Reilly is his claim of running "a no spin zone." Similar to Bill's claim of being an independent, they commonly fail to make any sense for those who have actually watched his show and understand the things he says--which seems to not be that large of a chunk of his audience.

When looking for examples of O'Reilly spinning, one only needs to look at the introduction of each of his shows--which ends with the ironic motto of "Caution: You're about to enter a No-Spin Zone." Peter Hart, in his book on O'Reilly, gives the following examples:

TONIGHT: Why do some countries like France want to keep the vicious dictator Saddam Hussein in power? We will tell you. Former weapons inspectors and antiwar guy Scott Ritter is accused of seeking sex with a fourteen-year-old. Is his credibility shot? Your tax dollars at work: Rap is being taught in some public schools. We'll find out why. And the truth about race in the military.

Notice how O'Reilly calls Hussein a "vicious" dictator who the French "want to keep . . . in power." He doesn't ask simply why they opposed the war in Iraq, which would be a much more neutral way to phrase that question. In the same regard, O'Reilly doesn't ask if the accusations against Scott Ritter are true. Instead, he jumps straight to wondering "is his credibility shot?" Furthermore, if O'Reilly's goal is really just to examine facts--as running a "No Spin Zone" would imply--why should how credible Ritter is even be a question? Surely if Scott Ritter did something terrible and managed to make a valid point about the Iraq War, somebody who is truly free of spin would acknowledge that regardless.

O'Reilly seems to define "spin" as "anything that disagrees with me." As one guest put it:

When I agree with you, I'm reasoning. And when I have a different point of view, then I'm being unreasonable. That's no spin. That's the No-Spin Zone.

Lies about his journalism

“” I covered four wars with a pen.

Bill has spent years bragging about his journalism credentials, however, unsurprisingly, O'Reilly's claims about being involved with actual historical events are just as laughable as his claims about awards.

The Falkland Islands

In 2015, Mother Jones ran an article discussing O'Reilly's long standing claims regarding his reporting of the Falkland Islands. Specifically, O'Reilly had claimed to have been in a war zone, which wasn't the case. First off, O'Reilly worked at CBS at the time, and, as Bob Schiffer, who was CBS's lead correspondent covering that situation, pointed out “Nobody from CBS got to the Falklands. I came close. We’d been trying to get somebody down there. It was impossible.”

In truth, O'Reilly had reported on protests regarding the end of the war, specifically regarding Argentinians being angry that their government surrendered to the British. O'Reilly actually got this part right in his book The No Spin Zone, where he said it was in response to when "the Argentines surrendered to the British." (Although he has called it a warzone elsewhere, including in this very same book when he claims "I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falkland Islands.")However, even this version of events is hyperbolized greatly. O'Reilly said "A major riot endured and many were killed," but actual CBS reporting from the time shows little more then property damage and minor violence.

O'Reilly's response to this was--well, exactly what you'd expect. He mocked Eric Engberg, one of the people who confirmed the story, by saying “his nickname was Room Service Eric." He also mocked Mother Jones, saying they're "considered by many the bottom rung of journalism in America." Who these people are, O'Reilly doesn't say, but they must be unrelated to the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing which gave an award to their co-editors just two years before this story broke.

El Salvador

The same piece included a long section of O'Reilly's similarly incorrect history on El Salvador. O'Reilly wrote on his time in El Salvador:

The place was leveled to the ground and fires were still smoldering. But even though the carnage was obviously recent, we saw no one live or dead. There was absolutely nobody around who could tell us what happened. I quickly did a stand-up amid the rubble and we got the hell out of there.

This one can be debunked just by looking at his own reporting at the time, with one segment he narrated beginning with “These days Salvadoran soldiers appear to be doing more singing than fighting.” Although he does mention seeing some destroyed houses, dead animals, and other "signs of war," he says "government soldiers camped out in the open," and that previously damaged bridges were under repair.

George de Mohrenschildt

On March 29, 1977, a man named George de Mohrenschildt, a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald who had just received a card from Gaeston Fonzi, an investigative journalist working for the House Select Committee on Assassinations which was reinvestigating the murder of President Kennedy, committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth.

This is where Bill O'Reilly pretended to come in.

In 2012, O'Reilly published a book called Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot where he documents the assassination of the President. Here's how he documents this incident:

In March 1977 a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian college professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962.The reporter traced de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and travelled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt’s daughter’s home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.

By the way, that reporter’s name is Bill O’Reilly.

Actual witnesses to the event say this is utter nonsense, with O'Reilly being in Dallas, Texas at the time and not Florida. Furthermore, phone records from that time show O'Reilly being called--from Dallas, Texas--to be informed of this event, which is rather odd given he claims to have been one of its witnesses.

Also, tracing de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida wouldn't have helped O'Reilly hear the event--de Mohrenschildt died in Manalapan about eight miles away. In the same regard, O'Reilly claiming he heard the gunshots from outside the house makes no sense given "No one heard the gun go off."

Mr. Peabody and Bill

Quite possibly the most well known lie regarding his journalism, in the early years of The O'Reilly Factor O'Reilly had trouble distancing himself from his work on the tabloid show Inside Edition. As such, O'Reilly claimed that Inside Edition had won one--sorry two Peabody Awards, which he called "the most prestigious award in journalism." It turned out Inside Edition had actually won a Polk for their reporting on insurance scams--the year after O'Reilly left the show.

O'Reilly responded to this on his show by claiming he "never said it" even though the Newsweek article which broke the story quotes him as admitting to it and saying it's not a big deal.

Fake historian

Given O'Reilly once got American and German forces confused while talking about Malmedy (a battle in a war he believes we won because of spanking and a war which he compared those who wanted to withdraw from Iraq to those who were against it "before Hitler invaded [the United States"), claimed Harvey Milk's murderer Dan White was a homosexual, and used a non-existent quote from Thomas Jefferson to argue he was a Christian a series of books on history seemed like an odd move, but that's what O'Reilly did. Starting with his 2011 book Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever, O'Reilly has written a series of allegedly non-fiction books on various historical killings.

Early editions of Killing Lincoln contained "numerous errors of people, place, and events," according to a review written by a man who had previously published more than five books on the Lincoln assassination, which O'Reilly admitted to and corrected in future printings. Highlights include O'Reilly making multiple references to Lincoln being in the "oval office," despite it not even being built until 1909 and him saying Ford's Theatre "burned to the ground in 1863" when it had actually done so in 1862.

O'Reilly's other books in this series are, unsurprisingly, filled with even more mistakes various actual scholars have pointed out. In Killing Jesus: A History, O'Reilly claims that Jesus was a politician who was killed because he hated taxes.Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General makes the claim that Patton was poisoned, potentially by Joseph Stalin, which no historian takes seriously. (It also was seen by many as little more than a puff-piece which ignored Patton's various character flaws.)

Even his buddies hate these books

Out of all of these books, the one that got O'Reilly easily the most pushback was his 2015 work Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency. According to Bill, Reagan's assassination attempt in 1981 left him unable to do work for a large chunk of his presidency. O'Reilly even goes so far as to claim there was serious discussion of using the twenty-fifth Amendment to get Reagan out of power, despite the fact that "none of the hundreds of former Reagan White House staffers has stepped forward to corroborate the story."

The book was harshly criticized by conservative columnist and long time Fox News commentator George Will, leading the two to clash on O'Reilly's own show.

That time Bill O'Reilly helped lead to the death of an abortion doctor

In 2009, the late term abortion doctor George Tiller was killed by a man named Scott Roeder, an anti-abortionist activist and extremist. Rolling Stones said O'Reilly had previously engaged in "an unflagging war against Tiller that did just about everything short of urging his followers to murder him." From 2005 until 2009, O'Reilly had mentioned Tiller nearly thirty times on his Fox News show and compared him to both the Nazis and NAMBLA. O'Reilly even went so far as to say he would have killed Tiller himself if given the chance in one of these segments:

And if I could get my hands on Tiller – well, you know. Can’t be vigilantes. Can’t do that. It’s just a figure of speech. But despicable? Oh, my God. Oh, it doesn’t get worse. Does it get worse? No.

The Jeremy Glick incident

On February 4th, 2003, O'Reilly invited on a man named Jeremy Glick, the son of a man who died on 9/11 and, in spite of that, signed an anti-war petition. Here are some highlights:

O’REILLY:I’m surprised you signed this. You were the only one of all of the families who signed…

JEREMY GLICK: Well, actually, that’s not true.

O’REILLY: Who signed the advertisement?

GLICK: Peaceful Tomorrow, which represents 9/11 families, were also involved.

The first thing Bill does in this interview is get something wrong--because of course he did.

O’REILLY: You’re entitled to [your political opinions], all right, but you’re — you see, even — I’m sure your beliefs are sincere, but what upsets me is I don’t think your father would be approving of this.

How exactly would O'Reilly know such a thing? He never once talked to Glick's father as far as we're aware, for all Bill knows his father could have been as far left as Noam Chomsky.

O’REILLY: All right. I don’t want to…

GLICK: Maybe…

O’REILLY: I don’t want to debate world politics with you.

GLICK: Well, why not? This is about world politics.

O’REILLY: Because, No. 1, I don’t really care what you think.

Then why did you invite him on?

GLICK: The reason why you care is because you evoke 9/11…

O’REILLY: Here’s why I care.

GLICK: … to rationalize…

O’REILLY: Here’s why I care…

GLICK: Let me finish. You evoke 9/11 to rationalize everything from domestic plunder to imperialistic aggression worldwide.

O’REILLY: OK. That’s a bunch…

GLICK: You evoke sympathy with the 9/11 families.

O’REILLY: That’s a bunch of crap. I’ve done more for the 9/11 families by their own admission — I’ve done more for them than you will ever hope to do.

One cannot help but notice that, instead of actually responding to what Glick just said, O'Reilly's response was to use the family members of 9/11 victims to shout somebody down--in response to a criticism of him doing just that. (Also, can we get the names of some of these 9/11 families who believe Bill O'Reilly did more to help them than anybody else? Remember, this is the same guy who, when he heard about Hollywood celebrities fundraising for the family members of 9/11 victims, pushed unsubstantiated claims that they were pocketing the money.)

As the interview continued, O'Reilly did little more than scream at Glick to "shut up" as opposed to actually attempting to argue his point--again, begging the question as to why he would even bother having Glick on the show in the first place. From that point on, Glick became a frequent target of O'Reilly's, with Glick telling Al Franken:

He has been defaming me almost weekly . . . He is telling the press that I said that "Bush knew about the WTC." We never gestured towards the question of prior knowledge and anyway, I don't believe Bush "knew" . . . This is obvious to anyone who saw the episode or read the full transcript. This is very damaging for me. I'm a Ph.D. candidate and freelance writer. It doesn't help me to get gigs being painted as some sort of conspiracy nut.

Contradictions

Like many on the right, O'Reilly seems to have some trouble keeping his views consistent. Below are some examples of him flip-flopping, or saying one thing and then saying the exact opposite whenever a random change in position becomes convenient:

Issue	O'Reilly	O'Reilly
God	Both sides of the debate are saying God is on their side. Those who favor peace point to the pope calling war immoral, and those who favor of the removal of an evil man, Saddam, say they're protecting lives by that action. In this case, I think both sides are wrong. Nobody knows for sure what the absolute right thing to do is. We can only have opinions. Thus, it's intellectually dishonest to be claiming God is on your side when only God knows for sure what the right thing to do is.	I'm telling you, I'm telling you that President Bush is doing just what Jesus would have done.
Al Sharpton	Al Sharpton is probably the most dangerous person that African Americans have to deal with . . . I can't stand Al Sharpton, and I think Congressman [Gregory] Meeks denigrates himself by sticking up for Sharpton who, to me, represents the worst of Americans.	Look, do I think Sharpton's a bad man? No, I don't.
The Constitution	The United States was founded on Juedo-Christian principles and the Founders framed the Constitution around God-given rights.	The Founding Fathers took great pains to keep the law of our country secular so that all beliefs and behavior, legal behavior, would be tolerated.
The Economy	Now millions of Americans are losing their jobs. Why did Alan Greenspan and Bill Clinton allow this to happen?	No government can make the economy better. You know that.
Free speech in schools	On a high school student who backed the establishment of a Satanic club at school: "[Students] don't have any First Amendment rights. As soon as they walk in the door."	On a student who won a court battle after he was suspended for putting up pro-war flyers: "A federal judge has ruled the school violated the boy's freedom of speech rights. The school administrators were ordered by the judge to undergo constitutional rights training and the school board has been ordered to pay Aaron and his parents $3,000"

Racism

O'Reilly has a long history of racism that has documented by various media outlets over the years, with one of the more infamous examples being his reference to "Mexican wetbacks" during one interview.

Quotes about O'Reilly

“”If you're an act, then what am I?

—Stephen Colbert to his guest O'Reilly on The Colbert Report

“”... his primary characteristic is anger. Bill gets wound up by virtually anything to the left of Mussolini, hectoring and miaowling like a wolf that's got its nuts caught on a coat hanger.

—Charlie Brooker on O'Reilly's style

“”Somebody's got to say it. The man is Ted Baxter.

—El Rushbo, describing O'Reilly in a New York Times interview

O'Reillygrams

Bile or Lilly

See also

• Chickenhawk
• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Tucker Carlson - O'Reilly's successor at Fox, only somehow more of a racist and a White nationalist to boot, without any of O'Reilly's few stopped clock bits.

External links

• Far Left Side cartoon from 2 September 2009 — Someday, it will happen. Although Glenn Beck might beat Bill-O to the punch.
• O'Reilly's top 8 science fails
• Bill fails at law
• Bill fails at economics
• Bill fails at world history