archy

Bill O'Reilly is an alcoholic
I don't care if he never touches a spirited beverage. I don't care if nothing stronger than falafel ever crosses his lips. Bill O'Reilly is an alcoholic. I've known a lot of alcoholics in my day. Some were honest alcoholics. Some were in denial. I've also known many honest drunks who were not alcoholics.

This is my blog, so I get to define the terms. In my use, an alcoholic is someone who expresses a certain pathology of irresponsibility. To me, an alcoholic is an irresponsible person who is incapable of accepting responsibility for the consequences of their clearly irresponsible actions. In their own minds and words, they are eternally innocent. Bad things happen to them, but those bad things are never the result of their own actions. They just happen, or, worse, people are always doing bad things to them for no reason.

This is our innocent child Bill O'Reilly.

Last Wednesday, O'Reilly said that if he had his way San Francisco would be a free fire zone for terrorists because they voted to keep military recruiters out of the high schools. His exact words:

Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money. You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead."

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

Some San Franciscans took offense to that, the humorless bastards. The 210-foot Coit Tower, which O'reilly singles out as worthy of destruction, was built in 1934 in the shape of a fire hose nozzle as an homage to firemen. Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer, quoted a number of the upset locals:

One of the ticked off was San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, who Friday called for O'Reilly to be fired.

"For an anchor on a major station, Fox News, to be saying those kinds of things, it's just not OK," Daly said Friday. "It was just over the top."

Agreeing with Daly was San Francisco firefighters union president John Hanley, and not just because the hose-shaped tower is a tribute to firefighters.

"Who is this guy, O'Reilly?" said Hanley, who identified himself as both a third-generation San Franciscan and military veteran. "I've got guys fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm a veteran myself. What's he talking about?"

Okay. O'Reilly said something stupid and offended some people. a normal (non-alcoholic) person would have said "oops, that's not what I meant." A politician would have said, "I'm sorry you misunderstood what I was trying to say." O'Reilly said neither of those things. Despite having two days to reconsider his words, and having one of his Fox News co-workers put his reputation on the line by saying he was sure that's not what O'Reilly meant, O'Reilly stood by his words"

HOST: First question, do you stand by what you said?

O'REILLY: Of course I do. I mean, it's ridiculous....

Rather than respond to the message, he attacked the messenger.

...there are a lot of good people in the city of San Francisco, but you've been hijacked by the radical left. Your press is radical left. The San Francisco Chronicle is a radical newspaper...

You've got big problems in the city - and I love the city, it's a great city, but if you're going to work against the United States of America in the war on terror - the city of San Francisco chooses to do that - then you have no right to have federal funding. Believe me, if I were President Bush, I'd be standing in the middle of Union Square telling you that.

[...]

HOST: We're talking with Bill O'Reilly. "Reaction came swiftly from City Hall," it says in the Chronicle. "Board of Supervisors member Aaron Peskin, whose district includes Coit Tower, suggested that O'Reilly should get his head examined. 'It sounds like he's on the same medication Rush Limbaugh is addicted to, and he should go see a therapist,' Peskin said."

O'REILLY: Yeah, another cheap shot by that guy. He's a classy guy, isn't he? Taking a cheap shot against somebody. You know, this is the hallmark of the left: Cheap shot everybody. Come out with the most insane things you can. Convince your Kool-Aid drinking crowd to follow you.

Do I even need to point this out? His response to a cheap shot (and it was a cheap shot) is to call the speaker insane and bring up the "Kool-Aid drinking" analogy. "Kool-Aid drinking" refers to the cult leader Jim Jones who, in 1978 took over 1000 San Franciscans down to Guyana and led 914 of them including 276 children into a mass suicide by feeding them cyanide laced Kool-Aid. "Kool-Aid drinking" is a particularly ugly accusation to bring up in San Francisco.

In case we're still misunderstanding him, he makes it clear.

HOST: First question, do you stand by what you said?

O'REILLY: Of course I do. I mean, it's ridiculous. We're in World War III and San Francisco votes against military recruiting in schools. It's insane.

[...]

I mean, look, everybody knows what's going on there. What I said isn't controversial. What I said needed to be said. I'm sitting here and I'm looking at a city that has absolutely no clue of what the world is. None. You know, if you had been hit on 9/11 instead of New York, believe me, you would not have voted against military recruiting. Yet the left-wing, selfish, Land of Oz philosophy that the media and the city politicians have embraced out there is an absolute intellectual disgrace.

For this the city deserves to die, even the people who agreed with him. I suppose they need to flee and not look back, lest they be turned into pillars of salt.

But wait, Bill O'Reilly is still an innocent victim of other people's hostility.

Tonight "The O'Reilly Factor" is on ...

Bill O'Reilly takes on the orchestrated campaign organized by left wing critics who have whipped up controversy about his satirical riff on the city of San Francisco.

It was all a joke!!!

Some far left internet smear sites have launched a campaign to get me fired over my point of view. I believe they do this on a daily basis. This time the theme is O'Reilly is encouraging terrorist attacks. Unbelievably stupid. Not unusual with these guttersnipes.

So, this self-pitying, self-glorifying nincompoop with an alcoholic's persecution complex thinks that the only cause of his problems is the attack of internet guttersnipes. What does he plan to do about this, other than whine?

I'm glad the smear sites made a big deal out of it. Now we can all know who was with the anti-military internet crowd. We'll post the names of all who support the smear merchants on billoreilly.com. So check with us.

He's giving us free publicity!!! This is the chance of a lifetime. I urge all of my fellow America-hating and feminazi lefitist blogging companions to submit your blog to big Bill's exciting list of persecutors (I'm sure he'll give you a special high listing if you hate Christmas like I do).

Hmmm. It appears we have to join his Premium Site to write directly to him, but I'm sure his Fox News address will promptly get us listed among the worst of the left on his site.