Bill O'Reilly's Win - he who squashed the airing of O.J.'s special
One can only marvel at the hatred Bill O'Reilly receives from the secular Left. It's a pretty clear sign he's doing a lot right, although perhaps part of the dislike is due to his tireless self-focus. Yet even his self-indulgences have the benefit of being entertaining, going so far beyond the expected norm that there's almost an innocence about it. He recently had on a body language expert who examined his appearances on Oprah and David Letterman - in other words, a segment on his television show rating himself on other television shows. Brilliant! Then too, there was the interview with George W. Bush during which he recommended the president read his book, taking chutzpah to new heights. Of course it's hard to have the chutzpah to take on the whole media establishment, to be a persona non grata at every cocktail party held on the island of Manhattan, and not have the chutzpah to find oneself a fascinating topic. Bill might find himself very interesting but a lot of Americans feel similarly about him. But there is an innocence: he thought his book would help the president and I believe he honestly believes it will help, in which case it really wasn't about him. Despite appearances.
Those who hate O'Reilly see everything he does as a ratings grab and their cynicism knows no bounds. In reference to heavy Fox News criticism over the planned Fox airing of the O.J. interview, one reporter said that the entertainment and news divisions were designed that way - that Fox News could slam what Fox was putting out, thus ginning up the ratings for both. The entertainment division ended up pulling the interview off the air, leaving egg on that reporter's face and a smile on O'Reilly's.
What bothers me is his occasional emphasis on the temporal at the expense of the eternal. I recall he took the Vatican and the Holy Father to task for not sufficiently helping in the war on terror, a provincial view that places the war on terror above any niggling transcendent spiritual concerns Rome might have. O'Reilly appears to judge a pope not on his effectiveness in protecting his children from Hell but on his effectiveness in protecting them from Al Qaeda. He also seems far too comfortable for my taste with using torture (or things infinitely approaching torture without quite reaching it) in order to potentially save American lives. Using evil as a means to an end presupposes that that end is the ultimate one when it is merely earthly and thus transitory.
Still, O'Reilly does much good by a good means such as advocating for abused children, publicizing judges who are derelict in their duty, exposing "doctors" who perform partial-birth abortions, contributing large sums to charity, and by using his bully pulpit to give voice to traditionalists and conservatives who are normally shut out of the MSM.
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