O'Reilly Serves Up Pablum - Tells His Viewers It's Meat - Morris Crosses the Line Bigtime
Reported by Marie Therese - July 27, 2004 -
Despite what was promised in the FOX News webcrawl - "CONTINUOUS LIVE COVERAGE ON FOX NEWS" - Bill O'Reilly opted out of real coverage and substituted his own version as follows: "We're tryin' to stay away from partisan speeches in both conventions this year. The no-spin zone has turned into a no-propaganda zone... Instead, The Factor's gonna give you coverage of the Convention by telling you about any controversial and inside stuff. We think you're gonna get a lot more out of these political circuses if we play down the partisan blather."
Translation: True to his paternalistic "Who's lookin' out for you" attitude, O'Reilly orchestrated exactly what his viewers would get to see and hear.
I'm sure you are all aching with curiosity about all the "controversial and inside stuff" so important and vital that FOX couln't even take a few minutes to broadcast Al Gore's entire speech to it's viewers. Drum roll, please....
8:03 PM: Mrs. Kerry said "shove it" to an obnoxious conservative reporter.
8:04 PM: Kerry must distance himself from Michael Moore and Whoopi Goldberg.
8:06PM - 8:13 PM: John Kerry was booed by a few hecklers as he threw out the first pitch in the Red Sox-Yankees match-up at Fenway Park. Guests Dick Morris (author of Rewriting History and a FOX News Contributor) and Howard Wolfson (Hillary Clinton's communications director) spent some few minutes debating why Mr. Kerry was booed as well as cheered at this baseball game. Intense discussion of what other famous politicos were booed.
8:13 to 8:14 PM: FOX aired a one-minute snippet of Al Gore's wonderful opening speech.
8:14 PM: O'Reilly, shouting over the thunderous reception to Mr. Gore's speech, says: "Oh, man. I wish I was out there. I woulda said "Hey! A deficit? We got a war on terror. We were attacked. Whadya talkin' about?" Can't do it. I'm up here in the booth."
(Rebuttal to Mr. O'Reilly: In all other wars, taxes were levied to pay for them. This is the first war being fought during which a tax CUT has been granted. The only ones sacrificing for Mr. Bush's vision of "Imperial America" are the sons and daughters of the poor and the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. After the debacle in the Middle East, I certainly see why Dubya couldn't succeeed in any of his business ventures. Spur of the moment decisions. No planning for the future. Playing it fast and loose and on the "fly". Under-capitalization. Continuous borrowing. The spectre of bankruptcy just around the corner. How did the Republicans ever spawn this guy? )
8:15 PM: Return to a discussion of Mrs. Kerry's behavior. Discussion of attacks on first ladies and whether or not it makes any difference in the Presidential election.
8:16 PM: Dick Morris crossed the line, as follows, saying: "The deeper issue about Teresa Heinz Kerry, ultimately, is what does it say about John Kerry that he happened to fall in passionate love for the second time with a very rich single woman?" Wolfson objected, then O'Reilly - after a moment's hesitation - looked at Wolfson then chided Morris. Morris managed to get in one more dig at 8:16 PM: "And the $400 million never came between them!" The character assassination of Mrs. Kerry continues, once again through the use of a shill or surrogate, in this case Dick Morris. In the old days, we called people like this 'flacks".
8:17 PM: O'Reilly asks Wolfson: "One more question for you, Howard. (points to the Convention stage) This doesn't matter anymore, does it? This is a big dog and pony show. It doesn't matter." Wolfson answers that it will matter when John Kerry speaks on Thursday night. O'Reilly: "Alright. One speech. Four days. We gotta go through it."
8:21 PM: Guest: Brian Mooney, co-author of John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best"
More discussion of John Kerry, baseball, Brahminism, Kerry's campaign, etc..
8:29 PM: Switch to Salt Lake City, Utah for an update in the "shocking new news" about the missing pregnant woman. News was old stuff, rehashed.
8:37 PM: Bill O'Reilly ridicules the Convention: "...Hillary Clinton just got introduced to a rousing applause and somebody's out there screamin' about somethin' I really don't know what it is. It really doesn't matter at this point. " [The 'somebody' was Barbara Mikulski, the first woman Senator, flanked by 8 other Democratic women senators. Did I detect a bit of misogyny here?] He continues: "It really doesn't matter at this point. Four day convention, one...well I think the Edwards speech is important, so say two important speeches."
8:38 PM: Ralph Nader Interview - covered in separate post.
8:46 PM - Interview with rocker Joan Jett, who supported Dean and now supports Kerry.
8:50 PM Announcement that Michael Moore will appear on The Factor on July 27th. Set your VCRs. Reading of e-mails.
This show - with the exception of Ralph Nader - was highly reminiscent of a tabloid talk show that Mr. O'Reilly used to do. I, for one, found the reality of the Convention better than the fiction of The Factor.
It will be most interesting to see if O'Reilly exhibits the same irreverent, guffawing and dismissive tone during the Republican Convention as he did during this first night of the Democratic Convention. I'll certainly be watching carefully and comparing transcripts closely. The one for this show is ten pages, double-sided, handwritten.
