Bill O'Reilly: The Vince MacMahon of the Culture Wars

I usually don't pay much attention to right-wing blowhards like Bill O'Reilly, but right now he seems to be all over the airwaves hawking his new book. So I caught him this afternoon on Oprah. I guess it was a fairly typical O'Reilly performance.

One thing I realized is that I wish I could think in the twisted way he does and say that anyone I disagree with should be silenced. O'Reilly would be one of the first on my list. But, unfortunately, that kind of unAmerican thinking just doesn't make sense to me.

He has a very simple strategy for cultural control: negatively label oppositional ideas and then you don't have to think about them. For example, someone raised a question about the constantly used slogan "fair and balanced" usually meaning neither. O'Reilly simply labeled him a "Fox hater" and thereby dismissed him. That's an old trick. The Dick and the Bush have used it to avoid having to deal with ideas that don't conform with their fantastical view of the world. It's just as unAmerican when they do it, but has much greater clout.

Well time to watch O'Reilly on Letterman that should be a hoot. More later.

Later: OK I watched the O'Reilly v. Letterman cage match. Then I watched O'Reilly on Oprah again. I also read his "Keeping Dad in the Dark" column (in Oct. 27, NYP).

I came to a very interesting conclusion after all that (truly a surfeit of O'Reilly): Whether he believes what he says or not he profits from this "Cultural War" that he promotes. His shows depend on it, his book sales depend on it. He would be out of work if it weren't for the war between the "Traditionalists" and the "Secular-Progressives" that he promotes. He is the Vince MacMahon of the cultural war. And his warriors are about as legit.

Just like the president he so admires, he needs enemies. Whether it's the ACLU or the opponents of parental notification laws, he needs enemies and he finds them under every cultural bed.

In his column, he begins with "secular-progressive" opposition to "legal restriction involving a young girl's access to an abortion" and then all of a sudden he jumps to an "S.P. movement that sees the state, not the parent, as the final authority over a child's welfare."

In all the years that I have been involved in the "secular-progressive" movement, no one has ever suggested anything as absurd as this nonsense. But wait. Why are the "S.P.s" promoting "state control over children?" Here's the punchline.

"...it's all part of the S.P. movement that sees the state, not the parent, as the final authority over a child's welfare. S.P.s want a breakdown of traditional family roles, replacing them with a uniform code of governmental child rearing. In that way, the youth of America will become 'emancipated' from their parents and be more susceptible to S.P. thinking."

I know that Lemony Snickett's "Series of Unfortunate Events" is coming to an end with the 13th episode; but I think I have a candidate if the publisher wants to continue it. But he would have to give up his columns, shows and other books.