Regardless of political beliefs, why does anyone watch Bill O’Reilly?

By David McElroy · November 30, 2012

Is anyone else on American television as rude as Bill O’Reilly? I don’t watch TV, so I can’t be sure, but I can’t imagine why anybody watches this rude and pompous guy.

In was in a restaurant last night that was turned to Fox News and O’Reilly’s show was on. Both televisions in the place were on the same channel and it was loud, so I didn’t have much choice but to hear it. I heard O’Reilly start interviewing Dave Silverman, the president of American Atheists. The group is suing to stop some activity or other that it considers an illegal government involvement in a religious holiday. Actually, it wasn’t as much an interview as it was a patronizing attack.

The guest tried to be polite and civil from the beginning, but O’Reilly wasn’t interested. He quickly cut off any polite talk and went on the offensive. He asked the man why his group was suing and the man replied that the atheists believe the case is about government involvement in religion.

O’Reilly asked what religion is involved. The atheist looked a bit puzzled before answering that it’s Christianity. O’Reilly cut him off quickly.

“[Christianity] is not a religion,” he said. “That’s a philosophy.”

I couldn’t tell whether O’Reilly was stupid enough to believe what he was saying or if he knew he was being disingenuous. I have to assume he was being intentionally dishonest, because I can’t believe anyone is that stupid. O’Reilly was rude and intellectually dishonest for the rest of the interview parts that I saw. At one point, he referred to the atheist as “You and your merry band of fascists.”

I eventually had to put my earbuds in and turn Laura Veirs on as loud as I could stand the music.

I’m not an atheist and I also don’t think it’s a big deal if Christmas is a federal holiday. I think Silverman and his group are wrong-headed in a lot of what they’re pursuing. But O’Reilly is a rude, arrogant and dishonest man who comes across more like a cartoon figure.

But there are a lot of rude and dishonest people. What I’d like to know is why so many otherwise-decent people watch him and are willing to overlook his gross rudeness.

This isn’t anything new for O’Reilly. He’s constantly rude on the air to guests. He’s combative and ugly when he appears in other places. And he’s a nightmare to work for, according to those who’ve been willing to talk. Who can forget this classic video of him freaking out in anger on the set of Inside Edition because he didn’t understand what a phrase on his TelePrompTer meant? (Be warned that the language is very coarse.)

Do you watch O’Reilly? Millions of people obviously do. Otherwise, he would have the ratings he has and he wouldn’t be paid the millions of dollars he’s paid. I just can’t figure out why decent and otherwise-intelligent people are willing to justify the rudeness and intellectual dishonesty that he routinely puts on the air.

Regardless what you think of the politics he espouses, his behavior should embarrass you, especially if you’re a conservative.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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