"The reason factor"

Let's get one thing straight: I have no respect whatever for Bill O'Reilly's visual persona. In several interviews (Jeremy Glick and Kim Gandy, for instance, not to mention his confrontation with Al Franken at a recent publishers' convention), O'Reilly conducts himself as an obnoxious ass, grandstands and interrupts, and generally makes a mockery of reasoned debate.

But I respect his writing. I disagree with many of his ideas, but it's clear that of all the pundits who have shot to the top of U.S. media in the past few years, he's one of the few who's carefully thought through what he has to say; he doesn't base what he says on blind ideology, but on genuine regard for a more civil society. We need more thinkers like him - in print, anyway. O'Reilly uses facts and figures, adds anecdotes for the sake of interest, and rarely if ever namecalls. Try as I might, I simply can't slap a generic political label on him.

Speaking of which, I've read articles by one or two self-identified liberals who, in their desire to sweep all traditional "icons of the right" from the table of public debate, dismiss O'Reilly as just another conservative shill. It's not true! From the very first chapter of this book, it's clear that O'Reilly is a "reformist in disguise", for lack of a better term. I picked up the book expecting to see just another rant about how liberals are taking America straight to hell - imagine my shock when I saw that the book begins with the statement that "the heart of America's somewhat unfair social setup is class, not race".

"The O'Reilly Factor" is divided into relatively short chapters, each of which delineates a different aspect of O'Reilly's views on society and politics. He discusses class, sex, employment, money, religion, societal relations - everything. There's practically no topic of importance that O'Reilly leaves out.

The main problem with this book is its style of presentation of the various topics. O'Reilly makes assertions such as "If I can make it in America, you can, too. It's as simple as that." Not necessarily - this proposition is debatable, but O'Reilly presents it as an objective fact, not bothering even to mention other points of view on the topic. Addressing adult victims of child abuse, he says things like "You're paying an analyst to be your ally against your absent parents" - okay, if he was addressing me with this particular rejoinder, I'd say to him "you don't know what the hell my motives are; mind your own business."

Another example: he ends the book with a chapter, "The Bad Factor", in which he lists "bad things in America." Among examples such as "onion-flavored potato chips" and "Barbra Streisand (as an actress), he throws in "abortion". Sorry, but abortion is way too complex a topic to address in a paragraph-long blurb in such a frivolous context. The vague ideas on abortion that he presents in this paragraph are interesting, and I'd like to know more - but the fact that he just throws it in, as if it was just another item in a list of pet peeves, is rather disturbing.

Or his chapter on religion, in which he states "it doesn't matter what you believe - as long as you believe in something", and goes on to ramble about how "evil is a constant presence throughout the world" and "it takes more faith not to believe in God than it does to embrace a deity." Whatever, but substantiate it with argument, not just intimate anecdotes. I certainly understand that describing personal experiences can add rhetorical weight to one's views on a topic, but they don't add any validity to most arguments.

But for all that, O'Reilly still has some smart things to say. What I like best about him is his unwavering committment to democracy, and how it's grounded in direct action and the rejection of apathy. Since this is the only of his books I've read, and I rarely see his show, I can only assume that O'Reilly applies the same standards to Dubya's corruption that he applies to Clinton's misdeeds - but it's a breath of fresh air to see a popular public figure say, after making grievances about Clinton's business malfeasances:

"Right there, very simply, is why the American people do not like politicians. Regular folks have seen enough to suspect that many elected officials fight their way to win public office for two reasons: either to enrich themselves off the public trough or to bask arrogantly in the power and glory of the statehouse or Capitol Hill."

My least favorite chapter in the book is probably "The Ridiculous Factor", where O'Reilly rants about "the ridiculous in American life."
Here, the reasonably high standards of discourse we see in the rest of the book begin to slip, reminding me of some demagogue I read recently - I think it was Michael Savage - who says "If you don't like idiots, you've come to the right place." Hmmm...all right, but if you define "idiot" as "anybody who disagrees with me", it's lost all meaning. That's pretty much what O'Reilly does here, lashing out at obvious targets like Charles Manson, skin piercings, and cliches, and then occasionally using sloppy thinking to discuss topics such as "Gays in the St. Patrick's Day Parade".


All that aside, though, I only wish that the Coulters and Hannitys of our world had the courage to actually start thinking, as Bill O'Reilly has. I don't agree with everything he says - but presented in "The O'Reilly Factor", we see equal parts passion and intelligence.