A friend lent me this book, and I'll admit that I sat down with a very low impression of Bill O'Reilly, that Bold Fresh Piece of Lowest Common Denominator that he so seems to be on air. Considering how low my opinion was from the start, it's only natural that I'd finish the book with a higher opinion of him. It's partly because he delivers some melodramatic stories of his trials and tribulations in the penultimate chapter; it's hard not to sympathize with a guy when he's telling a story of how when his father died, and he tried to take some time off, his rival co-workers spread rumors that he was fired. 'We shall overcome, Bill!'
But still, I find it strange how self-righteous he can be at taking the moral high ground while at the same divulging some pretty horrendous stories of his own behavior. Here are two that stuck out from the rest:
1) For a while he owned a painting company, and one time one of his employees dropped a canister of paint off his ladder, dousing a bush in white paint. Rather than telling the owner, they cut it down, went out to gather loose branches from the woods, and fashioned them in the likeness of the bush to cover up what they'd done.
Ok, it's no Auschwitz, but definitely not the kind of guy I'd trust to work on my house, or report on my country for that matter. It's a funny story, but since he's so in the habit of moralizing to his readers about taking personal responsibility (rather than depending on big government or resorting to victimhood) you'd think there'd at least be some sort of minor admission of guilt associated with the incident.
It left me wondering: if the man's ready to cover up the death of something so trivial as a bush, why should we believe he's going to be straight with us about monumental issues like whether Iraq is likely to have WMD, or universal health care will save money, or even just plain, everyday news reporting? Claiming a pile of branches is a bush is the epitome of 'spin'. Before reading this, I'd thought that there was a 10 foot ring of 'No Spin Zone' that followed the fresh guy every where he went. What happened, Bill?
2) Apparently, one time the fresh guy (as Bill O'Reilly likes to call himself) was pretty ticked off when his manager told him his performance evaluations weren't good. Being the bold fresh guy he is, Bill didn't believe the guy, so he sneaked into the building where his manager worked late at night, broke into his office using the famous credit card trick, rifled through his boss's files, and read the actual report. I'm not making this up. It's actually in the book. Breaking and entering. Again, no hint of a guilty conscience over this. Instead it's all righteous indignation about how his manager would dare lie to him about the eval.
These are the types of things I'd expect to be reading in a book by Abbie Hoffman, not this 'traditionalist', conservative, talking head, head-biter-offer, who feels compelled to profess moral values at innocent bystanders who just want to watch TV. But then again, his writing does exude the same macho that is so apparent on-air. My suspicious is that Bill feels that when engaging in 'sissy literary activities' he needs to prove he's a real man by strutting his stuff a bit. Vandalism, petty frat boy buffoonery, you know. All these things win him a seat at the table with Joe Six Pack. Except he claims not to drink, so the usual excuses don't apply.
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