Occam’s Razor

The Rudest Man on Television

If the political right is wondering why Americans are abandoning it in droves, it is not just because of our catastrophically bad president. It is also because of the number of extremely annoying people that populate that side of the political spectrum. I have seen and heard enough to make one judgment: Fox News Commentator Bill O’Reilly is without a doubt the rudest person on television.

It is unlikely that Bill O’Reilly will call me on the phone and invite me to be on his show. However, if he did I can tell you my answer in advance. I would attempt to politely decline the offer but perhaps because my brain has been tainted by watching him, more likely I would utter something extremely rude into the receiver. Something like (you fill in the blank, I know you can), “No way. No ____ing way. Absolutely NO ____ING WAY would I be caught DEAD being on your CRAPPY, MEAN and HURTFUL show!” I do not care how many people I might have a chance to influence by being on his “show”. I do not even care even they offered me a million dollars to debate him. Money cannot buy some things, like my integrity. I would rather spend a day in a vat full of poisonous snakes wearing nothing but my skivvies than spend even thirty seconds on his show. It is not because I am afraid of Bill, it is because I know I would never be heard in the first place. Instead, I would be slimed. So Bill, don’t call me. I will not take your call and even if you did, I would have to hang up on you. I certainly would not let my daughter within a mile of you; some of your vitriolic toxic personality might rub off on her.

Naturally, I do not bother to watch his show The O’Reilly Factor on the Fox so-called “News” Channel. At this point when I am channel surfing, if I even see his ugly mug, an autonomic finger jab moves me to the next channel even before his face registers in my brain. Before I knew better though I did watch his show, each time with my mouth hanging open in shock and disbelief. When he invites someone he does not agree with the format is always the same: they “debate”. Debating, according to Bill O’Reilly means being mean, smearing and constantly interrupting guests. Except for the first thirty seconds or so and in the last five seconds when he makes a slight feint of politeness, he goes for the jugular the same singular way your dog goes for the dish of Alpo when you put it down.

Perhaps he would almost be tolerable if most of his arguments were not non-sequiturs. For example, he will pull some quote by his guest from five years ago, which has no relevance to the topic at hand, and try to use it to prove he is a slime ball. It may be one sentence or phrase from a couple paragraphs. It is likely the sentence must be understood in the context of the entire argument. That does not matter. Anything is fair game for him. All he really cares about is sliming those he does not agree with. If you once shook Jane Fonda’s hand, he will use it to insinuate you were burning American flags.

In front of a “debater”, he does not know how to shut up. In fact, he does not even know how to debate. To debate you must discuss an argument on its merits. Debate is supposed to consist of point and counterpoint, not to be entirely one sided. O’Reilly’s idea of debating is to invite you into his sandbox, immediately start throwing sand in your face, then kick you and beat you over the head until you leave or cry uncle or until the first commercial hits. O’Reilly is not a debater. O’Reilly is simply an emotionally abusive bully who is paid top dollar by his employer, Fox News so the sick voyeuristic tendencies of his audience can satiated. If he pulled this kind of crap in public school, he would have been expelled for the semester.

I read today that Michael Moore is planning to go on The O’Reilly Factor to promote his new movie about health care, Sicko. Perhaps “interviews” like this come with the territory when you have to promote a documentary. I would urge Michael to cancel his appearance. Michael, your “interview” may generate some heat, but do not expect it to generate any light. It is not as if the viewers of The O’Reilly Factor are going to be going to see your movie. Instead, you will just be more red meat for this crowd who, let’s face it, already hate you because (a) you are liberal, (b) you are fat, (c) you hate President Bush and (d) you believe in gun control.

The same goes with anyone else who shows up on Bill’s show from the left side of the political fence. The odds are not just stacked against you, you are guaranteed to be verbally abused and bullied. You would probably divorce your spouse if he did this to you. Why put up with it in public? Except for the first thirty seconds or so, you will be unlikely to get out a coherent sentence. Whatever the alleged reason for your appearance on the show was, Bill will quickly steer it in a completely different direction that will be designed to make you look foolish. The alleged topic for discussion is merely a means to promote his ideology, which seems to be that the right is always right, and the left is universally wrong.

Are you tired of Bill O’Reilly? Do you want a civilized alternative from the other side of the political spectrum? Why not listen to The Diane Rehm Show instead? If it is not syndicated on your public radio station, you can listen to it live online from 10 AM to Noon Eastern Time on wamu.org, or download the latest podcasts of her show. Here is an interviewer with manners who asks thoughtful and probing questions. Here is someone who even if she does not agree with you will give you the opportunity to get your point across in a coherent manner. She will never denigrate you for your beliefs. In short, Diane has been house trained. Guests do not leave the studio feeling slimed; they leave the studio feeling like they had a chance to be heard. What an idea!

I would have thought that O’Reilly would have crossed the line a decade ago, but like the Energizer Bunny, he just keeps going and going. There does not appear to be anything he can say on the Fox “News” Channel that will get him kicked off the air. As a cable network, Fox knows the FCC will not be coming after them, so I guess anything goes. In addition, there must be quite a market for his bilge. Two millennium ago, his viewers were the kind filling Roman coliseums to cheer on the gladiators.

So unfortunately, unless his ratings go through the toilet, or the right wing totally implodes (not impossible given our current president) Bill will continue to be haunting the Fox “News” Channel. However, I suggest that even if you agree with him, you have better things to do with your time. If you have children, keep them away from the TV when Bill O’Reilly is on. If you ask me, his “show” should be rated at least TV-MA (Mature Audiences Only). The only problem is that if you were truly mature, you would not touch his show with a ten-foot anaconda.

Instead, I will channel Nancy Reagan and “just say no” to Bill, just as I have said no to Wal-Mart and Circuit City. I have taken the “No more Bill O’Reilly ever” pledge. I pledge not just to not watch his show any more, but also to do my utmost to avoid even the possibility of seeing or hearing him. Even if my favorite blog suggests watching a guest tussle with him on YouTube, I will wisely decline.

Like a Buddhist, I envision a more peaceful and gentle planet. Ideally, Bill O’Reilly would not be on it. If he has to be on it, people should be smart enough not to give him a microphone, because when someone like him gets a microphone it adds a couple centuries to our quest.

In any event, I do not need any more of his bad karma leeching onto me. Bye bye Bill.

May 22nd, 2007 at 09:31pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2007 | 2 comments

The Delusional 34%

How low can he go? A recent CBS News poll shows President Bush’s approval ratings have sunk to 34%. Some question the sampling method: were too many Democrats sampled, thus making it biased? As other polls results come in, we will soon know. However, after today’s news you have to wonder whether Bush will soon feel nostalgic about this week. Perhaps he will look back on the good old days when there were still 34% of Americans who approved of his job as president.

That Bush has 34% approval is largely due to his delusional Republican flock. However, even there, there are signs of weakness. 22% of Republicans disapprove of Bush, along with 86% of Democrats and 61% of independents. Now, with the clear video evidence that Bush was given explicit warnings about the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina before its landfall, and his subsequent proclamation four days later that no one could have predicted the magnitude of the storm, it is reasonable to ask: is this the final incident that will sink his ship of state?

What more evidence do Americans need that we have a disaster for a president? Bush has a reverse Midas touch: whatever he interferes with, he makes worse. If this were not enough, when he needs to become engaged, he cannot summon the energy. Iraq, Katrina, failing to capture bin Laden, the spiraling deficit, global warming, pissing off our allies, record gas prices, faith-based initiatives, No Child Left Behind - I could go on for pages on things he has bungled.

My brother sent me an email when this latest poll came out. He asked the question: how could the 34% of Americans still be so stupid? It is a good question. Has the rest of the country been living in a cave the last five years? Are the 34% Evangelical Christians hoping that Bush will trigger Armageddon so they can be saved? Have Republicans become so stuck in their opinions that they have simply lost any shred of objectivity? In view of his colossal mistakes, how could anyone support him unless they were delusional or had a frontal lobotomy?

Yet there are still plenty of them out them. Heck, I see them on my block, still sporting their Bush/Cheney stickers on their SUV bumpers. I cannot fathom why they did not surreptitiously peel them off. Do they want to be like Captain Edward J. Smith and go down with the Titanic? Do they want to be derided, laughed at or even worse pitied by their neighbors? Maybe their support is just another faith-based initiative. Click your heels three times Dorothy and you will end up in Kansas. Maybe they forgot that Dorothy just got a bad knock on the head.

Bush may not be the worst president of all time, but he is coming very close. As bad as the Iraq debacle is, he has not yet hit President Buchanan’s peculiar milestone. Buchanan largely stood aside and allowed our Civil War to start. Nevertheless, hold on. Bush has three years left in his term. Give him time. Who knows what it will be. Perhaps it will be another oil shock. Perhaps a thermonuclear bomb will slip through one of our ports (where only 5% of cargo are inspected) and destroy a major city. I am praying though that the gods have decided we have suffered enough. Seeing how the good people of Iraq are suffering for our foolishness though, I am not too hopeful.

After the 2004 election, I wrote that Bush’s chickens would come home to roost. Like the Iraq de facto civil war now underway, those chickens were not at all hard to spot even then. Check off the Iraq debacle. Energy prices up. Check. Deficit keeps going up. Check. International lenders getting wary of lending us money. Check. Health care costs dramatically outpacing inflation. Check. Net loss of earning power. Check. Bin Laden still at large four and a half years after 9/11. Check. If this were a chess match Bush would be down to a king and a couple pawns. We had wrapped up World War II within four and a half years of Pearl Harbor. Yet here is our foolish president in Afghanistan saying today that bin Laden “will be brought to justice”. It is unlikely to happen on your watch, fool.

As the polls clearly show, Americans are fed up with Bush and even more fed up with Congress (28% approval). Since Republicans have a lock on all three branches of government, I believe that voters will take out their wrath on them during elections this autumn. If you asked me six months ago, I would have said that Democrats had a 50% chance of retaking the House and forget about retaking the Senate. I now think the odds for retaking the house are at least 75%, and there is a 50/50 chance in the Senate. As I pointed out in this blog entry, in the elections after Watergate, Democrats increased their majority in the House by 47 seats and 4 seats in the Senate. Americans now disapprove of our Republican congress to a higher degree than they disapproved of the Democratic congress before the 1994 “Gingrich Revolution”. In 1994, Republicans picked up 55 seats in the House. Democrats need just six seats to take control of the House. With so many retirements and the current mood in the country, barring some massive election fraud, I think it is a slam-dunk. Unfortunately, I do not put massive election fraud past the current crew. They have demonstrated repeatedly they do not care about the law.

If Democrats win, is impeachment out of the question? I certainly hope not, although the idea of Cheney having his hand on the nuclear trigger is even less appealing that having Bush’s finger on it. However, perhaps they will go down in flames together. With Democrats in charge, it would not be difficult in the least to find charges that amount to probable cause for high crimes and misdemeanors. Bush’s egregious violation of the FISA statutes is the simplest and fastest way to throw the bum out. However taking us into war in Iraq based on scattershot and faulty evidence is even more egregious. Convicting him in the Senate would be tougher, but perhaps even Republicans would be glad to cut their losses. Most do not see it yet, but Bush is an albatross around their necks. Whoever replaced him and Cheney, even if it were a Democratic Speaker of the House, would be better for their party then allowing the current set of fools to stay in office.

If because of this latest revelation Bush’s poll numbers do not drop into the 20s, then perhaps Republicanism just needs to be banned. Apparently, it is more addictive than crack, and wholly messes up the heads of otherwise reasonable people. Fortunately, a few conservatives like William F. Buckley have finally seen the light. They will not be mistaken for a fool any longer. They are wisely jumping into the lifeboats while there is still room.

March 1st, 2006 at 09:08pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | one comment

An Overplayed Hand

When you are in power one of the hardest lessons is learning to say, “Enough!” As Bush said shortly after his election last year, “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.” He, like the four new Republican senators and the handful of new Republican congressmen, read way more into their electoral victory than was evidenced by the facts.

Bush, for example, claimed, “I’ve got the will of the people” when in fact he scraped by with a bare majority: 51 percent to 48 percent. 51 percent is not a mandate. In electoral votes, it was 286-252, the closest electoral college result in modern American history, despite running against the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. 60 percent, maybe, is a mandate. 51 percent is not.

What about those new Republican senators? Democratic incumbent and former minority leader Daschle lost to Thune in South Dakota, a very red state, by two points. In Florida, Martinez wins by two points too. North Carolina: Burr wins by five. Republicans did better in the Deep South, winning decisively in Georgia, Oklahoma, Louisiana (after a runoff election), Oklahoma and South Carolina. But there were also some Democratic surprises. While Obama’s victory in Illinois was not in doubt, gathering 70% of the vote is stunning. And the red state of Colorado appears to be trending blue, picking mainstream Ken Salazar over Peter Coors by four points.

So the 2004 election was essentially about getting the power without really having the mandate. A more astute party would use the opportunity to cement their power through moderate choices. But instead the President in specific and the party in general have dramatically overplayed their hands.

Seizing the reins of power must be addictive. It must be hard to think clearly when you can get pretty much what you want. Not much else can explain the stunningly bad choices made by the Republicans lately, and their inability to grasp the seriousness of the situation. By about a three to one margin Americans are appalled by the attempts by the President and Congress to intervene in Terri Schiavo’s case. Today’s Washington Post-ABC News Poll is one of many that should tell Republicans they are in serious trouble. Bush’s approval rating is at 47%. Only with the war on terrorism does he gets more approval than disapproval. (This still surprises me, based on how badly it was bungled.) On his handling of social security he has 64% disapproval. When asked which party better represents voters’ personal values Democrats lead Republicans by nine points.

When asked whether the Senate should “go nuclear” (changing Senate filibuster rules to make it easier to confirm Bush’s judges) 66 percent oppose the change and only 26% approve. Clearly majority leader Bill Frist isn’t paying much attention to polls. Instead he is courting Christian conservative voters, wackos like this guy:

Putting more evangelicals on the court will mean rulings more in tune with the religious convictions of churchgoers, said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.

“We are not asking for persons merely to be moral,” Mohler said. “We want them to be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Meanwhile, over in the House of Representatives, Majority Leader Tom Delay puts in a new Ethics committee chairman who is his personal friend and tries to change the rules to make it harder to kick him out of power. He finds nothing wrong with his numerous ethical problems, despite being thrice admonished by his own Ethics Committee and despite this Washington Post article, which demonstrated that his 2000 trip to London was paid for by lobbyists. What an irony that “The Hammer” Delay was one of the boatload of Republican congressmen elected in 1994 in the Gingrich revolution. It was Gingrich’s Contract with America that promised term limits. That clearly failed to materialize. The Contract also promised lots of other things including reining in a government: “too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money.” And here we are with a government far more grandiose than any Republican could conceive in 1994. But most ironic of all, the Contract called for “restoring the faith and trust of the American people in their government.”

Instead we get tyrannical politicians nominated for the United Nations, extremists judges renominated for the federal courts, and anti-citizen legislation like the new bankruptcy law that screws the average American yet does nothing to require that creditors stop handing out credit cards like they were candy.

My sense is that Republicans have dramatically overplayed their hand. Rather than representing mainstream values they have shown they demonstrate extreme values. It is clear that they pander to corporate interests, not the people’s interests.

And the irony is I find myself cheering them on. Keep up the good work. Keep denying your ethical violations, Tom Delay. Keep chatting with Christian Conservatives like the weird Tony Perkins at the so-called Family Research Council, Bill Frist. And yes by all means try your “nuclear option”. This time the Democrats won’t be seen as obstructionists. Instead it will be clear which party is really outside of the mainstream and which party really stands for the average American. And thank you George W. Bush for nominating some of the most controversial people in the Republican Party for your top posts. By all means keep pressing for “personal” social security accounts. With every out of the mainstream move the opposition grows and ordinary Americans rethink their choices. They can see the Republican reality at last and it is not pretty.

Republican cannot see it, but the handwriting is already on the wall.

April 25th, 2005 at 09:17pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | no comments

Double Speak on Freedom and Personal Responsibility

I guess it’s not news, but it’s probably worth pointing out anyhow. It seems that to be a good Republican you must advocate personal responsibility and freedom. Unless, of course, you find an adult behavior personally offensive.

The latest outrage in point is in today’s news. It seems the FDA, which recently has gone out of its way to rush drugs to market (sometimes at the expense of public safety) feels it must unnecessarily delay putting the over the counter “Plan B” morning after birth control pill on the market.

Although it has been repeatedly proven as safe and effective as any generic drug, this article suggests the neocons are getting the willies. Due to political pressure from the usual neoconservative twits, our administration is looking to find ways to make it harder for women to get “Plan B”. Yes, fungal removers and antihistamines get to stay on the drug aisle as always. But some people feel the need to look down their noses at women. They want them have to go through the hassle and needless embarrassment of asking their pharmacist to retrieve the medicine from behind the pharmacy counter. They are convinced that if “Plan B” is put out there in the open then gosh, it might encourage teenage promiscuity. Or adult promiscuity. It doesn’t matter. Promiscuity is bad and they’ll have none of it if they can stop it.

Never mind that it might discourage a woman from getting the medicine in the first place. Never mind that woman may then carry a child to term. Never mind that no similar requirement is laid on men in search of a prophylactic.

Well, news flash to the neocons: you can’t have it both ways. Either adults have the rights and privileges of real adults or they don’t. But the latter seems to be the way Republicans prefer it, although they will talk out of the other side of their mouths. Whenever a certain activity, like a morning after birth control pill or pornography feels personally disagreeable to them, their solution seems to be to make it illegal or, failing that, difficult or shameful to acquire.

Pity the poor women attending James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Their health clinic won’t dispense the morning after pill to their 100% legally adult women. Apparently it’s more important to placate our conservative anally retentive Virginia legislative representatives instead. Yes, JMU women if you were such a slut as to sleep with a guy (possibly even before marriage — and remember the man you slept with was, well, just sowing his wild oats) then you must be kept at arms length by society. You must certainly not be treated with any compassion by state officials. Even if you had an episode of date rape, if you are so vile a woman as to want to have flush your uterus because there is a small possibility you may be pregnant, you better take a bus into town and hope you can find a pharmacy to sell you that perfectly legal morning after pill. (Hint: check behind the pharmacy counter!) Hey, it’s nothing more than a couple regular birth control pills you take all at once that are safe and effective but it doesn’t matter. You can’t get it on campus and God forbid that you get it as part of any health insurance that you pay as part of your student fees.

Alas, here in the Old Dominion it is only too easy to find other examples of the Nanny State in high gear. Yes, you can have the freedom to buy the most obscene, smog polluting gargantuan SUV on the market. Load up your driveway with Hummers. While you’re at it, you have complete freedom to rot your lungs with as many cigarettes as you like. Here in Virginia you can buy a pack of cigarettes and pay only two and a half cents in taxes (the lowest in the country). When you turn age 21 you can drink yourself silly and carry away as much liquor from your local ABC store as you can haul. You can tear down acres of virgin forests to build your estate in the woods. But apparently if the issue is certain kinds of contraception, the state wants to make you go out of our way to acquire it.

And also here in Virginia we care about our kids. Because some child might possibly see a smutty image while on line we have to take action. So naturally we have a law so broad that potentially any consenting adult looking at smut on the online could violate it. (Thankfully a federal court recently overturned this ridiculous law.)

Well, this is government as usual for Virginia. Although the U.S. Supreme Court overturned our sodomy laws our legislature refuses to remove them from the statutes. And yes, adultery is still a criminal offense here and is used selectively to target people the state doesn’t like. Meanwhile, cohabitation between unmarried people who are not related to each other is also a criminal offense.

All this and Virginia purports to be a model state of rugged individualism. Alas, if it were so. Here in Virginia, and in many parts of the United States, you are always an adult on probation.

April 8th, 2004 at 09:37pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2004 | no comments