Bill O'Reilly: Professional Spin Doctor

I'm going to say this right off the top: Bill O'Reilly hates America. I'm not saying this with a hint of irony, nor am I talking about the over-the-top flag-waving, Toby Keith-sing-a-long America. I'm talking about the real America, the one of ideas, freedom, and democracy. I'm talking about the one founded on Enlightenment principles by a group of renegade intellectuals. I'm talking about the Abraham Lincoln America, not the Joe McCarthy America, the one founded on reasoned democratic debate and not the one fueled by Orwellian-like bile.

So I say this: Bill O'Reilly hates the real America. His financial and personal motives covered with superficial jingoism, he has set out to create a new America with new core values and - potentially - a whole new history. I know quite well that others have been "spinning" America's core values for two decades - the Rush Limbaughs of the world - but they have generally been marginalized by the levelheaded among us (remember Limbaugh's infamous stint on ESPN?), relegated to an audience who likes buying into that particular myth about America.

But last night, something horrendous happened. I was idly flipping channels, and there he was: Mr. O'Really, on ABC, talking to Barbara Walters in some sort of exclusive interview. Primetime network television? For this loon? Apparently so, and worse than his appearance was the content of what he was said in the mere two minutes before I changed the channel. O'Reilly, looking confidant, angry, and smug, told Barbara that so-called "SPs," or "secular progressives," are ruining America. He claimed that these so-called "SPs" run the media and that is why "nontraditional" outlets have brought issues like abortion and prayer in schools to the center stage, even though those two issues have been in the mainstream media for roughly thirty and forty years, respectively. He placed the number of “SPs” around 20% and basically suggested that they should be defeated or purged in the style of Uncle Joe.

Bull flippin' bleep.