To: Bill O'Reilly oreilly@foxnews.com
From: Rick Mathis theprodigalliberal@yahoo.com
re: appearances by Media Matters, Greg Palast and Helen Thomas
Dear Bill:
Do your monkeys Google, Bill? I hear that's what they call research assistants who do keyword searches on what's hot at Google News. The way they tell it to me is that the higher the listing the more that a piece is being read on a given subject.
Guess what, Bill? People love to read about you. Why, the piece "Will Bill O'Reilly ever face Media Matters?" was number one for several days and was within the top five and then the top ten for a couple of weeks. Then people have been reading about Helen Thomas possibly coming onto your show. Last week "Will you invite Helen Thomas on the O'Reilly Factor, Bill?" went to number one for several days before sliding to number four. But Bill, as of this morning, June 19, it was back to number one.
I know, Bill, that you have said that you have "got to have bodyguards [and] . . . security wherever I go. And it's because of them (Media Matters)." I know that you think Media Matters are "ankle biting" "despicable weasels." Ok, Bill, maybe the Media Matters liberals are too dangerous for you to allow on the set. But I can personally vouch that Helen Thomas will not dash under the table and start snapping at your heels. Just double check her purse so she can't sneak a bomb in and throw it.
But, good buddy, you're on your own if she goes to slap you up side the head with a fact or two. Tell her to shut up. Threaten to throw her off the set. Cut her mike. Break to a commercial. Tried-and-true techniques that still work like a charm, or lack of it.
Now, if you're wanting a good fight, Greg Palast is your man. "Have truth, will speak reads the card of a man. O, Greg Palast, Greg Palast, who will you bone?" The Paladin versus Captain Chickenhawk the Culture Warrior could read the marquis. Granted, a lot of people think that Palast would mincemeat you in a fair debate. But, just remember, Bill. It's your show and you can make the rules.
So think big, Bill. Study your demographics. Give your fans what they really want. Mix entertainment with news even more. Kick it up a notch and turn your debates into what your fans are really yelling for. Go pro wrestling-talk show.
Have all your contestants wear outfits like pro-wrestlers. Take Jim Hightower's suggestion and make the politicians imitate NASCAR drivers and have to wear their sponsors' names in bright colors on their costumes.
Ann Coulter could dress in a slinky outfit and bang your opponents over the back of the head with a folding-chair as they go to pin you in a debate. Or Limbaugh could rush in to pull them off and sit on them while you stomp them into the ground to the delight of your cheering audience.
You could even get a liberal crowd to watch. Do a simultaneous broadcast in opera. Have some pedant write a scholarly treatise on how pro-wrestling is a modern vulgar variation of folk opera. You know the kind of stupefying sesquipedalian obfuscation where the scribe appears to be in cahoots to get a commission every time you have to stop and look up a word. The kind of piece which has footnotes for the footnotes and you need a syllabus to plow through a paragraph, which average 1.32 pages each.
But of course for your regular crowd you don't need any reading material. All you need are costumes to let them know who's the good and bad guys. Help your fans out, Bill. Granted, they can normally figure out who's a liberal by giveaway signs like having a beard, being polite and using reason. Intelligence is also a telltale sign. But all that thinking burns precious mental energy of your fans which could be saved for cheering you on. So dress up the liberals as villains and save your fans even more from the passing perils of thinking on their own.
The only other thing you would need is a good whomp-ass song. You need something to stir up the emotions and get your mob - oops, audience - into the proper decorum for your style of show. Allow me to suggest Toby Keith's:
Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street for all the people to see . . .
To be perfectly honest, boss man, a lot of us good old boys in the south have always thought that you have the talent to do both play-by-play and color commentary at an old fashioned, down home, Southern style lynching and barbecue. You're a natural, Bill.
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