Article: O'Reilly Demands Propaganda To Stop - Sort Of

"You can't let propaganda go unchecked." Bill O'Reilly, The Radio Factor, 9/5/07 You could have knocked me over with loofah when I heard it. To think that Bill would actually hold his own feet to the fire. Finally he would admit that his so-called cracked research and studies were just pulled out of his cracked ass. "You can't let propaganda go unchecked." No longer would we be able label Bill a McCarthy-Goebels incarnate. No longer would he need to be checked by rascals like moi or MSNBC and that the Sweetjesus boys could close up shop. He would finally become the Nospinster by actions, not just words. He would be checking on himself. "You can't let propaganda go unchecked." No longer would he be issuing mandates that vanished when his own drop-dead dates showed up. He WOULD not trust the President again because no WMD were found. He WOULD call for our troops to withdraw when his benchmarks weren't met. He WOULD actually NAME those right wing loons that he says are out there too. In fact, he will probably issue a wholesale apology for every single lie he said on the first hour of yesterday's (9/6/07) Radio Factor (which you can check out for yourself... if you're a Premium Member). That there is "only vitriolic right wing website"; that MoveOn.org influences the Democrats but that Dobson's Focus on the Family doesn't have any influence with Republicans politicians. That George Soros pours millions into MediaMatters.org That "they have the money to actually make commercials to slime people as they're doing to this congressman, Brian Baird, in Washington," when the commercial he's talking about slimes Rep. Baird by the graphic, Tell Rep Baird: Support Our Troops. Bring Them Home." That right wing talk show hosts have no influence on the White House even though the President has private meetings in the Oval Office with those same hosts. He'll probably even call for the President to have Stephanie Miller and Randi Rhodes to come up for some tea. That those who love America would never speak out against what we're doing in Iraq. That his threatening of Senator Dick Durbin was just hyperbole and that will not actually "go after him" for calling the Petreaus Report, "the President's Report." "You can't let propaganda go unchecked." It's going to be a brand new day and a brand new Bill O'Reilly. Except for one thing. The "propaganda" Bill wants checked is only the "propaganda" professed by those he disagrees with. It wasn't that he wanted propaganda to stop. He only was framing it in his usual manner to make the Folks � think he was fighting the good Culture War. It's not that the Folks � need to be stupid to buy Bill. Anyone with half a brain needs only to listen or watch five minutes of the Factor to be well-aware that Bill's is a one-sidedness that comfortably meets all requirements of extremism. It's the fear that if Bill ever told them the truth, their entire world would collapse under the weight of everything-they-know-is-wrong. Bill has made a conscious decision to drop all pretense of middle of the roadiness. Independent in name only (INO), Bill understands his demographic - the crotchety young and old who are too lazy or choose not to fact-check whether Bill is feeding them lies - and which caretaker home they reside in. To keep the zealots (from both sides of the aisle) tuning in, Bill is putting a salient foot to the pedal and driving the Factor past every sanity-check on the Fact 'n Fair Highway. "You can't let propaganda go unchecked." Yep. The O'Reilly "Factor" is still not so much a name as an incomplete phrase with the rest of the idiom understood. The entire title is actually "FactOr TheCrapI'mAboutToFeedYou." Guess which one you're going to hear tonight. Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" www.greatfailure.com and his weekly Sunday column appears every Sunday just to the left of Bill O'Reilly's in the L.A. Daily News>