SamSaid!

THE FACTOR

     A year or so ago, I casually changed the channel to watch Bill O'Reilly on Fox news. In the following months I watched more often and nowadays I view his newscast  every day. When it comes to standard TV news, I am still loyal to NBC. While I am not much enthralled by Katie Cutie or Queen Jane Pauley, I like Tom Brokaw and Matt Lauer. But the big three network news presentations are bland pablum –  politically correct vanilla  –  compared to O'Reilly who really is a different cat.

     O:Reilly is fast-talking, direct, candid, opinionated, assertive, argumentatative, confrontational, occasionally nasty or rude, insensitive, impatient, and challenging to those who may differ with him. He may not the best TV Jounalist on the air, but he is entertaining and he gets his messages across. From time to trime I differ with him and then fire off Emails. But he has generated an amazing following in just a short period of time. He is not a slick salesman with a well packaged product to sell; rather, his message hits the core, heart, or guts of millions of people who feel just as he does but generally confine their thoughts to just a few others. For years they have awaited a spokesman for THEIR causes  –  now they have one.

     Bill does not invite guests so that they can make planned speeches in response to lollipop questions. He asks tough questions and demands direct answers. Woe to the unwary who might try to weasel word their way out of a tough question from Bill.  No equivocation. I like that. And he doesn't hesitate to take on the IRS, politicians, the RC Church, the Hollywood elite, or black leaders. Actually, I chuckle every time he throws political correctness out the window. It is a treat to watch him expose Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as the charlatans  they are. More than anything else, it is a joy to watch him stick the needle into Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Tom Daschle, Martin Sheen, Ted (the balloon) Kennedy, and other leaders of the left  for refusing an invitation to appear on his program.   

     When it comes to aggressive interviewing, he has no peer. And I say, more power to him. He says things that need to be said. If the left-wingers want to refute him, I say “good luck, guys”. Last month Dan Rather got worldwide publicity by interviewing Saddam Hussein. I watched Mr. Rather quietly pitch the pre-approved softball questions to The Iraqi madman who deperately wanted (and got) respectable worldwide press.

     Can't you just imagine Bill O'Reilly interviewing Saddam??