A Challenge to Bill O'Reilly

The New York Times
December 18, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
A Challenge for Bill O'Reilly
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Let us all pray for Bill O'Reilly.

Let us pray that Mr. O'Reilly will understand that the Christmas spirit isn't about hectoring people to say "Merry Christmas," rather than "Happy Holidays," but about helping the needy.

Let us pray that Mr. O'Reilly will use his huge audience and considerable media savvy to save lives and fight genocide, instead of to vilify those he disagrees with. Let him find inspiration in Jesus, rather than in the Assyrians.

Finally, let's pray that Mr. O'Reilly and other money-changers in the temple will donate the funds they raise exploiting Christmas - covering the nonexistent "War on Christmas" rakes in viewers and advertising - to feed the hungry and house the homeless.

Amen.

Alas, not all prayers can be answered. Fox News Channel's crusade against infidels who prefer generic expressions like "Happy Holidays" included 58 separate segments in just a five-day period.

After I suggested in last Sunday's column that a better way to honor the season might be to stand up to genocide in Darfur (a calamity that Mr. O'Reilly has ignored), Mr. O'Reilly denounced me on his show as a "left-wing ideologue." Bless you, Mr. O'Reilly, and Merry Christmas to you, too!

Later in the show, Mr. O'Reilly described us print journalists in general as "a bunch of vicious S.O.B.'s." Bless you again, Mr. O'Reilly; I'll pray harder for the Christmas spirit to soften your pugnacious soul.

Look, I put up a "Christmas tree," rather than a "holiday tree," and I'm sure Mr. O'Reilly is right that political correctness leads to absurd contortions this time of year. But when you've seen what real war does, you don't lightly use the word to describe disagreements about Christmas greetings. And does it really make sense to offer 58 segments on political correctness and zero on genocide?

Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to religious hypocrites because I've spent a chunk of time abroad watching Muslim versions of Mr. O'Reilly - demagogic table-thumpers who exploit public religiosity as a cynical ploy to gain attention and money. And I always tell moderate Muslims that they need to stand up to blustery blowhards - so today, I'm taking my own advice.

Like the fundamentalist Islamic preachers, Mr. O'Reilly is a talented showman, and my sense is that his ranting is a calculated performance. The couple of times I've been on his show, he was mild mannered and amiable until the camera light went on - and then he burst into aggrieved indignation, because he knew it made good theater.

If Mr. O'Reilly wants to find a Christmas cause, he should invite guests from Catholic Relief Services, World Vision or the National Association of Evangelicals - among the many faith-based organizations that are doing heroic work battling everything from river blindness to sex trafficking. Indeed, the real victims of Mr. O'Reilly are the authentic religious conservatives, because some viewers falsely assume that ill-informed bombast characterizes the entire religious right.

(I'm tempted to think that Mr. O'Reilly is actually a liberal plant, meant to discredit conservatives. Think about it. Who would be a better plant than a self-righteous bully in the style of Father Coughlin or Joe McCarthy? What better way to caricature the right than by having Mr. O'Reilly urge on air that the staff of Air America be imprisoned: "Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the F.B.I. and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything.")

Some authentic religious conservatives are embarrassed by television phonies. Cal Thomas, the conservative Christian columnist, warned: "The effort by some cable TV hosts and ministers to force commercial establishments into wishing everyone a 'Merry Christmas' might be more objectionable to the One who is the reason for the season than the 'Happy Holidays' mantra required by some store managers."

So I have a challenge for Mr. O'Reilly: If you really want to defend traditional values, then come with me on a trip to Darfur. I'll introduce you to mothers who have had their babies clubbed to death in front of them, to teenage girls who have been gang-raped and then mutilated - and to the government-armed thugs who do these things.

You'll have to leave your studio, Bill. You'll encounter pure evil. If you're like me, you'll be scared. If you try to bully some of the goons in Darfur, they'll just hack your head off. But you'll also meet some genuine conservative Christians - aid workers who live the Gospel instead of sputtering about it - and you'll finally be using your talents for an important cause.

So, Bill, what'll it be? Will you dare travel to a real war against Christmas values, in which the victims aren't offended shoppers but terrified children thrown on bonfires? I'm waiting to hear.

* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

How To Reach A Human

Morning Edition, November 23, 2005 · Entrepreneur Paul English has produced a "must have" for the modern consumer. It's a guide to the customer service phone systems of major corporations. The big payoff? The guide tells you the quickest way to reach a human.

Link to Paul English's guide here.

George Will: McCain V Feingold in 2008?

Read George Will's article about our Senator Russ Feingold here.

Sam Alito

Well, I was wrong. Sam Alito seems the type of judge that there will be quite a fight over. He certainly has the resume, but will he be considered too extreme?

Ann Althouse, University of Wisconsin law professor, made a good point in today's New York Times, saying:

"To oppose Judge Alito because his record is conservative is to condemn us to a succession of bland nominees and to deprive future presidents of the opportunity to choose from the men and women who have dedicated long years to judicial work."

Read it all here.

Althouse was also on Open Source on Oct. 31, 2005. Well worth listening to if intrested in the topic. Listen to it here.

Curiously, if confirmed, Alito would be the 5th Catholic on the court.

Miers Withdraws

Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court today. It is amazing that Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post last week the exact scenario that President Bush used make the change. I believe that it was the Washington Post that recommended to President Carter to boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 in protest over the invasion of Afghanistan.

The question is who will be next. I doubt that President Bush will make an announcement before next week for fear of being accused of "wagging the dog" because on the impending indictments of Rove and Libby.

I suspect that the conservatives are not going to get the candidate that they want. Bush ran as a moderate in 2000; as a "compassionate (read: prodigal) conservative in the spirit of bi-partisanship after the antagonistic Clinton years.

In 2004 he had to take a hard right to get the Evangelical Christians to vote. In 2000 they largely sat on their hands, as they usually do (they still voted in a lower percentage than either Catholics or mainstream Protestants. However, he really hasn't done much to advance their agenda, especially compared to the neo-cons.

A case can also be made that the Republicans do not want to have Roe v Wade reversed. Right now they can run as "pro-life" (who isn't?) candidates, currying favor again with the Evangelical crowd, while not having to worry about the 70% of Americans who support a woman's right to choose.

I predict that President Bush is going to name someone who is perfectly acceptable to those outstanding Senator, Arlen Spector and Pat Leahy.

Flocinaucinihilipiliphication

Flocinaucinihilipiliphication: the action of estimation is worthless.

Curiously, this word is itself pretty worthless.

To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing - Yeats 1916

To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing


NOW all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.