I've argued before that O'Reilly is note actually a conservative. And this thought from "Rightwingsparkle" raises the question again:
I have been reading alot about bloggers in general and I find it interesting (and I don't know if anyone has really noticed this) but right leaning journalists seem to love bloggers, while left leaning ones are the ones with the sneering comments.
I've noticed the same thing. With one exception. Which 'conservative' commentator deeply hates the Internet? Only one I can think of: Bill O'Reilly.
I mean, think about it. What's O'Reilly big shtick? It's "Who's looking out for you?" which implies that Bill O'Reilly is the one who has your best interests at heart. He's powerful, you're weak, he'll take care of you.
Where have we heard that line before? Oh yeah, the welfare state.
Regarding the Internet, O'Reilly opined, in June of 2003:
Today's example comes from Web sites that picked up a false report from The San Francisco Chronicle that said a San Francisco radio station dropped The Radio Factor. If anyone had bothered to make even one phone call, they would have learned that Westwood One made a deal with another San Francisco radio station, weeks ago to move The Radio Factor. Thus the word "dropped" is obviously inaccurate and dishonest. We'll see if The Chronicle runs a correction, but you can bet you won't be seeing many corrections on the net.
The Internet sucks because The Chronicle, a newspaper put a wrong story onto the Internet? Bill O'Reilly bets we won't be seeing many corrections to that story on the 'net, but guess what's in that paragraph above, which I'm posting here? Right: a correction. If you would have trusted O'Reilly, you would have lost that bet.
It takes a scared, deeply irrational (or perhaps even dishonest, if he knows better) man to blame bloggers for a wrong story put out by old media, put on the net by old media, and merely believed by bloggers because the newspaper was based in the Bay Area and Ought to Know Better. He attacks the Internet for failing, when in fact it was the vaunted "checks and balances" of old media which failed in the case he cites. Deceptive!
Look at how O'Reilly views the 'net:
So all over the country, we have people posting the most vile stuff imaginable, hiding behind high tech capabilities. Sometimes the violators are punished, but most are not. We have now have teenagers ruining the reputations of their peers in schools on the Internet. Ideologues accusing public officials of the worst things imaginable. And creeps gossiping about celebrities in the crudest of ways.
The Internet has become a sewer of slander and libel, an unpatrolled polluted waterway, where just about anything goes. For example, the guy who raped and murdered a 10-year old in Massachusetts says he got the idea from the NAMBLA Web site that he accessed from the Boston public library. The ACLU's defending NAMBLA in that civil lawsuit.
Talking Points noted with interest the hue and cry that went up from some quarters about the FCC changing the rules and allowing big corporations to own even more media properties. But big corporations are big targets. If they misbehave, they can be sued for big bucks. These small time hit and run operators on the net, however, can traffic in perversity and falsehoods all day long with impunity. It's almost impossible to rein them in.
Oh dear, we have an open market of ideas. O'Reilly knows what he's doing here: He invokes the spectre of NAMBLA -- truely a vile and reprehensible group -- to attack what really bothers him: bloggers poaching on his turf.
What are we to do about NAMBLA? The information they put out on the 'net is governed by the same rules as if it were on paper. If they put out child porn, they can be nailed for that. But there are other things they can say which are currently protected forms of speech, such as whatever advice motivated and helped the molestor cited above.
But rather than attack the rules which protect such language under the First Ammendment -- surely not what the founding fathers intended -- nor groups that support NAMBLA, like the ACLU, he attacks the playing field on which those rules are followed.
His answer is of course, more governmental intervention. He likens the Internet to a "waterway". Yet waterways are totally unlike the Internet, which exists largely on private networks and can be extended by anyone who wants to get into the business of building their own network.
He says this waterway is "unpatrolled", but fails to make the case: Where does he show NAMBLA broke a law? Whoops, he doesn't. Sadly, what NAMBLA did is probably within the bounds of the law as liberal courts read it today. So how would more "patrolling" help this?
Again, O'Reilly makes no sense here. We should ask why.
After trying to equate celebrity gossips like Matt Drudge with pedophiles, he reveals his true concern:
These small time hit and run operators on the net, however, can traffic in perversity and falsehoods all day long with impunity. It's almost impossible to rein them in.
Emphasis on "small time". Gosh, I hate it when ordinary people get to talk among themselves without the mighty and powerful controlling their speech, don't you? I thought, as most good liberals claim, O'Reilly was for the "little guy". But let most those "little guys" start a blog or web site, and watch how he reacts. Suddenly, he's not so egalitarian, eh? Again, how liberal of him.
Finally, in our most ridiculous item of the day, we have this more recent O'Reilly blast against the Internet. He starts out swinging against the way the Swiftboat veterans were able to get their case heard by the public:
That smear came on the heels of the "Swift boat" attacks on John Kerry, an ordeal that may have cost him the election. While some of the Vietnam vets had valid points, more than a few of the accusations against Kerry were simply untrue. It didn't matter though - his war record became a negative.
It's no secret that the Swifty story probably could not have gotten out without the Internet, given the wall of media silence which surrounded them.
Which Swiftboat allegations against Kerry were untrue, O'Reilly? That he wasn't in Cambodia in Christmas? That he wounded himself for several purple hearts? That he fled the scene when the fighting started in the Rassman incident? I've been following the story, and know of not one disproven swiftboat veteran allegation. And indeed, O'Reilly can't name one either.
It's okay for O'Reilly to make unsubtantiated, derogatory allegations against people. But it's not okay for "small time operators" to do the same. What's the word we have for this? Hypocrisy.
O'Reilly's clear implication is that public interest -- that is, yours, dear reader -- would have been better served if the Swiftboat vets were not able to use the Internet to make their case to the public. Because he felt some of their charges were untrue. Unlike O'Reilly, who never says anything unsubstantiated or untrue. It is not in your interest to allow you to hear and decide. You might be misled.
Again, this seems more a fitting defense of the USSR's Pravda than something we'd expect coming from a person supposedly against overbearing governmental control.
Bizarrely, the thrust of Bill's piece is that Dan Rather was "smeared" and "slimed":
Dan Rather is guilty of not being skeptical enough about a story that was politically loaded. I believe Rather, along with Andy Rooney, Walter Cronkite and other guardsmen of the old CBS News, is liberal in his thinking. That is certainly a legitimate debate - how for years CBS News has taken a rather progressive outlook. But holding a political point of view is the right of every American, and it does not entitle people to practice character assassination or deny the presumption of innocence. Dan Rather was slimed. It was disgraceful.
Once again, O'Reilly doesn't bother to back up his points. What untrue allegation was floated about Dan? That he was warned the documents were probably fake? That he hid the ones he had been told were more easily discreditable and only released those -- sent in the same fax, from the same source, mind you -- which made his case? That his people had been in touch with the Kerry campaign through all this? That, when confronted with problems with the documents' authenticity, Dan would only react by attacking Bush, demanding to know why he wasn't admitting to the charges in said forged documents? That, despite Dan's insistence he would like to "be the first to break that story", Dan was among the last people on the planet to admit he'd sold us a false bill of goods? That Dan showed no similar interest for any story which might have similarly undermined the Kerry campaign?
Which of these assertions would be "slime", "character assassination", or even less than factually correct?
Again, Bill shows himself to be the hit and run artist he paints others to be. Make a point, run away, and never have to justify it. If he's a stand up guy, I challenge him to appear on my blog and answer two questions:
(1) Which swiftboat allegations were clearly false?
(2) What well-known allegation about Dan Rather was "slime"?
Bill pretends to be deeply concerned that good public servants will be kept away from office by unsubstantiated attacks:
Let me ask you something: In the future, do you think potential public servants and social crusaders are going to risk being brutally attacked within this insane system? I don't. I think many good people are simply going to walk away from the public arena.
But if this is a concern, why doesn't it extend to Dan Rather's spurious attack on one public servant running for office? Or do we extend all benefit of doubt to large, powerful guys in the media industry, but none to the little guys like Powerline who help publish evidence that Dan's documents and sources weren't up to snuff?
O'Reilly concludes with a rather Orwellian line: "Unfair freedom of speech did him in." This is the classic liberal argument against "unfair trade" (e.g. unfair free economic interactions) rephrased to be about speech.
Also note, the phrase "unfair freedom of speech" implies it wasn't some specific allegation which was unfair. It was the freedom itself which was unfair. How unfair is it that Powerline was able to publish something which made Dan Rather look bad? Pretty unfair. We can only make things fair by removing that freedom.
Point noted, O'Reilly, point noted.
Who's looking out for you? On this point, it's certainly not O'Reilly.