George Will Fires Back at O’Reilly: His ‘Vast Carelessness Pollutes History’
George Will has fired back at Bill O’Reilly today in the latest shot in their ongoing battle over Killing Reagan.
To recap, Will tore into O’Reilly’s book for not getting the facts right on Ronald Reagan‘s presidency. O’Reilly brought Will on his show to confront him and loudly call him a hack.
O’Reilly yesterday took a victory lap, but Will fired back in a new column today. He starts out by saying, “Were the lungs the seat of wisdom, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly would be wise, but they are not and he is not.”
Will goes through some serious problems he has with O’Reilly’s research:
O’Reilly made the book’s “centerpiece” a memo he has never seen and never tried to see until 27 days after the book was published. Then Dugard asked the Reagan Presidential Library to find it.
Recently on Fox News, O’Reilly put this on the screen from Sue Janzen of Yorba Linda, Calif.: “We went to the Reagan Library, and were told they do not sell Killing Reagan because it’s not factual.” Then O’Reilly said: “You were deceived, Sue. The Reagan Library is angry at Martin Dugard and me because we’re seeking” the Cannon memo. He added: “The memo’s disappeared. But Dugard and I are on the case and the library is not happy about it.”
“Disappeared”? His crude intimation was that the allegedly deceptive library is hiding the memo. The library, however, has never had it because when James Cannon wrote it, he was not a member of the White House staff, hence the memo was not a “presidential record.”
And he again finds it curious that O’Reilly refused to speak to anyone with firsthand knowledge of the former president because they “have skin in the game.” And, even more bluntly, he reiterates his strong criticism that liberals are “delighted” that O’Reilly has assisted them in trying to “devalue Reagan’s presidency.”
He even went so far as to fact-check another one of O’Reilly’s books before concluding thusly:
Tidying up after O’Reilly could be a full-time job but usually is not worth the trouble. When, however, O’Reilly’s vast carelessness pollutes history and debases the historian’s craft, the mess is, unlike O’Reilly, to be taken seriously.
You can watch their epic fight from last Friday above, via Fox News, along with a WaPo video going through what Reagan historians have deemed errors in O’Reilly’s book.
UPDATE –– 5:26 pm EST: O’Reilly fired back at Will in a column railing against him and the “Reagan cabal.”
[image via screengrab]
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