Were O’Reilly more of an ideologue than a self-promoter, I’d say he might realize what some Republican strategists have come to understand: the constant rightist Republican attacks on President Obama, even questioning his legitimacy as president, are beginning to have a backlash effect. President Obama’s popularity ratings seem to be climbing once again, and the Winter of Discontent seems to be trapping Republicans at as high a rate as Democrats. The phenomenon is not unlike the Gingrich years in the House when Americans finally tired of the endless hyperbolic and hypocritical attacks on President Clinton and cried out, “Enough!” At their peril, the Republicans heard not the cry and continued to throw raw meat to the rightist rabble. The price was dear. For some reason, the rightist Republicans have never come to understand that mean and vicious is not a coat worn comfortably by most Americans during a long and brutal winter. O’Reilly is clearly in self-promotion mode. He seems to realize that he lacks the gnarling tenacity of a Beck, the whining tenacity of a Hannity. So, he is playing to his strength: expanding his market share. However, O’Reilly needs to make certain he is not being too cute by half. If Beck secures the Van Susteren time slot, O’Reilly may find himself on the the losing side of the vile and vicious fans at FOX.

How can you tell? Left – Right … EXTREME!

Good for O’Reilly and Bernie. O’Reilly and Bernie have thrown the “hard right” under the bus before. Mediaite you have reported on that. You know that, Remember?

O’Reilly to Ingraham – you’re a blind ideologue
Bernie about Beck – how Fox takes pride in being fair an balanced and he took on Beck’s unbalance:

Bernie’s quote- “There are some programs on FOX that are not only fair and balanced, they’re commentary shows. They don’t have to be. But they brag about how fair and balanced they are. They don’t cover rallies and tea parties. They cheer lead for rallies and tea parties. And as a journalist, I am totally against that.”

Couple things, I feel since election O’Reilly has moved more “moderate” or balanced on criticism and/or support. Not because of ideology but for his legacy. Perhaps O’Reilly saw an opportunity to raise the ratings cap anticipating more viewers post 08′ election and “softening” approach toward Dems and mainly Independents to have them become sticky viewers who don’t leave. A strategy to raise the roof on what ratings he could draw with sticky new demographics.

The other thing, a little odd perception for me to see TRRK’s critique on O’Reilly when O’Reilly just might be more balanced in his political critiques than TRRK’s

I suspect, Razor’s Edge, you are correct that O’Reilly is more centrist than I. In fact, I specifically intimated that O’Reilly is not much of an ideologue. I’m not a journalist at a fair and balanced network, so I fail to see any problem with my own progressive leanings. My post, however, was pretty laudatory of O’Reilly, and even sounded a word of caution to him. The typical FOX fan, as the fan base is now constituted, is not going to stand for even the slightest move from the extreme right. O’Reilly risks losing this base (in fact, there are manifold grumblings already) even as he gambles on expanding his viewership with a reconstituted base. I hope the gamble works. Admittedly, the cynical part of me wonders how sincere O’Reilly is. He is an accomplished self promoter. I’m not sure I view that as a character flaw, however.

I actually applaud the move. We have had so much divisiveness, really beginning with the Reagan administration. I’m not blaming Reagan, except to the extent he embraced the extreme Christian fundamentalists and racists to expand his own base. Nor am I exonerating the Democrats. We have been on this terrible treadmill ever since Attwater period of demonizing the Democrats, which led to Democratic payback, which led to the Gingrich nastiness, which led to Democratic payback, which led to the caustic and destructive Rove and Hughes years, which led to the Congressional Democratic payback, and the customary Republican demonization. The divisiveness is counter-productive and destructive. I do believe President Obama seeks an end to it, but I also know he is in a vise with Congressional Democrats and Republicans pushing back. It must end. Opposing parties can be civil and cooperative. We know that from the 1960′s. The middle held very well, irrespective of the extremists in both camps. To the extent O’Reilly realizes this and seeks to end it, I have nothing but praise for him.

Colby: They may have said “hard right”, but I heard “Beck”.

(Yes – I see the video that Steve posted, but it reads like O’Reilly engaging the guest)

TRRK,

I didn’t state you any problem with your own progressive leanings. I could be wrong, but If I read more posts like the one at 10:22, it wouldn’t be such an odd perception for me. So nice post. Much balance in that.

This is part of O’Reilly’s strategy to market himself as an “independent” for his mostly conservative audience. He rags on the left for two weeks and then decides to assert his independence by ragging on the far right for one segment. It is staged, phony and insincere as far as I am concerned.

Hooray! Finally one of the top pundits sees the light and recognizes the danger of the flaming spitball of hate game BOTH sides are playing. What makes it saddest is that they treat it like some kind of schoolyard game. It is not a game – it is governance. It is a responsibility, not a reward.

@same2u – sometimes the conservatives are right, you know. Just like sometimes the liberals are right. Your automatic dismissal of anything broadcast on Fox is as much a part of the problem and Hannity and Olbermann are.

@Royal – I completely agree. It was not that President Reagan set out to polarize American on artificial ideological lines. The media and far left started the ball rolling. It did not pick up serious steam until the middle of Bush 41′s term. Since then it has been growing worse and worse with each election cycle. It has now reached the point where we no longer discuss the actual issues at hand, but their relation to hard left or hard right extremes.

Note that (read closely same2u) the hard left (the ones now griping about the hard right’s pounding of Obama) spent 8 years slamming Bush 43 for the 2000 election. Even after the 2004 re-election. Nothing the man did was ever going to be good enough for them. Not even his efforts in Africa on AIDS and hunger where he spent more than any other president. Now the hard right (the ones that griped about the hard left’s pounding of Bush) is well into year 2 of their Obama bash-a-thon, where again, nothing will ever be good enough. Neither side actually cares about the truth or the issues. It is all about beating up the opposition using whatever they have at hand, true or not.

This is one of the top reasons I switched to No Party Affiliation in 1991. Both sides sicken me and cause me to fear for the nation as a whole. Without a reasonable discussion of the issues based on fact, we the people are doomed to mediocrity and acceptance of whatever survives the partisan, blindly ideological grind.

Nice try, Bernie. There’s no comparison between the “left and right”, either in substance or level of vitriol.

This mantra may make some feel better, especially on the MSM enablers cocktail weenie circuit; but it isn’t true empirically no matter how many times they repeat it.

Pulling a Roger Ailes or Leon Panetta by selectively quoting a random article or comment on a blog or MSNBC to discredit them in lieu of answering the question, hardly compares to the 24/7 tsunami of right wing hate mongering we’ve been subjected to forever.

So Reagan wanted to increase his “racist” base? As I recall, Reagan won in landslides. His opponents barely won their own states. Must be an awful lot of racists out there.

Must be an awful lot of racists out there.

—

Indeed, there are. Have you ever been to Residue, Alabama? I think that is the name of the town. We were stopped as the Independence Day passed. By late June, I have a glorious, golden brown tan, and I was fearful as I watched the Crackers pass.

By the way, I never said Reagan’s embrace of the Christian fundamentalists and racists was a warm embrace. For all of his wrong-headed policies, I never considered Reagan a racist. He just used them.

I ought to have said Independence Day parade.

An Alabamite can help me with the town’s name. We were driving from the University of the South, heading to a Blues’ Festival in Tupelo. We raced across northern Alabama early in the morning (it being my long-held belief that if fate finds you in Alabama, it is your job to get out as soon as possible), got off the main road at Huntsville, after a brief stop at a family restaurant whose main menu items were grease, even in the coffee, and second hand cigarette smoke, then started taking some smaller roads cutting west into Mississippi. As you enter “Residue” there are rusted pick-up trucks parked in ditch on the left and rusted farm implements parked in the ditch to right. At a 90 degree turn in the middle of town, we were forced to stop and watch the parade. It was only about 3 minutes, although it seem like hours, and everyone cheered wildly as the Residue Princess passed by atop a float sponsored by Booger’s Katfish Kitjun.

@TRRK: I don’t usually do this but in 1980, thirty years ago, there were 276 Walmart Stores and at the end of last year, there were 3547 in the U.S> alone… what does any of this have to do with the original post?

Keeva says:
February 2, 2010 at 11:13 am

You could probably pinpoint the moment to the confirmantion hearings
on Robert Bork.

I’ve noticed that Bill has sort of ‘evolved’ from what he used to be into a
more center based host. It’s nice to see him doing it.

@Fidoohki – Sounds about right.

@JimR – I recall “Bush as Hitler” posters, calls for impeachment and the rest. I recall fake documents being reported as news on CBS. It seems to me that the left was just as merciless on Bush as the right is on Obama.

What truly amazes me is that both sides deny the tactics while employing them and decrying them.

I didn’t know that Magister. WalMart had 85 stores in Germany, but closed all of them. And you’re right. Irrelevant. Point well taken.

Well, it is true.. who would ever want to be like the modern left??

WOW!
O’Reilly is morphing into John McCain right before our eyes!

Fidoohki:
“I’ve noticed that Bill has sort of ‘evolved’ from what he used to be into a
more center based host. It’s nice to see him doing it.”

Sorry, there’s nothing centrist about Pander!