Boston Phoenix: Why do liberals keep going on O'Reilly's show?

[DeepModem Mom]

Hostile encounters
Bill O’Reilly is famous for attacking guests who dare disagree with him. So why do liberals keep going on his show?
By: MARK JURKOWITZ
1/19/2006


Whenever I watch the Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor — the highest-rated prime-time show in the cable-news universe — one question strikes me right away. Why do people who disagree with Bill O’Reilly — liberals, usually — go on the show? What masochistic urge coaxes them into battle with the guy who’s controlling the weaponry?

Physically imposing, stratospherically self-confident, always wrapped in the mantle of patriotism, decency, and honor, and well trained in TV tactics by his experience as everything from Inside Edition anchor to ABC News correspondent, O’Reilly is a master of manipulating the microphone and dominating the action. Many well-intentioned guests simply end up befuddled and battered after entering a world in which O’Reilly shrewdly selects his targets and then carpet-bombs them.

Take, for example, the January 11 edition of Factor .

O’Reilly starts off by drumming up a campaign to remove a Vermont judge who gave out a lenient sentence in a rape case involving a young girl. From there, he takes on Iran’s nuclear threat, fretting that the obstructionist “US press and the hard-core left” will block meaningful military action, even as his two guest experts inform him that the country has no good military option at this point.

Then O’Reilly starts shooting fish in a barrel. He criticizes AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons) for having “drifted sharply to the left” after its magazine honored “notorious far-left bomb thrower” Harry Belafonte — who recently called President George W. Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world.” That’s followed by an attack on BET (Black Entertainment Television) after voters on its Web site named Louis Farrakhan person of the year....


http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid1827.aspx

[NanceGreggs]

1. Why do they go on his show?

That's something I've been trying to figure out for eons now.

If every Dem refused to take the bait, O'Reilly would scream that they're gutless, can't face the criticism, etc.

And the typical Dem response could be a simple one: "I'm always happy to go on REAL news shows, that discuss issues INTELLIGENTLY. That's why O'Reilly isn't on my list ..."

[Initech]

2. For the same reason Alan Colmes is on with Hannity

These people clearly arent liberal. They're either moderate conservatives or just plain fucking stupid.

Really, Hannity is supposed to be conservative and Colmes is supposed to be liberal, but in all the times I've seen clips of his show and the transcripts I've read, I bet Colmes has never said more than two words the entire time the show has aired. The reason that O'Reilly has liberals on - for one thing is to make them look stupid, and two, it's just adding more lighter fluid to their fire.

[EST]

3. I have asked that same plaintive lament.

And then, a few minutes ago, another poster alerted us that Dr. Dean was on msnbc. Hastily I flipped over to msnbc and caught him, in the presence of those pretty, smartly clad young ladies (who are sick with abject terror that they may be killed the next minute by an invisible attacker,) slapping the thugs around with the truth.

They tried to corner him about the lack of co-operation between the leaders, hinting that it is somehow OUR fault that there is no cohesiveness. Howard said, paraphrasing slightly, that, while we are quite willing to co-operate in the resistance to terror attacks, we are absolutely unwilling to go along with the corruption and incompetence that the repigs represent.

This is the reason the dem leaders continue to beard the lion. I have my answer.