Dishonest, Moronic or Both? - The Nation

Grover Norquist, the right's premier political organizer, once told me that the most significant difference between liberal journalists and conservative journalists is that the former are journalists first while the latter are conservatives first (if journalists at all). Right-winger Bill O'Reilly plays the role of a journalist on TV, radio and print. His grasp of the profession's fundamental tenets, however, seems hardly more secure than that of an actor hired to play a journalist in a phony White House Medicare video.


Recently O'Reilly complained on television, radio and in his syndicated column about a December 2003 group interview conducted by about a dozen and a half writers and scholars with John Kerry in Al Franken's apartment. Those present at the two-hour, on-the-record event--myself included--grilled Kerry about his record, his plans and what looked to be his failing campaign. Because few believed Kerry was still in the running--Slate's Mickey Kaus was holding a contest to name the excuse he would use to drop out of the race--the encounter generated little mainstream coverage. I posted a long description of it on my "Altercation" weblog (www.altercation.msnbc.com), including the "spirited exchange" between Kerry and me over his misguided vote to authorize the Iraq war, and William Rivers Pitt wrote about it on the Truthout.com website.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040426&s=alterman

I don't always agree with him, but I love that he does not suffer fools gladly.

heard anything from Eric I didn't agree 99.99% with.

is that the street whores know who are they are, no pretensions. In some way, their psychic health may be better than that of O'Reilly and Limbaugh and Hannity. O'Reilly always looks likes he's one splotch away from a ruptured aneurysm; Limbaugh morphed into a drug addict; and Hannity may yet strangle himself with his own eyebrows.