O’Reilly, the Democrats and Wright

Watching Bill O’Reilly interview partisans about Jeremiah Wright, it occurs to me that O’Reilly’s interests now overlap those of the Democrats, and that something slick has just happened. When the Democratic spin was that Wright had been misquoted (“God damn America”), and that anyway Obama had spent little time with him, O’Reilly was eager to expose Obama’s relationship with Wright. That relationship was a source of controversy and O’Reilly’s business runs on controversy.

But now the Democratic spin is that Obama has repudiated Wright, and that Wright is a self-aggrandizing buffoon (“God damn America”) whose antics are irrelevant in a fair assessment of the reasonable, even tempered Obama. And O’Reilly, either taking the bait or having a good sense of where the ratings are, is no longer on the trail of the dissembling Obama so much as he is focusing on the bloviating Wright.

Thus Wright takes on the role of a decoy flare that is launched by an aircraft to distract heat-seeking missiles — at least that is how Democrats wish to see the situation. Republicans prefer to think that Wright is stuck to Obama and will weigh him down come November. I think the Republicans are more likely to be correct but who knows. What I find fascinating is how unerringly O’Reilly is attracted to the flashiest part of any issue, and how by focusing on the flash and noise he tends to miss more-important points. He hounds the judge who furloughed the sex offender, while ignoring reasonable questions about statutory-rape and mandatory-sentencing laws. Similarly, O’Reilly pursues Wright at the expense of giving additional scrutiny to candidate Obama’s slippery non-repudiations of his detestable mentor.

O’Reilly isn’t bad as big-media types go, which is saying something, but there’s still a lot of spin in his “no-spin zone.” Unlike typical MSM spin, which is heavily political, O’Reilly’s bias leans more toward the sensational and moralistic. (Other journalists make things easier for him by underreporting some types of sensational stories for political reasons.) His journalistic style makes good business sense. However, viewers, particularly those who share his political views, should be cautious about accepting his conclusions, and should consider not only the heavy-handed points he scores but also the thoughtful questions he doesn’t ask.

“What The Clintons Did For Feminism”

Rand Simberg has a good post on this topic.

The Clintons did a lot of damage to the country by their relentless personal attacks on their political adversaries. I don’t blame them for all of the nasty polarization that now exists, yet it seems to me that they bear significant blame. How much more civil and thoughtful might our public life now be if, instead of fanning and exploiting public divisions for their own ends, the Clintons had made some effort to buffer group animosities? To note that they were nice to some people and groups is to miss the point. The Clintons treated conservatives and libertarians as class enemies and abused the power of the State against individuals of all backgrounds who made trouble for them. We shouldn’t forget.

ChicagoBoyz Physical Fitness Series Continued…

We have seen several examples in our physical fitness series that show the prowess of various ChicagoBoyz bloggers in the areas of strength, speed and power. But two aspects of the total physical fitness package that are overlooked at times (but are no less important than the others) are balance and agility. In this video, Jonathan on a recent vacation to Spain shows us what I am talking about.




For those interested here is the wiki on the site in the video.
 
H/T to Lou.