O'Reilly is a petulant, egotistical, whiny opportunist. The only redeeming thing about his commentary is that it is merely self-promotional, and not driven by dyed-in-the-wool liberal stupidity. His initial calculations were that if he hooked into the legitimate outrage of millions of sane and principled conservatives, whose points of view had been squelched by the LSM for years, he could achieve virtually uncontested stardom in "Talk TV".
His naked ambition was revealed when Rush had his hearing problems, and Mr. Looking-Out-For-#1 eagerly threw his hat into talk radio to usurp Rush's audience without so much as a decent interval nor stated gratitude for what Rush had wrought.
His ambition-o-meter indicated a different opportunity when Rather was shown to be a shameless and inveterate liar. Thinking swiftly and without principle - he figured he could instead usurp Rather's audience by sleazing in through CBS's slimy back alleys. You could almost hear the huckster selling himself to the CBS bigwigs: "Look...I'm IT in talk TV...I built up the largest cable audience period...give me a shot at broadcast anchoring...and I'll get you guys back up at #1, like me."
In order to make himself presentable to these partisan p****s, though, he had to rapidly morph into a leftist. But...too bad for the big schmuck. Like a trapeze performer with bad timing, he jumped for the other rope too early, before CBS was willing to let go of their star slimeball. Now he's in free fall, dithering on which to turn and how to spin himself. Spin all you like, Bill, but there's no net where you're going, and I can't wait to see your ratings splat.
I Love your analysis on O’Reilly. I guess I never really thought that he had ambitions to take over Rather’s spot. But, now that you say it, it makes prefect sense.
I tend to agree that O’Reilly is making a career devastating move if indeed those are his intentions. By separating himself with what used-to-be his core, he is setting himself for the ultimate fall.
In the end, CBS is not buying O’Reilly. They would rather put one of their boy’s in, instead of taking a gamble somebody like O’Reilly. The jury is still out on whether viewers are really tuning into O’Reilly or they are really tuning into FNC.
Take O’Reilly off FNC and put him on CBS and I would bet viewers would not follow.
Like I said he really has gotten weak. His attacks have turn into to laughter. He gives out free passes left and right.
I remember when you used to cut people of and tell them the interview was over because they were spinning. He is now just a joker.