My Visit with Bill O'Reilly
Don't know if you saw it, but I went on The O'Reilly Factor last night to discuss the Harvard students' production of a play about Abu Ghraib.
Here's the background: When O'Reilly heard about this production, he sent a camera crew to film it. The crew apparently got permission from the student producers, which is required. But when they got to Harvard's theater, they were turned away, per instruction of Robert Mitchell, the FAS press secretary. (In my experience, an officious and rude man, but never mind.)
So O'Reilly wanted to have a conversation about whether Harvard was "un-American." I told his producer that I could say that, yes, Harvard had a history of anti-Semitism.Yes, it had a history of discriminating against women. That it was so elitist, it sometimes thought itself better than the rest of America, yes.
But un-American, no. That's ridiculous. And as for the students involved, I would say that what they were doing—engaging in protest during wartime—was profoundly American. Whereas we'd like at least to think that the torture at Abu Ghraib was un-American.
Apparently, that worked; I'd be the token lefty. (I don't think of that position as liberal, just informed. But things are what they are these days.)
I'd been on the show once before, about six years ago, but O'Reilly didn't remember me. (Understandable—he's got a lot of guests coming through those doors.)
He's changed since then, become cooler and more self-important. I liked him on that first appearance way back when. I have no idea what we were talking about, but O'Reilly seemed like he enjoyed a good fight and respected you if you gave him one. Now he gives the impression that he wants you to disagree with him because it's good TV, but at the same time, how dare you?
Before the show, we were chatting about how the segment would go, and I said to O'Reilly, "You know I'm going to defend the students, right?"
His answer: "You can say whatever you want, just don't say anything looney. My audience won't like it if you say something looney, and you want to sell books, right? We know how to sell books here on the Factor."
Here's another way in which O'Reilly has changed: He uses the first-person plural to refer to himself.
I do want to sell books, so I agreed not to say anything looney.
As for the segment itself, I have no idea how it went; it's impossible to tell when you're going through it how you come across. The other participants were a Harvard undergrad named Matthew Downer, and a law student named Benjamin Shapiro, author of a book about how universities are corrupting young people whose title I can't remember. (Sorry, Ben! But I'm sure it's like nothing I've ever read before.)
Downer—the president of the Harvard Republican Club, but not identified as such—was the only person who'd seen the play, so he had a distinct advantage over the rest of us. He used that advantage to argue that the play was "sympathetic to the cause of the insurgents," something which I suspect is a load of crap. Sympathetic to the victims of torture, maybe. But to the cause of the insurgents? I seriously doubt it.
Anyway, O'Reilly was actually pretty reasonable, in his way, although I did try to call him out when he labeled "Abu Ghraib" (the play) as un-American. And he's great on TV, there's no question about that. The guy has total command in that studio. Moreover, he instructed us beforehand not to talk over each other, as we'd each get time to talk, and he was true to his word on that.
Most of all, I tried not to say anything looney. I knew his audience would never stand for that.
