The Crap Factor - Week 1

Today I received my first issue of Bill O'Reilly's weekly newsletter "The Spin Stops Here." It was actually quite difficult to find the content. After sifting through two independent commercial advertisements, ads for the O'Reilly factor television and radio shows, ads for "Premium Membership," an ad for "Bill O'Reilly for Kids," an ad for Bill O'Reilly T-Shirts, and self-congratulatory statements claiming to have single-handedly forced a judge to change his sentence for a child molester, I eventually found a link to his actual column. Here are his statements, and my responses:

1. Liberalism is not gaining traction in North America, evidenced by polls which show Americans support the nomination of Judge Alito by a "wide margin."

My response:
What does he consider to be a "wide margin?" According to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup 54% of Americans support Alito, with a +/- 3% margin of error [link]. The "wide margin" for that poll is barely larger than the margin of error. These results were identical to the Washington Post-ABC News Poll [link].
Result: 100 % Crap - His statement is simply untrue.


2. Liberalism is not gaining traction in North America, evidenced by Canada elected a conservative prime minister.

My response:
While it is true that Canada's party did gain 25 seats in this election, O'Reilly neglects to mention the corruption scandals which have plagued the liberal party, or the fact that the New Democratic Party, Canada's socialist party, gained 10 seats. He also neglects to mention that the conservative party is still far from a majority, with only 124 out of 307 seats.
Result: 40% Crap - His statement was true, although misleading.

3. The president's "terror warrior" poll numbers indicate that liberalism is not gaining traction in North America.

My Response:
What the heck are the president's "terror warrior" poll numbers? Apparently that is a phrase that he made up, but I assume he means Bush's approval rating regarding terrorism. According to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, a whopping 52% of Americans approve of the way Bush is handling terrorism, with a +/-3% margin of error [link]. Based on that, it can't even be said with any certainty that even a majority of Americans approve of the way that Bush is handling terrorism.
Result: 100% Crap - His statement was simply not true. He needs to learn what they mean by margin of error.


4. Liberalism could not be gaining traction in North America because 51% of Americans would not vote for Hillary Clinton for president.
My Response:
In that poll [link], the most popular Democratic and Republican candidates were Hillary Clinton and Condoleza Rice. 16% said they would definitely vote for Hillary Clinton, compared to 14% for Condoleza Rice, and the total number of people who would at least consider voting for Clinton was 48%, compared to 52% for Condoleza Rice, which is within the +/- 4% margin of error for the poll. Additionally, 48% said they would definitely not vote for Condoleza Rice, which is within the margin of error for Clinton's 51%.
Result: 100% Crap - His statement is untrue because the leading conservative candidate has virtually the same numbers.

5. The New York Times op-ed columnists Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Frank Rich published 148 "anti-Bush" op-ed pieces in the last 13 months, representing 47% of their work.

My Response:
What percentage of Bill O'Reilly's work would you guess is anti-anti-Bush? My guess would be well over 50%. Additionally, there's a reason their work is published in the Op-Ed section. It is opinion, and they don't claim for it to be anything else, unlike Mr. O'Reilly, who's "No Spin Zone," where he pretends that his opinions are spin-free news.
Result: 70% Crap - His response may be factually correct, I could not verify it, but regardless, his statement is mostly crap for pretending his opinions are news, and for saying that people who don't agree with him have no place even in the opinion section. Note: I was tempted to give him a 90% crap rating on this statement, as I believe 90% of his supposed news is really anti-anti-Bush opinion.


6. Ted Kennedy's attacks on Samuel Alito made his wife cry.

My Response:
Samuel Alito's wife did not start crying during Kennedy's questioning of him, but rather when Senator Lindsey Graham asked him if he was a closeted bigot [link], presumably in response to Kennedy's questions regarding Alito's affiliation with the organization Concerned Alumni of Princeton.
Result: 50% Crap - We don't know why she cried, but it is a fact that the tears were a direct response to the question by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.


7. Americans remain uneasy about terrorism.

My Response:
I can't argue with that, although I do think that this is largely a result of Bush's policies. That's just my opinion, however, so I won't hold that against him here.
Result: 0% Crap


8. Democrats poll far below Republicans on terrorism.

My response:
This is true, but this article is about liberalism, not about Democrats, which I would hardly equate with liberalism. Additionally, according to a CBS News poll, when asked whether the Democratic party or the Republican party would do a better job of writing laws to find terrorists without violating the average person's rights, 42% chose the Democrats and only 33% chose the Republicans [link].
Result: 20% Crap - His statement is true, although again misleading.

9. Democrats don't put forward concrete solutions to vexing problems:
a. How would they respond if Iran "continues to develop nukes?"
b. How would they deal with Iraq?

My Response:
Iran can't "continue to develop nukes" because they haven't been developing nukes. They removed the seals on IAEA equipment for nuclear research which they claim is related only to energy production, and not nuclear weapons, but the point is that they just did this last month. Admittably, it is true that the Democrats often don't put forward a clear and concise agenda, but the problem with O'Reilly's arguments is that he is comparing the Bush administration, a single entity, to the entire Democratic party. Of course there is more unity among a single entity than there is among the many Democratic senators and congressmen. Each Democratic candidate had his/her own beliefs. It is only valid to compare specific Democrats with specific Republicans, or to compare the two parties as a whole. For some concrete solutions to vexing problems, I refer you to Senator Obama's statements on Iraq [link].
Result: 60% crap - He has a point about a lack of unity for the Democratic party, but he is still trying to compare apples and oranges.


10. The "left-wing media" hurts Democrats by "making celebrities of loons like Cindy Sheehan and Harry Belafonte."

My Response:
Of course I know who Cindy Sheehan is, but I had to look up Harry Belafonte. Apparently, the reason O'Reilly thinks he is a "loon" is because he is an activist who opposes Bush and supports Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez. I have great respect and admiration for Cindy Sheehan, and I refer her detractors to this Rolling Stone interview [link]. As for Harry Belafonte, the fact that he supports Chavez definitely makes me like him. On to his main point, if it were in fact true that the media made celebrities out of them, how does this hurt the Democrats? They are not Democrats. O'Reilly apparently implies that independent-thinking individuals think that Sheehan and Belafonte are loons, and that these independent-thinking people don't like the Democrats because they don't call them loons. Well, I can't speak for all independently-thinking people, but I would guess that the radical idea that they are "loons" is fairly limited outside of O'Reilly, and his followers who would rather let O'Reilly do their thinking for them.
Result: 100% Crap

Average for the week: 64%
I predicted 90%, so Letterman was much closer with his 60% guess.