Letterman Vs. O'Reilly

I haven't watched Letterman very regurlarly since I was about 12 years old, but based on what I saw last night, I might have to start watching more often. After being dissapointed by nearly three weeks without a new episode of The Daily Show, I felt starved for political commentary, and when I saw that Bill O'Reilly was on Letterman, I decided to give it a chance. I guess part of what made it so great was that I was expecting Letterman to be like all good late-night talk show hosts are supposed to be - very polite, allowing the guest to say basically whatever he wants with no real argument.

I was unable to find a transcript of the interview, but from the show's website, you can see a clip from the interview [link]. It started with O'Reilly's comically ironic "War on Christmas" argument. He claims that political correctness has forced the media and other industries to use the phrase "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." The irony, of course, is that he is not fighting for the freedom of individuals to reference the Christian holiday, but has proposed boycotts of companies to try to force them to use Christmas themes, and therefore eliminating their freedom to be anything but Christian. Letterman rightly called O'Reilly's argument "crap."

Then they move on to the war in Iraq and Cindy Sheehan, and the interview ends with Letterman saying to O'Reilly, and I'm paraphrasing from memory, "I'm not smart enough to argue with you point to point on this... but I think 60% of what you say is crap."

Well, I think that I am smart enough to argue with O'Reilly point to point, so I have decided to subscribe to his weekly "The Spin Stops Here" newsletter and, when I have time, I would like to make exposing his lies and ironies a somewhat regular feature of this blog. Bill O'Reilly is an excelent example of conservatives who name their actions after the exact opposite of what they are. Much like Reagan's "War on Terror" actually meant using terrorist tactics to attack civilians in Nicaragua, O'Reilley's "No-Spin Zone" is actaully nothing but "spin." My guess is that Letterman's estimate of O'Reilly's crap factor is a bit low. I predict it will be somewhere in the 80-90 percent range.