Bill O'Reilly stifles losing debate
#1
DVD Talk Legend
Thread Starter
Bill O'Reilly stifles losing debate
Big surprise When the blowhard is outgunned, he throws a tantrum.
An Open Letter To Bill O'Reilly:
"No Spin Zone" or "No Integrity Zone" -- You Decide
by Bill Hartung
March 17, 2003
Dear Bill:
Happy St. Patrick's Day. I wish I could say I was sending you "best wishes" on this day, but your recent actions prevent me from doing so. Maybe next year we'll be on better terms.
You may or may not remember me. I'm the "other Bill," Bill Hartung, the guy who pinned your ears to the wall in a debate over the war in Iraq on your radio program last Friday.
I'm not writing to gloat, but I am writing to say that if you EVER pull the kind of sleazy stunt you pulled on me last Friday again, I will make it my business to make sure you pay for it, big time - not through lawsuits or boycotts, but in the court of last resort - the court of public opinion.
Your claim to fame is that you're supposed to be a straight shooter. Your program is a self-proclaimed "no-spin zone." How does that square with what you did to me last Friday? After five or ten minutes of heated debate, during which I gave as good as I got - and then some -- you cut off my microphone and proceeded to spend the next five minutes attacking me, attacking my family, and engaging in the kind of slanderous back-biting that frankly I thought was a thing of the past in America.
Don't get me wrong. I expected to get cut off once I started winning the debate. It's your show, and if you want to cut off the microphone, so be it. But what I was AMAZED to learn was that you cut off my microphone without informing me OR YOUR LISTENING AUDIENCE that you had done so. The only reason I was able to figure this out was that one of your listeners sent me an e-mail congratulating me on "opening up a big can of whupass on Bill O'Reilly" (this is a technical debating term which you may or may not be familiar with). The e-mailer mentioned in passing how sleazy it was that you had cut off my microphone while giving the audience the impression that I was still on the line.
To get a sense of what the e-mailer was talking about, a few folks in my office tuned into your show when it ran on WOR in New York later that afternoon. Sure enough, not only did you cut off my mike without telling me or the listeners that you had done so, but once you had cut me off you made an outrageous allegation to the effect that "guys like Bill Hartung" would probably let a situation arise where their own kids were poisoned with anthrax and just sit back and hope for "the French" to deal with the situation. The last straw was that you cut me off a good 2 to 3 minutes BEFORE your producer got on the line to tell me the segment was over. So, Bill, when you called me a "moron," your audience thought I just shut up and listened. In fact, I was having at you for another two to three minutes, ALL THE WHILE THINKING THAT I WAS STILL ON THE AIR.
So, what's my point, you may be asking. If you want to play with the big boys you have to expect it to get rough, right Bill? Well, here's my problem. If you're the guy who operates in the "no spin zone," where do you get off cutting off a caller and giving both your audience AND the caller the impression that they are still on the line?
And if you're so big and tough, how DARE you imply that I don't care enough about my own family to advocate policies that I think will best serve to protect them from terrorists? And how dare you do it AFTER you have cut off my microphone, when I'm in no position to respond?
Is that your idea of a "no spin zone," Bill?. Or, by "no spin," are you simply saying that instead of the more nuanced art of spin control, you prefer the more direct approach of lies, innuendo, and character assassination?
Needless to say, I was fit to be tied when I realized what you had done. One of your producers was kind enough to call me and apologize, noting that it sounded like you had gotten "a little rough" with me. I called her back and read her the riot act (for which I apologized at the end of the call, since it wasn't her fault, it was yours), and asked her whether you make a practice of cutting off callers while trying to give the audience the impression that they are still on the line. She mumbled something about being busy with booking and not hearing the full show that often, and then she apologized again. YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE MAKING THE APOLOGY, MR. O'REILLY, NOT YOUR STAFF MEMBER.
In lieu of an apology, I propose the following: a one hour debate, Bill O'Reilly vs. Bill Hartung, in a neutral format (TV, radio, town hall meeting, you name it), with a mutually agreed upon, neutral moderator. The topic: how best to defend the United States of America in an age of terrorism.
Chances are you will turn down my offer. After all, you've got a huge audience on radio, on television, and through your syndicated column. So why share the stage with some guy from an obscure New York City think tank that most of your listeners have never heard of?
I'll tell you why, Mr. O'Reilly: because it will be good for your soul, and it will increase the chances that you may one day truly run a "no spin zone," a non-partisan, no-holds barred program that criticizes the right as well as the left, and the government as well as its critics. These next few years could shape the direction of this country for a generation to come. If you truly ran a non-partisan show that "tells it like it is," you could do a great service to our nation.
But if you persist in using sleazy tactics like the ones you used on me, and denouncing anti-war protesters as "fifth columnists" who "hate America," you will undermine the most valuable feature of this country - the fact that we are a democracy that tolerates differing viewpoints, where we understand that criticizing the government isn't anti-American, any more than criticizing Bill O'Reilly is anti-American.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time, Bill - we can criticize the government while STILL promoting policies that will protect us and our families from terrorism, and nuclear weapons, and tin-pot dictators with a lust for power. That's what makes our democracy great, and that's what is going to get us through this very difficult period in our history.
The question for you, Mr. O'Reilly, is whether you are going to be on the side of those who promote hatred, fear and division, or on the side of those who promote tolerance, unity, and courage in the face of terrorism. Which side are you going to be on, Bill?
After hearing what happened to me on your show, a friend of mine said "Bill, I think you should stay off of that show if it's going to get you that worked up." But as the guy who e-mailed me after my appearance pointed out, it's not about me or you, Bill. It's about the future direction of our country.
Your audience - which includes a lot of decent, hard working folks (more guys than women, I would guess, but you tell me), guys who serve in the military, the police, the fire departments, on the construction sites, and so forth. As my e-mail correspondent noted, a lot of blue collar Americans think you're the "real deal." So what you say matters, not just for now, about whether we go to war with Iraq, but for the future, when we have to decide how best to defend our country without sacrificing our democratic freedoms in the process.
To paraphrase the great R&B singer James Brown, you, Bill O'Reilly, are the hardest working man in show business. You have a large, loyal audience. You are a smart guy, an articulate guy, and when you get the right targets in your sights, you can expose a lot of hypocrisy. You're right, Jesse Jackson's personal and business dealings raise serious questions about whether he should be viewed as anybody's idea of a model leader. And you're right, the French have longstanding economic interests in Iraq which probably have at least as much to do with the French government's position on Iraq as the high-toned rhetoric of Jacques Chirac. But Jesse Jackson doesn't run the most powerful country in the world, George W. Bush does. And just as France has courted Iraq for oil over the years, so have Dick Cheney and many other members of our current administration in Washington had questionable political and business dealings with Saddam Hussein and other Middle Eastern dictators over the years.
If you're the truth-teller, the guy in the "no spin zone," why not criticize the government when it deserves it, and slam the liberals when they deserve it? You'd have a far more interesting - and far more valuable - program.
If my proposal for a one hour debate doesn't appeal to you (you are a busy guy, after all), how about this: have me on for ten minutes a week for ten weeks. The segments will be timed, and everyone will know exactly when I go off the air (no funny business with the microphone).
You can say whatever you want once I've gotten off the line, as long as the entire exchange - while I'm debating you, and while you're trashing me afterwards - is run as a verbatim transcript on your web site. At the end of the ten weeks, we do a survey of your listeners (a professional survey, not a self-selecting internet poll). If a majority of your listeners think I have something worthwhile to say, you have me on for another ten weeks. If they say "we're sick of hearing from that Hartung guy," you get to pull the plug.
One last point, and then I'll let you go (assuming that you read this letter, and don't "delegate" that task to the same producers who make your apologies for you). When I was getting heated with your producer about your tactics, I was in a car service coming back from an appearance on CNN Financial News. When I got off the cell phone, the driver said "I heard you on O'Reilly today. You were great. People don't usually stand up to him that way. I had no idea he had cut you off, I thought you just hung up on him."
The fact that decent working people like that limo driver listen to your show is to your credit. Are you going to give them the straight story, or are you going to continue the kind of dishonesty and character assassination that you engaged in when I was on the program? Is it going to be the "no spin zone," or the "no integrity zone," Bill? To borrow a line from your employers at Fox News: I've reported, now you decide.
Yours truly,
Bill Hartung
World Policy Institute
"No Spin Zone" or "No Integrity Zone" -- You Decide
by Bill Hartung
March 17, 2003
Dear Bill:
Happy St. Patrick's Day. I wish I could say I was sending you "best wishes" on this day, but your recent actions prevent me from doing so. Maybe next year we'll be on better terms.
You may or may not remember me. I'm the "other Bill," Bill Hartung, the guy who pinned your ears to the wall in a debate over the war in Iraq on your radio program last Friday.
I'm not writing to gloat, but I am writing to say that if you EVER pull the kind of sleazy stunt you pulled on me last Friday again, I will make it my business to make sure you pay for it, big time - not through lawsuits or boycotts, but in the court of last resort - the court of public opinion.
Your claim to fame is that you're supposed to be a straight shooter. Your program is a self-proclaimed "no-spin zone." How does that square with what you did to me last Friday? After five or ten minutes of heated debate, during which I gave as good as I got - and then some -- you cut off my microphone and proceeded to spend the next five minutes attacking me, attacking my family, and engaging in the kind of slanderous back-biting that frankly I thought was a thing of the past in America.
Don't get me wrong. I expected to get cut off once I started winning the debate. It's your show, and if you want to cut off the microphone, so be it. But what I was AMAZED to learn was that you cut off my microphone without informing me OR YOUR LISTENING AUDIENCE that you had done so. The only reason I was able to figure this out was that one of your listeners sent me an e-mail congratulating me on "opening up a big can of whupass on Bill O'Reilly" (this is a technical debating term which you may or may not be familiar with). The e-mailer mentioned in passing how sleazy it was that you had cut off my microphone while giving the audience the impression that I was still on the line.
To get a sense of what the e-mailer was talking about, a few folks in my office tuned into your show when it ran on WOR in New York later that afternoon. Sure enough, not only did you cut off my mike without telling me or the listeners that you had done so, but once you had cut me off you made an outrageous allegation to the effect that "guys like Bill Hartung" would probably let a situation arise where their own kids were poisoned with anthrax and just sit back and hope for "the French" to deal with the situation. The last straw was that you cut me off a good 2 to 3 minutes BEFORE your producer got on the line to tell me the segment was over. So, Bill, when you called me a "moron," your audience thought I just shut up and listened. In fact, I was having at you for another two to three minutes, ALL THE WHILE THINKING THAT I WAS STILL ON THE AIR.
So, what's my point, you may be asking. If you want to play with the big boys you have to expect it to get rough, right Bill? Well, here's my problem. If you're the guy who operates in the "no spin zone," where do you get off cutting off a caller and giving both your audience AND the caller the impression that they are still on the line?
And if you're so big and tough, how DARE you imply that I don't care enough about my own family to advocate policies that I think will best serve to protect them from terrorists? And how dare you do it AFTER you have cut off my microphone, when I'm in no position to respond?
Is that your idea of a "no spin zone," Bill?. Or, by "no spin," are you simply saying that instead of the more nuanced art of spin control, you prefer the more direct approach of lies, innuendo, and character assassination?
Needless to say, I was fit to be tied when I realized what you had done. One of your producers was kind enough to call me and apologize, noting that it sounded like you had gotten "a little rough" with me. I called her back and read her the riot act (for which I apologized at the end of the call, since it wasn't her fault, it was yours), and asked her whether you make a practice of cutting off callers while trying to give the audience the impression that they are still on the line. She mumbled something about being busy with booking and not hearing the full show that often, and then she apologized again. YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE MAKING THE APOLOGY, MR. O'REILLY, NOT YOUR STAFF MEMBER.
In lieu of an apology, I propose the following: a one hour debate, Bill O'Reilly vs. Bill Hartung, in a neutral format (TV, radio, town hall meeting, you name it), with a mutually agreed upon, neutral moderator. The topic: how best to defend the United States of America in an age of terrorism.
Chances are you will turn down my offer. After all, you've got a huge audience on radio, on television, and through your syndicated column. So why share the stage with some guy from an obscure New York City think tank that most of your listeners have never heard of?
I'll tell you why, Mr. O'Reilly: because it will be good for your soul, and it will increase the chances that you may one day truly run a "no spin zone," a non-partisan, no-holds barred program that criticizes the right as well as the left, and the government as well as its critics. These next few years could shape the direction of this country for a generation to come. If you truly ran a non-partisan show that "tells it like it is," you could do a great service to our nation.
But if you persist in using sleazy tactics like the ones you used on me, and denouncing anti-war protesters as "fifth columnists" who "hate America," you will undermine the most valuable feature of this country - the fact that we are a democracy that tolerates differing viewpoints, where we understand that criticizing the government isn't anti-American, any more than criticizing Bill O'Reilly is anti-American.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time, Bill - we can criticize the government while STILL promoting policies that will protect us and our families from terrorism, and nuclear weapons, and tin-pot dictators with a lust for power. That's what makes our democracy great, and that's what is going to get us through this very difficult period in our history.
The question for you, Mr. O'Reilly, is whether you are going to be on the side of those who promote hatred, fear and division, or on the side of those who promote tolerance, unity, and courage in the face of terrorism. Which side are you going to be on, Bill?
After hearing what happened to me on your show, a friend of mine said "Bill, I think you should stay off of that show if it's going to get you that worked up." But as the guy who e-mailed me after my appearance pointed out, it's not about me or you, Bill. It's about the future direction of our country.
Your audience - which includes a lot of decent, hard working folks (more guys than women, I would guess, but you tell me), guys who serve in the military, the police, the fire departments, on the construction sites, and so forth. As my e-mail correspondent noted, a lot of blue collar Americans think you're the "real deal." So what you say matters, not just for now, about whether we go to war with Iraq, but for the future, when we have to decide how best to defend our country without sacrificing our democratic freedoms in the process.
To paraphrase the great R&B singer James Brown, you, Bill O'Reilly, are the hardest working man in show business. You have a large, loyal audience. You are a smart guy, an articulate guy, and when you get the right targets in your sights, you can expose a lot of hypocrisy. You're right, Jesse Jackson's personal and business dealings raise serious questions about whether he should be viewed as anybody's idea of a model leader. And you're right, the French have longstanding economic interests in Iraq which probably have at least as much to do with the French government's position on Iraq as the high-toned rhetoric of Jacques Chirac. But Jesse Jackson doesn't run the most powerful country in the world, George W. Bush does. And just as France has courted Iraq for oil over the years, so have Dick Cheney and many other members of our current administration in Washington had questionable political and business dealings with Saddam Hussein and other Middle Eastern dictators over the years.
If you're the truth-teller, the guy in the "no spin zone," why not criticize the government when it deserves it, and slam the liberals when they deserve it? You'd have a far more interesting - and far more valuable - program.
If my proposal for a one hour debate doesn't appeal to you (you are a busy guy, after all), how about this: have me on for ten minutes a week for ten weeks. The segments will be timed, and everyone will know exactly when I go off the air (no funny business with the microphone).
You can say whatever you want once I've gotten off the line, as long as the entire exchange - while I'm debating you, and while you're trashing me afterwards - is run as a verbatim transcript on your web site. At the end of the ten weeks, we do a survey of your listeners (a professional survey, not a self-selecting internet poll). If a majority of your listeners think I have something worthwhile to say, you have me on for another ten weeks. If they say "we're sick of hearing from that Hartung guy," you get to pull the plug.
One last point, and then I'll let you go (assuming that you read this letter, and don't "delegate" that task to the same producers who make your apologies for you). When I was getting heated with your producer about your tactics, I was in a car service coming back from an appearance on CNN Financial News. When I got off the cell phone, the driver said "I heard you on O'Reilly today. You were great. People don't usually stand up to him that way. I had no idea he had cut you off, I thought you just hung up on him."
The fact that decent working people like that limo driver listen to your show is to your credit. Are you going to give them the straight story, or are you going to continue the kind of dishonesty and character assassination that you engaged in when I was on the program? Is it going to be the "no spin zone," or the "no integrity zone," Bill? To borrow a line from your employers at Fox News: I've reported, now you decide.
Yours truly,
Bill Hartung
World Policy Institute
#3
Moderator
This actually happens all the time in talk radio. The host cuts off the listener but continues to talk. O'Reilly does this to callers who agree with his POV as well. It's nothing new, and hardly controversial.
#5
DVD Talk God
Originally posted by Groucho
This actually happens all the time in talk radio. The host cuts off the listener but continues to talk. O'Reilly does this to callers who agree with his POV as well. It's nothing new, and hardly controversial.
This actually happens all the time in talk radio. The host cuts off the listener but continues to talk. O'Reilly does this to callers who agree with his POV as well. It's nothing new, and hardly controversial.
#10
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Join Date: May 2000
Location: The Quad-city area of Melonville, Meckling, the Boro of Melon, and Party Town
Posts: 5,667
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally posted by kvrdave
I'm not buying it Norm. I am not buying it.
I'm not buying it Norm. I am not buying it.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree........
#13
DVD Talk Legend
This is pretty funny, the way this guy is giving him his own medicine.
I love how O'Reilly always demands someone comes on his show and if they refuse, he makes them out to be evasive with something to hide-- as if his show is the end all, be-all program and he has a god-given right to have every public figure appear on his show.
It would be funny if this guy kept challenging O'Reilly to a debate and O'Reilly refuses. I wonder how he'd feel about being accused he was hiding something?
I love how O'Reilly always demands someone comes on his show and if they refuse, he makes them out to be evasive with something to hide-- as if his show is the end all, be-all program and he has a god-given right to have every public figure appear on his show.
It would be funny if this guy kept challenging O'Reilly to a debate and O'Reilly refuses. I wonder how he'd feel about being accused he was hiding something?
#14
DVD Talk Hero
Newsflash:
All conservative blowhards -- be they named O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or anything else -- are, in the final analysis, unintelligent cowards who couldn't win a reasoned arguement to save their lives.
All conservative blowhards -- be they named O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or anything else -- are, in the final analysis, unintelligent cowards who couldn't win a reasoned arguement to save their lives.
#15
Member
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 219
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally posted by Josh-da-man
Newsflash:
All conservative blowhards -- be they named O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or anything else -- are, in the final analysis, unintelligent cowards who couldn't win a reasoned arguement to save their lives.
Newsflash:
All conservative blowhards -- be they named O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or anything else -- are, in the final analysis, unintelligent cowards who couldn't win a reasoned arguement to save their lives.
#16
Mod Emeritus
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Gone to the islands - 'til we meet again.
Posts: 19,053
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally posted by tupacwe
I don't see how O'reilly has such a big audience any way, such a close-minded jackass.
I don't see how O'reilly has such a big audience any way, such a close-minded jackass.
It seems that there are a fair number of people who watch/listen to things like this even though they disagree with basically everything that the host says.
#18
DVD Talk Hero
Originally posted by Jadzia
This is pretty funny, the way this guy is giving him his own medicine.
I love how O'Reilly always demands someone comes on his show and if they refuse, he makes them out to be evasive with something to hide-- as if his show is the end all, be-all program and he has a god-given right to have every public figure appear on his show.
It would be funny if this guy kept challenging O'Reilly to a debate and O'Reilly refuses. I wonder how he'd feel about being accused he was hiding something?
This is pretty funny, the way this guy is giving him his own medicine.
I love how O'Reilly always demands someone comes on his show and if they refuse, he makes them out to be evasive with something to hide-- as if his show is the end all, be-all program and he has a god-given right to have every public figure appear on his show.
It would be funny if this guy kept challenging O'Reilly to a debate and O'Reilly refuses. I wonder how he'd feel about being accused he was hiding something?
#20
DVD Talk Hero
Originally posted by cdollaz
What, exactly, is a "think tank?"
What, exactly, is a "think tank?"
#21
Member
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Allison Park, PA USA
Posts: 184
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
"Well we at the Factor think that it IS okay to touch ourselves and to follow Laurie Dhue into the parking garage after work. It would be un-American to do it any differently. Perversion? Obsession? Im just not buyin it...........dont see it."
#22
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Penfield, NY, USA
Posts: 702
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
These conservative talk show hosts are doing more to damage this country then any foreign entity. To them, everything is black and white, you're with us or against us. There's nothing in between. On top of that, they speak such vile, hateful drivle (Worst recent case...Michael Savage stating that Elizabeth Smart must be a whore) that too many in this country just eat up as fact.
#23
DVD Talk Special Edition
Join Date: Jun 1999
Posts: 1,848
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally posted by Brak55
These conservative talk show hosts are doing more to damage this country then any foreign entity. To them, everything is black and white, you're with us or against us. There's nothing in between. On top of that, they speak such vile, hateful drivle (Worst recent case...Michael Savage stating that Elizabeth Smart must be a whore) that too many in this country just eat up as fact.
These conservative talk show hosts are doing more to damage this country then any foreign entity. To them, everything is black and white, you're with us or against us. There's nothing in between. On top of that, they speak such vile, hateful drivle (Worst recent case...Michael Savage stating that Elizabeth Smart must be a whore) that too many in this country just eat up as fact.
You're not seriously arguing that purveyor's of free speech, those who exercise their right to express an opinion that you may disagree with, are somehow more dangerous than "any foreign entity"?
I get so sick of the argument, advanced by the likes of Tom Daschle, that "words" equate to "actions". Limbaugh, Savage, and their ilk engage in hyperbolic rhetoric, and any reasonably intelligent human being can readily deduce that the "outrage" expressed by these entertainers (for they are primarily entertainers) is of a sort that should not be taken seriously.
Name one instance (a solid, verifiable instance, not mere hearsay or innuendo) where a Limbaugh listener became so fired up by his "vile, hateful drivel" that they committed a violent action.
As an appostive exercise, name just one instance where a Bin Laden follower became so fired up by his "vile, hateful drivel" that they committed a violent action.
The logical conclusion to such an exercise is that it is PATENTLY and HORRIBLY obvious to any REASONABLY SENTIENT human being that RUSH LIMBAUGH and MICHAEL SAVAGE do NOT equal OSAMA or USAMA Bin Laden, and hence do NOT represent an equivalent danger to this country!
It may be trite to say, it may be a resounding cliche, but you do not live in North Korea, your radio is not soldered to allow only one station to be received. As such, if you don't like the tenor of their speech, then turn the damned radio or television off.
Having said all of that, I do agree that Bill O'Reilly is a butthead. But that's his right, to be a butthead. And it's my right not to listen or watch that tabloid journalist masquarading as a legitimate commentator.
#24
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Originally posted by tupacwe
I don't see how O'reilly has such a big audience any way, such a close-minded jackass.
I don't see how O'reilly has such a big audience any way, such a close-minded jackass.
#25
Member
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Allison Park, PA USA
Posts: 184
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
" Ya know, when 'The Factor' worked on 'Current Affair', the Factor had dreams of a future in hard news. The factor paid its dues until a real, fair and balanced news network was started by the Factor's long time pal, right wing mogul Rupert Murdoch. Finally, the Factor and many wet, creamy lipped anchorwomen had a home to report news from a little to the right of the cookoo tree. Sure, Ms VanSustern may have fallen out of that tree (hitting every branch on the way frankly.....they ALL cant be hot) but she climbed that tree from the depths of left wing CNN. A new recruit if you will.....with a new mug at that! To sum it up, the Factor says that if you dont like it, go watch Oprah. The Factor has seen Oprah and disagrees with her liberal stances. The Factor also thinks that her left wing lips are too dry for television. Some say they are but im just not seein' it..........not buyin it...CAUTION! You are leaving a no spin zone! Stay tuned for Hannity and Colmes...tonights guests are David Duke and Mike Farrell. Tonight, Sean and Alan will make sweet love to their partison cronies, Mr Duke and Mr Farrell. Spin? What spin? Goodnight from the Factor...............