February 20, 2009

Watching Bill O'Reilly while I workout

So strangely enough, when I go to my gym in North Spokane, they have "The O'Reilly Factor" always playing on their central television in front of all the exercise bikes and treadmills. And since I really don't want to look down and see how much time I have left in my workout - which is just disheartening - I find myself watching Bill to pass the time.

Obviously different people have different opinions about the guy and there's a couple things that strikes me about the show. I don't think that they're even trying to promote the fair and balanced crap anymore, it seems pretty straight forward, this is Bill's show and he's going to say what he wants. There's nothing wrong with that but if you use it as your sole source of news, you're dumb.

Secondly, the man is almost promoting his latest book or website gimmick, and considering the large amount of viewership he gets, this is capitalism at its greatest. Make a bunch of people angry or get them to agree with you and make butt loads of money.

And say what you will about his views, opinions and urge to yell all the time, the guy is pretty successful by any standards. Casey and I have yet to get our primetime show on Fox News but perhaps if we could pitch an idea of dancing penguins and midgets to the network, I think we might be well off. So that considered, I really can't judge the guy's intelligence. He's a genius. Some of the stuff he says is intentionally earmarked to get you riled up and think about the issues.

Now that's not saying that I agree with Mr. O'Reilly, far from it. I'm what you would call a socialist-republican with a tad bit of college liberal hippie in me, and then throw in some small-town background ideology and you have the biggest f-ed up mind in the country. But hey! At least I'm not Obama's pastor. However, the man does command my attention while I'm on the exercise bike and he does bring up points of discussion - sometimes really petty and stupid things - that I think about.

So love him - hate him - he does provide some good TV. Oh an by the way... WE'LL DO IT LIVE!! Okay just had to get that out of my system.

If I become Lance Armstrong, I'm going to thank Mr. O'Reilly for keeping me on that exercise bike. 

(PS - How the hell is Tony Danza an political analyst on "Hannity", seriously how did he get that gig? Did anyone see "Who's the Boss" ... what political undertones were there?)

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