Roger L. Simon: Flying Monkeys of the Left and Right
Kos – never long on wit – unconsciously does his best to prove O’Reilly right by responding:
“As for my part, I’m cancelling [sic] my JetBlue American Express card and will be looking at alternative options for my future travel. Too bad. Unfortunately, JetBlue just told me (and the rest of us) that they accept O’Reilly’s bullshit smears.”
What interests me in this brouhaha is not the substance, but the amount of heat generated by both sides over a relatively small matter. We live in a society where large sections of the media – on and off line – are incapable of viewing the world outside their ideological blinders. For them, politics is blood sport. They are essentially like the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, endlessly headed off in fits of rage against their enemies. (Glenn Reynolds theorizes O’Reilly’s attack was “payback for the Netroots’ efforts to keep Democratic debates off of Fox.” Possibly. But even if not, it is simply more of that flying monkey behavior coming from both sides.)
Of course the unspoken motivation for this behavior – the elephant in this room of monkeys – is money. I don’t know if Markos Zuniga is capable of being a reasonable adult, but if he were, he would probably lose lots of readers and cash. The same is true of Bill O’Reilly. If he stopped shouting people down and got into a dialog with them, I suspect, sadly, fewer viewers would watch.
This economic motive is augmented by ideological loathing of the type practiced broadly by the likes of Kos and O’Reilly and more subtly – but perhaps more lethally – by pseudo-objective outlets like The New York Times. Everyone is playing to his or her audience. But the loser is that audience. It is we the citizens.
With this polarized media atmosphere, it is small wonder that the President and the Congress have the pathetic poll numbers they do. Our leaders present themselves to us through that media and, in a very real sense, are part of it. They are one and the same. The Congress is a media personality. Much of what they do is media defined. It is one big show, much like sports. And we citizens have been reduced to fans, chanting “Our team is red hot, your team’s worth diddley-squat,” just as we did in junior high. But the games and the issues are real.
Meanwhile, we are left with a polity that is virtually dysfunctional, lost in their own electoral ambitions and outmoded ideological preachments and not talking to each other. We have a Left with no response to a misogynistic/homophobic religious fascist enemy that abhors separation of church and state and a Right willing to use their religious values to shut down the US Congress over the fate of one woman when they could not possibly have any true medical knowledge of her situation.
Talk about irony. And we’re supposed to be the modern society? Bring back Ancient Greece. Or at least Chairman Deng, who famously said when throwing off the yoke of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung thought, “I don’t care whether a cat is black or white. I only care if it catches mice.”
Our own ideological yokes are nowhere near as rigid as China’s, but we could still use a little of Chairman Deng’s advice. In fact, we don’t have to look very deep in our own history to find our own version of it. It’s called pragmatism.
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Roger L. Simon is a novelist and a screenwriter and CEO of PJ Media.
Anyway, at least this was Public pressure in both instances (Fox and Jet Blue), as opposed to government pressure which would have occured in China.
Roger:
I am unable to say much about the Kos thing, but O’Reilly I watch and I suggest you do so too – I think you are usually a pretty level headed guy, but you have the O’Reilly derangement syndrome, much like the Bush derangement syndrome which is rampant in this country.
You lost this one……..
To be sure the nation is polarized and both Left and Right bear responsibility. However, if one reads both sides it’s hard to miss that the Left is considerably more crazed, contradictory, and vitriolic, than the Right, as the above quote balancing the single Terry Schiavo affair against the whole non-stop hate campaign against Bush and the war in Iraq indicates.
I’m a conservative who despises O’Reilly – I think he’s a blowhard who interrupts guests just as they are making an improtant point.
But you’re off on this one. JetBlue sponsoring Kos is like GM sponsoring a Holocaust Denier convention.
Businesses that take sides in poltical disputes alientate half their client base. I wouldn’t want to invest in someone so short-sighted.
Roger,
You obviously don’t watch O’Reilly on a regular basis as your comments about are stereotypical of those on the left who only regurgitate what they hear about him or see in soundbites. His problem with JetBlue sponsoring the Kos convention has little to do with ideology and everything to do with the vitriolic, vicious, deranged comments posted on a regular basis at the Daily Kos – both by Kos and his readers. O’Reilly would have had the same outrage if JetBlue was sponsoring some sort of far right white superiority conference. One should never sacrifice correct principle for pragmatism and standing up to the hate of the far left is never wrong…
They are the Jerry Springers of political commentary…
Roger,
While O’Reilly can be sometimes a bit too strident, for my tastes, I think your comments suggest you do not watch his show and have a stereotyped view of him. He does present good exposes. I do think the Jet Blue dust up was legitimate. The Kos site has had a lot of foul material written by its contributors — versus comments section, which are harder to control — and I think that if this the tone the it chooses to share with its audience, then it just shows their level of crudity and immaturity. But I think we all have a right to tell a business that it is not in their best interests to be giving away freebies to such foulness. Argument is one thing — like at many of the big center-right sites — but ad-hominem attacking which the Kossacks go for often, is just disgusting. And a company should be aware of the tone such a group if it is going to contribute freebies to them.
“O’Reilly, who regards Kos as an extremist site”
Are you saying it isn’t? Kos is the MOES – the Mother of all Extremist Sites. I agree with the others. I’m not a Bill O’Reilly fan, but he was right to jump all over this one. Jet Blue blew it in a huge way. Not thinking this would be a big issue shows me their management/marketing/whatever is run by some pretty dumb people.
I don’t watch O’Reilly, he simply annoys me. I don’t care what cause he’s pushing today.
But I agree with Fen – Jetblue sponsoring a KOS event is like GM sponsoring a Holocaust Denier convention. Given the support for hijacking airliners seen on DK, it was an amazingly bad decision.
Someone at a higher paygrade at Jetblue quickly figured out that taking ideological sides was a losing proposition, and pulled their “sponsorship.” They left what they’d contributed – 10 round trip tickets, worth maybe $7000 at the most – and pulled their logo to try for damage control.
As a result, Kos wants a boycott. That will show future sponsors. Even if you give them money, you’re in for a spanking if you’re not “pure” enough.
“Our leaders present themselves to us through that media and, in a very real sense, are part of it. They are one and the same.”
That might be the most insightful comment I’ve read about the current political environment in years… keep going down that road.
Thanks, David. You made my day.
As for those who worry that I like the Daily Kos, you should reread the above post. I think it’s paleo-idealogical drivel.
It seems to me that the “flying monkey” behavior being described is more analagous to the tantrums of our brethren, the angry Muslims, than it is to any money-making capitalist scheme.
Increasingly, as time goes by, we see that exhibitions of rage, frothing at the mouth and spittle-flecked threats *does* lead to getting your own way, whatever that may be. The world backed down over some silly cartoons, the Pope backed down over some perfectly sensible observations, and we are *still* hearing Muslims lecturing us about “getting to root causes” before they will condescend to quit blowing us up.
I think that the behavior of people like Kos and O’Reilly is merely an inching slowly slowly towards an ultimate goal of telling Jet Blue, for example, that if you do or don’t do this or that, we’ll behead you.
Roger,
“…We have a Left with no response to a misogynistic/homophobic religious fascist enemy that abhors separation of church and state and a Right willing to use their religious values to shut down the US Congress over the fate of one woman when they could not possibly have any true medical knowledge of her situation…”
Two points: you’re analogy isn’t a very good one and you really should listen to O’Reilly occassionally. While not perfect, he does a pretty fair job of drawing distinctions – which based on your analogy between the Left and Right – you do not.
You’re really better than this.
You have tepidly missed the whole point of this argument and certainly dropped my estimation of Pajamas Media a major notch. I’ve never been a big OReilly fan, but am reminded of the dictum that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. Here he spoke up and you compare him to the harpy villains of Oz.
Back to your milquetoast and pablum. And take your pajamas with you. We can access the morally mute in Time and Newsweek, so what’s the point in your showing up and wanting to play ball?
“…I think your comments suggest you do not watch his show and have a stereotyped view of him…”
I’m afraid I’m with Roger on this one. O’Reilly is capable of great charm and sardonic wit and there is no doubting his intelligence. But he is ~ for the most part ~ a shrieking eel. Utterly and completely incapable of letting someone finish a sentence, no matter how ponderously he intones “I’ll let you have the last word.” We have a catch phrase that has worked it’s way into our at-home lexicon, and it comes directly from O’Reilly. A number of years ago ~ during the “Summer of the Shark” ~ we here in the Panhandle were about shark attacked out. O’Reilly had on some young brothers who had been in the New Jersey surf, when one had his leg bitten off by a shark. Ostensibly, they were there to tell the truly harrowing story of the attack and consequent struggle to get to shore. O’Reilly kept running them over with a ‘yeahyeahyeah-hurry up, already’ phrase that has become a part of our own ~ admittedly twisted ~ vernacular: “Okay, so the shark bit off your leg…”
Just a side remark, Roger. I know you received a lot of heated comments to these posts but just looking at the comments above as a response to your latest gives me some optimism. Look, several disagreed with your perspective, but we expressed it in a civilized fashion, not personally. And I want to say how much I appreciate your contribution to dialogue even if I disagree with a point you make here and there. Thank you for Pajamas Media and for being a decent human being.
O’Reilly has gone to great lengths in word and deed to make the point that what he opposes is the sustained and deliberate expression of hate; that is, webwise, “hate sites” that sell “hate speech”.
I’m not a fan of his, in the sense that a fan is all-accepting. He goes too far sometimes.
Lately, for example, on the oil companies (he thinks the global auction market is rigged), and in carelessly misrepresenting those Boulder, Colo, sexperts (tho those experts were for a fact a little seedy insofar as the age of the captive audience).
But all in all, O’Reilly is a force for tradition, decency, fairness, honesty, and patriotism.
And I like that!
I, too, am a conservative that abhors Bill O’Reilly. His “antics” coupled with the wet lips and softness of the man set my teeth on edge. When I’m flipping the channels and see him my blood boils a bit and I keep on flipping. If I don’t, I throw up a little in the back of my throat and it’s quite nasty.
I used to watch occasionally when I knew Michelle Malkin would be on his show but lately I can’t even tolerate him to be able to watch her and consequently have begun to question Michelle’s intelligence. A bit harsh but just the way I feel.
I think an interesting experiment for all you O’Reilly fans would be to go to youtube and pull early footage of him and then look at him today. He’s changed so much he looks like a drag queen. (Let me take this moment to apologize to the drag queens for the unflattering comparison). I think the PC description would be metro-sexual but metro-sexual just doesn’t convey the “wus” factor to the extent it needs to be conveyed.
His intelligence is questionable, at best. I grew up in a large family (7 kids) where quips and smart-ass remarks were the “conversation du joir”. He would have a hard time keeping up with my 7 year old nephew. He shouts people down…not with facts, great debate or discourse but with screeching loudness and an arrogance and disdain that amaze me.
What, I wonder, distinquishes O’Reilly from his detractors on the left? Their political views? When views (supposedly) differ this much, you would think the differences would be magnitude and magnified. I see peas of a pod. The only way to gauge a person is not by what they say but by what they do.
I might possibly have “O’Reilly Derangement Syndrome” but I doubt it. I don’t disagree with him on everything simply because I can’t stomach him. I agree with him (or his writers) about most things. I’m just incredibly sad that this is the “best” my side has to offer. He’s the face many people attach to the conservative movement but his is not the face or loud mouth I want representing or presenting my views.
On topic now… JetBlue should sponsor whoever they want. I do believe this is still America and we can have opposing views. Once I know your political views, then I can make decisions, including how to spend my dollars when I fly, accordingly.
What O’Reilly did was warn anyone about to attempt something like the JetBlue sponsorship to think twice, which they will do but what will be the results? The sponsorships will be “hidden” and my hard earned money can’t be spent with such an informed opinion next time. Gee… thanx O’Reilly. “Fair and Balanced” meet “Fumbled and Bumbled”
Excellent article, Mr.Simon! Down with ideological blinders and those who exploit them.
To call Bill O’Reilly a ratbastard is to insult rats and bastards everywhere.
Roger,
O’Reilly deserves better from you. Like knowing what you’re talking about because you’ve watched him and have read something of what he’s written.
And quoting Glen Reynolds won’t save you. After all, he claimed your article was the last word and given all the responses listed here we can see how wrong that was.
We who rely on you and trust you have been shortchanged.
You might consider all the feedback and issue a response, admitting your faults and promising to do better for all the people in the future.
I wasn’t paying much attention to the JetBlue fuss. But this “last word,” as Reynolds dubbed it, rubbed me the wrong way.
See my response here:
http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchiveV2.php3?a=1085
heaven forbid that O’Reilly goes after Olberman’s sponsors-
hair replacement products and erectile supplements-two things O’reilly desperately needs.
I find it amazing that none of the commentary on JetBlue I have read on any web site noted that George Soros, through his foundation and his hedge funds, owns nearly 10% of JetBlue’s common stock. You can verify the holdings in the company’s proxy posted on the SEC Edgar web site. That may explain why the airline would sponsor Kos in the first place.
Now to bring this thing full circle O’Reilly needs to get Jet Blue to sponsor some segment of his program. Or, at least urge his viewers to sign up for the card Kos is boycotting.
“Utterly and completely incapable of letting someone finish a sentence…”
Anyone who has watched the show knows he regularly allows people to finish sentences, lol. He often does not, but to claim he is actually incapable?!? What is with these ridiculous attacks on O’Reilly?
For 10 years I was a consultant on internal and external communications to Fortune 100 companies, as well as a speechwriter for the highest ranking corporate executives. From first to last, the Bush White House has made nothing but mistakes in its communication strategies with the media, the Congress, and the people. The mainstream media and the Democratic Party, however, have succeeded by default in the tarring and feathering of the President to a degree I almost can’t imagine.
Roger L. Simon is flat wrong in implying that the big media game he describes includes the President and his staff. They are playing in a different arena, called real life. Make no mistake. I hold George W. Bush centrally responsible for not detecting the problem and remedying it. The malefactors also include Karl Rove, who is also not competent by any standard I know.
But for Simon to contend that the most important wielder of power in our nation is also a corrupt and cynical packager of messages designed to keep ordinary Americans out of the loop is absurd. This is where his professional credentials come up short. He’s a novelist and scriptwriter, not a communications professional.
The truth is, it’s entirely appropriate for politicians to use state-of-the-art communications technologies and techniques to press their case on important issues. The Bush administration hasn’t done it, probably because they thought sincerity and integrity of purpose would be sufficient. They were wrong. But it’s despicable for Simon to indict them for a crime they’ve never shown the talent to commit.
What I’m feeling about now is disgust. Roger L. Simon is in the process of becoming a star of the new media. Where is his declaration of the principles he will adhere to as he increasingly becomes a membr of the insider club he simultaneously deplores and seeks to placate?
http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchiveV2.php3?a=1085
O’Reilly and KOS? Give me a break, No comparison!
O’Reilly cuts people off when they attempt to divert, spin, & lie! I wish more would do the same!
If the best counterweight one can find to the dementia on display at Kos is the Schiavo event that tells you plenty. Even if you accept Simon’s characterization of the circumstances (and I don’t… Roger, you’re really not on top of the simple facts there) the motive forces, tactics, personalities and rhetoric are just not comparable in the least. For the record, I’m a lifelong atheist and pragmatist on abortion questions but was, um, pro-life on this question, mos def.
Plenty of people in the world of online political debate have already pointed out the ridiculousness of O’Reilly’s claims – for example, all of what O’Reillly cites as “hate” comes from commenters – not from Kos or any of his sanctioned bloggers. O’Reilly says this doesn’t matter and that Kos should do a better job of moderating his comments, but if you look at the message board on Bill O’Reilly’s site you see MUCH worse examples of “hate speech” than anything I’ve ever seen on DailyKos. We’re talking the usual right wing hate talking points – homophobia, sexism, and racism – ALL ON O’REILLY’S OWN SITE. Typical right wing hypocrisy. Too damn funny.
But that’s not the main thing I wanted to say. The main thing I wanted to say was: who in their right mind cares about ANYTHING Bill O’Reilly says?
The guy is a proven sexual harasser with an attitude towards sex that would put most sex offenders to shame. Look at what he said in the Hornbeck case. Look at what he said and did to Andrea Mackris. Beyond the question of why anyone listens to him is the more important question of why he’s even allowed on TV at all anymore. The malfunctioning freak known as Bill O’Reilly has zero credibility. Hey Rupert, time to recall that model!
I disagree with Roger’s statement:
“This economic motive is augmented by ideological loathing of the type practiced broadly by the likes of Kos and O’Reilly and more subtly – but perhaps more lethally – by pseudo-objective outlets like The New York Times. Everyone is playing to his or her audience. But the loser is that audience. It is we the citizens.”
I hope this isn’t a veiled argument for the renewel of the Fairness Doctrine Roger.
As a citizen, I am not a loser in all this; before Fox news, talk radio, the Pajamas Media, etc., I was a loser. At least now, my views are finally engaged and part of the debate.
Because these views now have a large audience, I believe this is why sites like Daily Kos, Huffington Post and the Democratic Underground are saturated with such vitriolic hateful ideological preachments that are shrouded in what South Park calls a “huge cloud of smug”.
Also I don’t believe I’ve been reduced to being just a fan for my views. After years of watching MSM news and watching political movies & documentaries, I’m just so tired of the Left’s media mindset of constant self loathing, constant moral relativism and constant Western guilt.
If I end up “not talking to each other” it’s because they are downers and not optimistic about America’s future.
I’ve read your original Pajamas Media post on this subject, and this follow-up. As a supporter of those who objected to JetBlue’s sponsorship of YearlyKos, I think you, Instapundit and Captains’ Quarters are all wet.
No one is trying to suppress Markos Zuniga’s free speech. IMO you show sloppy thinking by making that leap in reasoning. What—if JetBlue pulls its sponsorship, DailyKos is silenced forever?
“YearlyKos” is a conference designed to lionize one of the biggest cancers on the blogosphere. A man who famously said “Screw ‘em” to the murders of four Blackwater contractors and US veterans. THEN, refused to retract that comment/apologize when repeatedly given the opportunity to do so.
What Zuniga said are fighting words to those of us who wore the uniform. Whose comrades’ charred remains dangled like trash from that Fallujah bridge. Sorry Mr. Simon, but I have a bit of trouble getting past all that.
If someone wants to sponsor a conference designed to kiss up to Kos, I reserve my right to object to that, respectfully but publicly.
And if you, and Instapundit, and Captain Ed think that we’re being a bit too base, well, too bad. And, for implying that we’re trying to stifle speech by our objections—with all due respect, bite me.
I’m looking around the net to get some rxn to the debate, when I stumble across kos’s poll.
1309 respondents at 1 am, eastern…
I’m starting to question the actual number of people who actually go to Kos. The debate ended late, but for the west coast, it was prime time. I really think his numbers are cut outs, and his support, empty.
Same deal for O’Reilly-1.2 million viewers…I’m going out on a limb and thinking a a third of his viewers are in the metro ny area. It leaves Bill with maybe 800k, outside of ny(only half of which take him seriously)…it would be a big concert, huge-but really less than 1% of the people who voted in 04.
Anybody know if Kos passed the bar?
As a person of real tradition values, I’d like to offer my opinion of Bill O’Reilly. I used to be a fan of his, but after his sexual harrassment suit (which is unproven, but come on, how naive can someone be?) I know he is just a faker. I am disappointed that so many conservatives gave him a pass on this. What kind of an example is he setting?
I agreed with Roger’s original post or at least with what his main point was, which is political discourse has become so polarized it is impossible to have a decent debate on the issues anymore. and we the citizens are the worse. however, I agree with many above. You cannot possibly paint Kos and O’Reilly with the same brush. Kos is symbollic of the problem. O’Reilly IMHO, is part of the solution. I dont watch his show, but I listen to his broadcasts. He is open to differing opinions and respectful of those who disagree with him. Not Denis Prager, but a long ways from Rush
That has to be one of the silliest comparisons I have seen. I was totally against the Right’s position in the Schiavo case, but, first of all, it was a MORAL issue for most of them (and it doesn’t matter if ones morals come from religion or not) and secondly, to compare that minor action to a group that refuses to acknowledge a mortal enemy of the US (and even works to aid them) is intellectually dishonest, at best. By the way, the misogynistic/homophobic nature of the enemy doesn’t mean anything. It is the threat they pose to us that matters.
But I give you points for consistency – comparing the Right’s fight for Schiavo with the Left’s refusal to care about US security is pretty much the same sort of nuttiness as the equating of O’Reilly and Kos.
P.S. Kos certainly did invite such attacks with their arm-twisting of Democrats not to debate on Fox. Live by the sword …
a few months ago I wrote a piece which analogized between what Ike called the military industrial complex and what I coined the congressional media complex. I think your piece is right on with the same concept.
http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2007/05/congressional-media-complex.html
Bill is right ninety nine percent of the time,no matter what ANYONE says,liberal or otherwise.