The particulars: Jason Whitlock of “blame the gun when a grown man commits murder” infamy compared the NRA to the KKK. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly invited Whitlock onto his show to explain himself. O’Reilly’s show is one of the most watched shows on cable. Getting an invitation to appear on it is a big deal, even if you’re being invited on to defend saying or writing something that O’Reilly disagrees with. O’Reilly regularly invites guests with whom he disagrees, to debate the issue and hand and have their say as he has his.
In general, columnists want to get their ideas out to as many people as possible. That’s why they become columnists. Whitlock has ideas. O’Reilly offered him a platform to defend those ideas.
But Whitlock declined. And he attacked O’Reilly’s invitation as a racist move.
But it appears I was summoned to testify before Speaker of The Big House Bill O’Reilly, the FOX News entertainer. O’Reilly is fixated on the mistake I made on the Tom Joyner show. O’Reilly spent part of his Tuesday show telling his viewers that I was afraid to come on “The Factor” and discuss my views on the NRA, the Second Amendment and gun culture.
I’m a grown-ass man and it’s 2012. I don’t have to shuffle off to the Big House when summoned. O’Reilly is not Boehner, Pelosi or Obama. He’s a TV entertainer who has spent the weeks after the election crying about the end of “white establishment” America, the end of the days when an upstanding white man felt entitled to summon whomever he wanted whenever he wanted to the Big House to dance.
I don’t dance.
Jason Whitlock may not dance, but he writes like a child and he runs from a fight that he started. What serious columnist describes himself as a “grown-ass man” and resorts to the trope of citing the year as if that’s some sort of coup de grace? They did that on All in the Family in the 1970s, for goodness sake. It’s hardly a new or innovative tactic. What columnist who wants to be taken seriously compares a news network to a prison — the “Big House?” What columnist who wants to be taken seriously says irresponsible things on one show, then flees when he has a chance to defend or explain those ideas before a huge national audience? What is there about Jason Whitlock, his response to the Jovan Belcher murder-suicide, or his own comments in the aftermath, that merits any serious consideration at all?
Got anything to say about this, Bob?
Didn’t think so.
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