California Conservative has a post up entitled “Why We Love Bill O’Reilly” which quotes something O’Reilly said on his radio show this week about San Fransisco and a vote in the city to keep military recruiters out of public schools. O’Reilly’s response:

“You know, if I’m the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, ‘Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you’re not going to get another nickel in federal funds,’”

Now, that may be an emotionally satisfying response for some; however, it is the kind of nonsense that O’Reilly constantly spouts that has no foundation in reality. That world (and more specifically, our system of government) doesn’t work that way. Not only does O’Reilly’s presidential fantasy not comport with the way fiscal policy works, it further runs into a tricky little problem, which is that you can’t dismiss
the fact that a democratic process did produce the result in question–as such, “my way or the highway” pronouncements aren’t the solution.

O’Reilly’s statement, and the subsequent one about defending SF from terrorism, are the stuff of people ranting to their neighbors, not something that could even approximate public policy–nor should we want it to be such:

You want to be your own country? Go right ahead,” O’Reilly went on. “And if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.”

Lovely.

That O’Reilly correctly voices opinions that many hold is undoubtedly true–they would like the answers to be easy and to be able to tell those who make the “wrong” choices how wrong they are. Further, they would like to assume that they are really in the vast majority, and the “wrong” people are really a very small minority who have, for some unknown reason, disproportionate power. However, the truth of the matter is,: those who think O’Reilly is some prophet of the vast, silent majority are simply wrong. He appeals to a lot of people, but it is far fewer than those in the O’Reilly amen corner may think. He plays the populist game well, I will add, what with his references to “the folks” (i.e., all those “normal” viewers out there), his attempt to paint himself as an outsider to power (which because laughbale, given that he has the highest rated program on cable news), and his doggedly certain rhetoric.

Yes, SF is in the clear minority ideologically in the United States–but the point of this post is not to defend SF’s policy choices but instead to point out that O’Reilly’s rantings are far more about emotional outlet than they are about “telling it like is” 0r about actual reasoned discourse about how to solve actual problems.

Indeed, it is this kind of pronouncements that supposedly qualify as political analysis that further pollutes politics and makes actual discussion increasingly problematic.

The San Francisco Chronicle has the details of the story: Talk host’s towering rant: S.F. not worth saving.

The Political Teen has the audio.