O’Reilly, Tiller, and American Unreason

What’s funny to me is that so many liberals point to people like Bill O’Reilly and say that he was complicit in Edward Tiller’s murder.  This is a prime example of “hate” on the right creating the environment that leads to acts like this, they claim.  This is nonsense; O’Reilly and those like him have a right to report on Tiller, and they have a right to disagree with what he was doing.  In fact, they should be doing those things.  Saying that they’re complicit is as intellectually bankrupt as saying Brian Wilson was complicit in Sharon Tate’s murder – after all, Charles Manson liked the Beach Boys.  Or how about Jodie Foster being blamed because she “created the atmosphere” for Hinkley?

To me, this situation brings to the forefront another example of O’Reilly’s rampant anti-intellectualism.  If people like O’Reilly are contributing anything to American culture, it’s not an environment of hate, it’s an environment of irrational thinking, muddy reasoning, and moral certitude.

First, O’Reilly heralds his “incontrovertible proof” that Tiller was aborting fetuses without good cause and simply to make a buck: The report of a doctor at a prominent university who is – surprise – sympathetic to the pro-life cause.  If you question this “evidence,” O’Reilly says, “So you’re calling him a liar?”

Second, O’Reilly plays the footage of the young woman saying over and over that Tiller burned her baby with saline solution, had her sit on a toilet, and other explicit details.  Where is the voice of opposition that might say something like, “Perhaps this girl shouldn’t have gotten an abortion in the first place?”

Third, O’Reilly says to a pro-choice advocate on his show that she has “blood on her hands” for calling Tiller a hero.  You get that?  O’Reilly is rightfully indignant that some are blaming him, and yet he does the same thing to this woman.

So we have appeal to authority, ad hominem attacks, emotional blackmail, and rank hypocrisy.  On top of all that, O’Reilly thinks it’s appropriate to get angry and scream about this topic, as if wearing his emotions on his sleeve is going to make his point any more compelling.  It doesn’t.  The only thing it does is let everyone know that he feels strongly about abortion.

Three minutes of O’Reilly’s indignant, emotional, anti-intellectual pontificating, then a commercial break, then a switch to the freaking Great American Culture Quiz or another rant about how the internet is evil.  And this is the top-rated cable news show in America.  Yikes.