Disgraced leftover and former king of cable news, Bill O’Reilly, is known for having a bad temper.
As was reported over the weekend, O’Reilly paid an enormous sum of $32 million to settle a sixth sexual harassment claim not long before his contract was renewed at Fox News earlier this year.
O’Reilly is clearly very angry at those who continue to call him out for his abusive, harassing behavior. Who else is he mad at? Well, God. He said as much on Monday Night.
“You know, am I mad at God? Yeah, I’m mad at him,” O’Reilly said on the latest episode of his web series, “No Spin News.” “I wish I had more protection. I wish this stuff didn’t happen. I can’t explain it to you. Yeah, I’m mad at him.”
At one point, he said of his adversaries, “If they could literally kill me, they would.”
“If I die tomorrow and I get an opportunity, I’ll say, ‘Why’d you guys work me over like that? Didn’t [you] know my children were going to be punished? And they’re innocent,'” he said. “But then I think about people who have it much, much rougher than me. And you know, I’m a big mouth. I’m a target. They’re not targets.”
In the days following the Times’ bombshell, O’Reilly has used social media and sympathetic media platforms to try to clear his name. Earlier on Monday, he went on a radio show hosted by Glenn Beck, also a former Fox Newser, who vouched for O’Reilly’s character. O’Reilly has also directed his followers on Twitter to visit his official website for evidence designed both to exonerate himself and discredit others.
Fox News has had issues in the past few years with claims of sexual abuse and sexual harassment against Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Eric Bolling. It is lunacy to believe that there is not a predatory culture at work within the cable news giant. The network has long been a favorite of those on the Right. Unfortunately, too many have looked past the behavior because the accused were/are on “our side.” For example, it’s disappointing to see that popular conservative personality Glenn Beck is letting friendship with O’Reilly cloud his perspective.
Thank goodness for people like David French, writer at National Review. His piece entitled It’s Time For Bill O’Reilly To Be Weinsteined hit the nail on the head.
Both sides of America’s political and cultural conflict are facing their own days of reckoning. In these last few weeks, it’s becoming painfully obvious even to those who still try to cling to Hollywood’s illusions of cultural superiority that an industry famous for its moralizing is responsible for an immense amount of exploitation and victimization. At the same time, conservatives have had to face the fact that its favorite network was rife with its own abuses, and too many conservatives are in denial over Donald Trump. They’re convinced that his boasts were mere “locker room” talk and that all of the more than one dozen public accusations of misconduct were politically-motivated.
It’s important to remember that in all these cases we’re not dealing with the ambiguity of a one-off “he-said, she-said” cases that we see so often . Rather, we’re seeing powerful men time and again facing he-said, she-said, she-said, she-said, and she-said cases involving common fact patterns and common tactics.
Sorry, Bill. I don’t think God made you do it. You can be mad at him all you want, but you have only yourself to blame. It’s unfortunate when someone who spent their entire career holding guilty individuals’ feet to the fire can’t man-up once his private failures and abuses come to light.
The fact that Bill O’Reilly paid $32 million out for a sexual harassment settlement is very telling. Such a sum is necessary only when the truth must be silenced.
He can be angry at God all that he wants, but he dug this grave on his own.
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