I'm horrified by Fox host Bill O'Reilly's "joke" about beheading Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Dana's alleged sin was failing to acknowledge that Fox had more than one Democrat on air on election eve as it celebrated the Republican victory.
Dana is a good friend and former colleague in the WSJ Boston bureau. Because he's hilariously funny and understated, he's a perfect foil for the overheated, angry Fox commentators. Dana writes about his feelings about O'Reilly's attack on him in the Washington Post today. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110906643.html
He notes that jokes about beheading reporters are especially painful for those of us who worked for the Wall Street Journal when our colleague Danny Pearl was beheaded by militant Islamists in Pakistan. It's ironic that WSJ reporters and Fox commentators are all part of the News Corp. family.
O'Reilly is probably also miffed about Dana's terrific new book on his Fox stable mate, Glenn Beck: "Tears of a Clown." In the book, Dana describes the histrionic Beck, whose weepy monologues are enhanced by smearing mentholatum gel under his eyes, with devastating accuracy. Using Beck's own excuse Dana says he can't be misrepresenting Beck if he quotes his own words.
The book will tell most people far more than they want to know about what Beck says without ever really answering the question of whether he believes all of it. It struck me as a brilliant examination of how a propagandist can use innuendo and subtle misstatements to create a world that is very different from the one most of us live in.
Dana has succeeded in writing an exhaustive case study of how the paranoid mind can spin and spread conspiracy theories. Some 9 million people listen to him every week on TV and radio, so in a country of 300 million, he's only reaching a tiny fringe. But those folks scare Congressmen in conservative districts, and many of them go to tea party rallies. Unfortunately, Beck's technique and his world view matter.
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Having lived in Texas for 8.5 months this year I can say that not all these people are fringe. Seems to me people have choices as to where they will accept their truths. 9 million people is not a small sampling. There is posturing on all sides and all sides seem to have their truths. Where I do draw a line is in using beheadings as a punch line. You are right to call him on this. Thanks for sharing your insight.
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