Fox News host Bill O’Reilly celebrated the release of the White House budget by demonstrating on last night’s program (2/13/12) that there are a lot of things doesn’t understand. Or at least pretends not to understand.
He started by making the same point many others in the press have seized on: Obama promised to cut the deficit in half in his first term, and he will fall short of that goal.
O’Reilly played a clip of his Fox colleague Chris Wallace putting this to White House chief of staff Jack Lew:
WALLACE: The president isn’t close to keeping his promise to cut the deficit in half.
LEW: The plan that the president is going to be sending to Congress tomorrow will reduce our deficit to the point that over the period covered by this budget, the deficit as a percentage of GDP will be less than 3 percent, which means that we will stop having new spending adding to the deficit.
That is not that difficult to understand. Expressing the deficit as a share of the economy is a pretty conventional, as is paying attention to the budget deficit apart from interest payments, which is known as the primary deficit. But not to O’Reilly, who gleefully spluttered:
What? What? With all due respect to Mr. Lew, I have no blanking idea what he just said. I have no clue.
He continued to be clueless throughout that interview, and in a subsequent discussion with Brit Hume.
But once upon a time, Bill O’Reilly did, in fact, understand this budget mumbo-jumbo. Here’s O’Reilly speaking to Bush adviser Karl Rove (8/4/08):
ROVE: Yes. Well, look, first of all, let’s–one point. I agree with you, over the long haul, big debts are difficult and dangerous. But let’s also remember that we are–that what you need to do is look at it in terms of the entire economy. Our deficit this year, which is big, will be 3.3 percent of GDP.
O’REILLY: OK, I understand that, but the dollar is nowhere. And now there’s less tax revenue because people aren’t driving as much. And everybody’s screaming. It’s got to get under control.
So what’s the difference? Simple: When George W. Bush was president, there was a need on the right to rebut arguments about the increasing budget deficit. Now some of the same people are really concerned about deficits. Bill O’Reilly is so concerned he’s forgotten what he used to know.
With regards to O’Reilly’s statement, “What? What? With all due respect to Mr. Lew, I have no blanking idea what he just said. I have no clue,” I think it’s good of FAIR to point out the dishonesty of O’Reilly in particular and FOX News in general. But I think something else is going on as well. O’Reilly has tried to craft an everyman, working-class-kind-of-guy image over the years. So when he says he has no “blanking idea,” he’s also trying to tap into that image. He’s the everyman outsider who doesn’t understand Washingtonian-speak, not because he doesn’t really understand it, but because it makes no sense. This obviously has broad appeal to libetarians and conservatives everywhere. It’s subtle wordplay but effective nonetheless in shaping opinion. Another example of this sort of thing I witnessed a few weeks ago. FOX had the pollster Rasmussen on. He was commenting on how polarized Washington is these days. He gave an example: If Republicans say the sky is blue, Democrats will say no it’s not. That seems neutral enough. But switch the roles around and you will see that it is not a neutral. As stated by Rasmussen in his example, it’s the Democrats who are contentious. And of course everyone knows the sky is blue, so what the hell are these Democrats arguing about anyway! FOX is very good at presenting an everyman image (as opposed to, for example, those terrible East Coast liberals and their highfalutin’ language) and selecting words and examples to shape opinion in an audience who often doesn’t know that its being manipulated.
Fox first creates a lie, than they promote it, then they either apologize or say nothing
Only reason Fox exists is to be “Un American”conquer and divide the American public
Since most of the people who subscribe to Fox are republicans does not much matter
Hope Mr Murdock and his son are able to stay out of UK prisons
Didn’t Cheney say that deficits don’t matter? Now, with a Democrat as president, they matter. Further, it’s tough for the president to cut the deficit without some cooperation from Congress, especially the House, which refused to budge on getting rid of the Bush tax cuts, favoring the wealthy or closing corporate tax loopholes.
Obviously, propaganda is alive and unwell, and has no shame.
If Mr. O’Reilly doesn’t understand the vernacular of national budget economics, perhaps he should avoid asking questions on the topic. And since his memory and/or knowledge of many of his topics is becoming so random, perhaps his employer should consider replacing him with someone who has that knowledge and whose memory is more trustworthy. Unfortunately, his employer is in the business of misinforming and lying to the American people, so that’s unlikely. I have to wonder what the reaction to Rupert Murdock’s behavior would be if he were a Muslim or a Middle Easterner? I suspect that he would be treated like a foreign terrorist, which in my opinion he is, just as I believe that liars like Rush Limbaugh are domestic terrorists who represent the sort of “enemies, foreign or domestic” that national oaths of office demand our elected officials protect us from. In World War II, I don’t think Tokyo Rose would have been allowed to spread her lies to the entire nation and make herself rich along the way if we could have captured her. Lying to the American people on the scale that Fox news engages in is more dangerous that anything Tokyo Rose ever dreamt of.
I’m always fascinated with the ‘family budget’ analogy used by the Right. In my family, when times get tough we don’t do things that will cut revenue, we cut unnecessary spending, the key word being ‘unnecessary.’ We would not get rid of the car expenses that we generate to get to work. We would not drop out of school to get a tuition refund, and might even borrow to go back to school to better equip ourselves to earn income. Scott Walker in Wisconsin is a perfect example of the policies of the Republicans on state and national levels: give tax breaks to those who don’t need them, the wealthy and out of state corporations, then cut education, police and fire departments, and other basic governmental services. In ‘family budget’ terms, that would be like my coming home and telling my wife that I quit my second job so that I could spend more time at the local strip club stuffing money into the costume of a stripper, and that I planned to make up for it by not sending the kids to college. You can guess what my wife’s reaction should be in such an instance, and it’s no wonder over a million people in Wisconsin have signed Walker’s recall petition. We just need to make more people across the country realize that they can reject these ridiculous Republican economic policies, but that they have to take the initiative to do so.
Once again O’Reilly spins the news to favor the Republican position on economic issues. And he calls his show the “No Spin Zone”! If he truly believed it, he wouldn’t have to say it, right? Like Nixon saying “I am not a crook.”
Dear Mr. O’Reilly:
Mr. Greenspan said he didn’t understand how Wall St. was working, and so why would you think that you could understand those economics? Besides, many in Congress doesn’t seem to understand either, that after 12 years of the “Bush tax cuts,” nothing seems to be working in the “trickle down” department.
Then, Mr. Santorum has said that all those corporations should be able to come back home and be forgiven any back taxes so that they could create jobs. That is worrisome, as after 12 years of this “No jobs created” failure, why would he think this plan has any life left in it? Mr. Romeny seems to think that buying business and laying people off is good. for the economy; although, it’s really only good for the carpetbaggers!
Mr. Paul has spoken about no more wars, because they do cost a lot, and so I just see money going out and not coming in, which is actually like a lot of America’s “family budgets.” Citizens seeem to lack their own personal Dept. of Homeland Security. Newt seems to not only think that the Palestinians are an invented people, but apparently most of the American citizens are too! Although, it might be interesting to see how Tiffany would redo the White House. ( yes that was a snarky comment)
I think, Mr. O’Reilly, you just end your thoughts in this area and focus on our potential invasion from TransCanada. IMAGINE that, they actually want to use eminent domain to run their pipeline through the breadbasket of America, and throw American families off of their own land. So Mr. O’Reilly, while we aren’t yet being invaded by a country, Canada, we are potentially being invaded by a corporation, TransCanada. It would seem then, that corporations, no matter where they are located may be able to trump American citizenship. Perhaps the Citizen United people will, ( as truth in advertising) come clean and just rename themselves,Global Corporations United. Maybe you should worry about that.
I’d like to hear your thoughts as to how a corporation from Canada has more rights than Americans.O REALLY, Mr. O’Reilly, many in our current Congress seem more interested in this pipeline than in rebuilding the economy and the lives of its citizens..
The gas industry has already trumped Americans in PA. Gov. Corbett signed a bill which virtually pre-empts local zoning. The industry can go into any zoning district–even residential areas– to perhaps erect an impoundment of fracked water, or to erect a compressor or lay pipes. The setbacks from residential buildings are minimal and I don’t believe there is anything that will stop a variance from those minimal setbacks being asked for and granted.
You see, local townships cannot enact any legislation that is tougher than the already weak state legislation and all of this in return for what is referred to as an “impact fee,” (not a tax) on the industry and it is one of the lowest if not THE lowest of any other state that is fracking.
Boy oh boy this roasts my chestnuts.I don’t care one wit if Reagan or Bush or Clinton or Carter or Nixon or Obama or Kennedy practiced deficit spending.it is over.Officially,completely,positively over.It never was good practice.When we had money to burn i suppose in all good conscience we could forgive it.But now…..trillions in dept,with more to come,and no end in sight with this administration.No….. the taps are turned off.If this government cannot be responsible we must.In my family we spent more when we had more.We took loans we intended(and did)to pay off.When we did not we tightened our belts.
Good points, JB, but O’Rielly really doesn’t understand much; he’s always fakin’ it. There’s no question that he panders to the gullible and what he thinks is a vast working/middle class cohort that just can’t make sense of pointy-headed Washington double-speak. This pandering comes naturally to O’Reilly because he very often doesn’t understand what’s going on, whether it’s about the budget or the latest cultural uproar.
I’m not fascinated by the “family-budget” analogy, Larry, I’m unnerved. Mr. Obama uses it too, as part of his political strategy to either out-flank the right to their right, or to simply take away one of their stupider talking points. Anybody who thinks a national government is somehow like a family is a goddamn fool, or worse. The President, as in so many other realms here, is making the insane or the stupid or the wreckless the norm. From “The War On Terror” to the budget to “entitlements” (Social Security and pensions are now entitlements, don’t you know–even a liberal Democrat thinks so), Mr. Obama and the Democratic leadership are constantly taking away the bad arguments of the Republicons and the right by agreeing with their most odious lies and propaganda; they just put a nice friendly-sounding and calm veneer on them.
Tim are you saying deficit spending should continue?