REID STOTT ON BILL O’REILLY:
Yeah, that unrestrained free speech is dangerous, it ought to be eliminated from the Constitution. And it’s especially suspect when someone is doing it for free. Even more so when they claim they do it … for fun. Clearly, any act lacking financial motivation is Libel and/or Insurrection. So just shut your lowly peasant mouth, and believe what you’re told by the people on TV who know better. . . .
Bill, in this case, when you rattle the cage, the cage rattles back.
Indeed.
UPDATE: Phelps thinks that O’Reilly wants attention to shore up sagging ratings, but suggests that he’s misunderstood the Internet badly:
Unfortunately for him, he is still stuck in the TV mentality of “any press is good press.” Bill has decided to apply that philosophy to the blogosphere, and I think it is going to bite him in the ass. . . .
I think that Bill has missed the effect of reputation on the Internet. Reputation is important. The people on the internet are not TV drones. They don’t remember just that a name is familiar and watch what is familiar; they remember why that person is familiar, and if they don’t there is a link there to remind them. He complains that you don’t get corrections on the internet; he is right. What you get is immediate editing or withdrawl of incorrect facts. If you don’t, then the person screwing up gets fisked and everyone laughs at him.
Pay attention to that word. When you screw up on the internet, people remember. Robert Fisk screwed up, and he did it often enough that he has a word named after him that embodies incompetence. He’s gaining company. Maureen Dowd has her own word now (Dowdification), and I’m sure that there will be more. If O’Reilly wants to keep tugging this chain, he might be the next one.
Indeed.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Kevin Drum writes: “Jeez, what’s the point of even mocking him over this when he’s practically engaging in auto-mockery these days?”
Yeah, as Lileks put it: “The minute you act as though you’ve earned the listeners’ ears, you start to lose them.”
But so that O’Reilly won’t be mocked solely by Little Media, I’ve got a post on his remarks coming later today over at GlennReynolds.com too!
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: You want Big Media standards of excellence? Okay — now O’Reilly’s rant has been Dowdified!