Tom Breuer: Review of "Culture Warrior"

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Tom Breuer

Bill O'Reilly starts off his latest paean to himself with a call to action against the dark forces of secular-progressivism, promising to "get this culture war over with faster than anyone believes" and dubbing himself "O'Reilly Tzu"-in a wry nod to the ancient Chinese military sage Sun Tzu.

He ends it with an epilogue so grandiose and tragic, if he'd read it aloud in the Garden of Gethsemane on Passover night circa 33 A.D., Jesus may very well have poked his head through the ivy and told him to pipe down already.

In between, Bill claims ideological kinship with Martin Luther King Jr., Robert and John F. Kennedy, and Gandhi.

hat's right, kids. Gandhi.

You sort of get an idea of where this is headed, don't you?

Indeed, Culture Warrior reaffirms -- in spades -- everything Joseph Minton Amann and I wrote in our book Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly: Bill is megalomaniacal, anti-intellectual, completely out of touch with reality, and an atrocious writer to boot. We haven't seen a worse example of a vanity project since Our Socialism Centered on the Masses Shall Not Perish by Kim Jong Il.

Of course, as longtime O'Reilly observers, it would be unseemly for us to feign surprise at the breadth of Bill's insanity; we've seen this stuff before, both through our work on our book and the Web site of the same name.

The only question left is, how far off the deep end will Bill go before the lifeguard notices he's no longer coming up for air?

The plain truth is, O'Reilly lives in a different world than the rest of us, and he's frantically buying up real estate there as we speak. It's a world where he alone reigns, and his wicked enemies are constantly storming the ramparts.

In a letter he posted to his fans on BillOReilly.com, Bill kicked off the publicity campaign for Culture Warrior with typical modesty: "This book could very well change the direction of the country. In fact, I can almost guarantee it will."

Then, in the preface of the book, he whines about the extremists who are trying to "marginalize" or "destroy" him, brags about the millions he could make pursuing aspirations less noble than saving America, and rhapsodizes about the "horde of bad guys" his Fox News Channel show The O'Reilly Factor has ripped to shreds.

What follows is a paranoid, sprawling, messianic screed that would embarrass David Koresh.

The book's thesis is pretty straightforward: Traditionalists rule, secular-progressives drool.

Early in the game, he begins referring to the latter as S-Ps, and by page 193 "culture warriors" have somehow morphed into "T-Warriors" through a progression that would baffle most etymologists.

Now, in case you're wondering which side you're on, Bill helpfully includes a short Culture Warrior Test at BillOReilly.com to determine who is and who isn't a culture warrior/traditionalist/traditionalist warrior/T-Warrior. The questions are: 1) Do you believe in "income redistribution" -- that is, the government taxing affluent Americans at a higher proportional rate in order to fund entitlements to the less well off? 2) Do you believe the definition of marriage should include homosexuals? 3) Do you think suspected terrorists captured overseas are entitled to Geneva Convention protections -- that is, the same rights that military people are afforded? 4) Do you believe that the USA, in general, is harmful to the world? 5) Are you against states legally mandating that parents be informed when their underage daughters have abortions?

Alas, I failed the quiz, but I think if Bill had included, "Do you believe that funding for Food Stamps should be increased so you can buy more homoerotic art and crack?," I might have just skated by.

As an S-P, then, I should have come away from Culture Warrior feeling shame, but what I mostly felt was confusion. Part of the problem is that, in the book anyway, Bill defines "culture warrior" and "S-P" so quirkily and narrowly that the terms basically just describe Bill and his imaginary nemesis, Bizarro Bill.

Indeed, O'Reilly's Manichaean portrait of the mustache-twisting S-P barely exists in the real world, if at all. People just don't fit neatly into categories the way O'Reilly would like to think they do.

For instance, I'm an agnostic liberal who believes in the separation of church and state, progressive taxation, a woman's right to choose, gay marriage, a multilateral approach to foreign policy, and universal health care, but I'm also politically incorrect enough to say that blue windbreaker Bill wore for his dust-jacket photo makes him look like a total gaywad.

Here's just one example of how O'Reilly overstretches the boundaries of S-Pism.

On page 80 of Culture Warrior, O'Reilly writes, "The S-Ps want no restrictions of any kind on abortion. That means they approve of partial-birth abortion up until the actual birthing process without a defined catastrophic health situation that could endanger the mother. In other words, the S-Ps believe a woman can end a pregnancy for any reason, at any time, under the banner of ‘reproductive rights.'"

Now, I'm full-blown S-P, apparently, and I don't believe that.

Furthermore, I'm up to my Christ-denyin' elbows nearly every day in S-Ps and I don't know a single person who believes that.

Then again, I'm not sure how it would ever come up in conversation:

"Oh, I heard you're pregnant. Congratulations!"

"Four weeks!"

"Have you picked out baby names yet?"

"No, I'm getting an abortion! A partial-birth abortion as a matter of fact! I figure why take care of it now when all my S-P friends say I can wait until the actual birthing process without so much as defining a catastrophic health situation that could endanger the mother."

"That's awesome! I sure am glad the S-Ps control our nation's courts and not those crazy, puritanical T-Warriors!"

Of course, Bill's partial-birth abortion wedge fits in snugly with his caricature of S-Ps as America-hating baby-killers who are simultaneously amoral and utterly convinced of their moral superiority. (It's a peculiar theory, but stick with it. The minute it stops making sense, Bill will help you out by repeating it.)

One of the ways I kept my sanity while reading this book was by playing a little game I invented called, "How long before Bill contradicts himself?"

For instance, on page 192, Bill writes about his interview with Norman Mailer, claiming Mailer "separates himself from the S-P garrison because he sees its weakness: selfishness and relativism. Remember, if you are a relativist there are no universal truths for you -- no judgments about absolute rights or wrongs. Norman Mailer makes judgments all day long."

Then, in the very next paragraph, Bill writes, "Most S-Ps are not conflicted, they are dead certain they are right."

How one can be dead certain there are no universal truths is beyond me, but it's now established O'Reilly doctrine, so I dare not question it.

Of course, to those with only passing familiarity with Bill's epic craziness, this might seem like an unusual hiccup. But if you do plan on saving the nation from a future S-P dystopia by picking up a copy of Culture Warrior, you should be aware that this is merely a taste. Indeed, Culture Warrior is sort of a greatest hits collection in a sense. Yes, boys and girls, Bill really is that crazy -- and hypocritical, and egocentric, and clueless. This book is merely exhibit triple-Z. If you happen to be an O'Reilly neophyte, then, consider the following a map to the magical, upside-down World of Bill:

Yes, he really is that hypocritical: Bill frequently talks about the smear merchants, character assassins, and guttersnipes who bedevil him on a daily basis, while himself claiming to be above the fray. In the past he's said he doesn't do personal attacks, and he reaffirms that here: "In this book I will try to put the war into perspective. I will try to avoid cheap shots and vindictiveness."

This is followed by approximately 200 pages of cheap shots and vindictiveness.

For instance, on page 157, he discusses Michael Moore, and what O'Reilly sees as Moore's flagging importance in the culture wars:

"As a further sign of decline," O'Reilly writes, "he now routinely attacks people personally. There's a niche market for that kind of thing, but little more..."

Then, two paragraphs later, while recounting how O'Reilly convinced Moore to come on The Factor after a chance encounter on the street, O'Reilly writes, "But while Moore can run, anyone who dresses like that can't hide."

Now, while you might give Bill the benefit of the doubt and assume he was merely referring to Moore's distinctive style of dress (after all, Moore's baseball cap, T-shirt and jeans would stand out like a sore thumb in any Riyadh cafe or 1920s Chicago speakeasy), it should be noted that O'Reilly has done this sort of thing before. For instance, in his book The O'Reilly Factor, he calls Bill Clinton fat ("the portly POTUS," to be exact).

Now, there's certainly room for this kind of thing. In our book, we joshed that O'Reilly -- the blemished broadcaster -- looked "like something Ed Gein made after he was finished upholstering the settee." But we most likely waited a few pages after that before claiming we don't personally attack people.

Yes, he really is that dishonest: No network banged the war drums harder in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq than Fox. The Bush administration's Iraq policy, then, is something the network is pretty much married to.

But while the PR machine behind the war consistently conflated Iraq and terrorism, Americans have started to wake up to the flimsy connection between them.

It's ironic, then, that O'Reilly's book would come out the same week as new reports that our presence in Iraq may be increasing, rather than decreasing, the terrorist threat.

O'Reilly continues to make the connection between Iraq and the fight against terrorism in Culture War -- without explicitly making it: "It galls me that the S-Ps can get away with denigrating the United States when it, along with Great Britain and a precious few other countries, is standing up against a homicidal jihad that could destroy the world."

By the way, those who remember Bill's prewar promise never to trust the Bush administration again if WMD weren't found in Iraq (and his subsequent harsh criticism of Bush's critics) will enjoy this passage from the book: "Don't say stuff and then not do it. That's sloppiness of character, and it can become habit-forming."

Yes, he really is that biased: O'Reilly likes to prop himself up as a fair-and-balanced guy. True to form, in Culture Warrior, he cautions that the culture war is not simply a liberal/conservative or Republican/Democratic divide. As proof, he cites senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh as Democrats who would be considered "liberal" traditionalists. He also throws in two guys who can't defend themselves -- John and Robert Kennedy.

Later, to establish his own liberal bona fides, O'Reilly writes that he "defended John Kerry in the Swift Boat controversy."

Okay, O'Reilly defended Kerry against the Swiftees like Iago defended Othello.

Not only did O'Reilly invite Swift Boat Veterans John O'Neill and Steven Gardner on his show before the election -- agreeing with two of O'Neill's false claims about Kerry and at one point telling Gardner "I believe what you're telling me. I have no reason not to believe it" -- he also welcomed Gardner back two months after the election and told the out-of-work veteran "we wanna get you a job."

Yes, he really is that sloppy: Five pages after excoriating Newsweek's Jonathan Alter for writing that President Bush knew he was committing a crime by allowing warrantless wiretapping (this in the middle of an entire book whose sole purpose is to ascribe sinister motives to a vast cabal of secular-progressives), O'Reilly writes a list of "secular-progressive commandments, handed down at Hollywood and Vine sometime in the late 1960s." They include such gems as "Thou Shalt Be Allowed to Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor if That Person Stands Against Secular Humanism" and "Thou Shalt Not Limit the Power of Government in Order to Provide ‘Prosperity' to All."

He then claims, "Those secular commandments are all part of the current S-P agenda. Look it up."

Um, where exactly can we look this up, Bill? The syllabus for the junior-college creative writing course you audited? Is there really a Photostat of the agenda of the fake movement you invented floating around in the real world somewhere?

Yes, he really is that out of touch: At the end of a chapter partly dedicated to exposing the leftward tilt of late-night hosts and other media figures who influence the young, O'Reilly bewails the lack of access conservatives have to the mainstream media, writing, "‘Open Society,' my petunia."

Bill, a little advice: When Roger Ailes tells you to go after the younger viewers, he doesn't mean guys who shipped out to Normandy a little late in the game.

Yes, he really is that unaware of himself: Bill criticizes in others what he frequently does himself on such a regular basis, one begins to wonder if the two hemispheres of his brain are connected.

On page 161 of Culture Warrior, Bill writes, "what I don't get about Susan Sarandon and her fellow S-P travelers is the constant anger."

We don't have a passage from the book to demonstrate O'Reilly's incredible hypocrisy here, but suffice it to say the guy's about two Krispy Kreme crullers and a stray loofah reference away from his first heart attack.

On page 86, O'Reilly, who prides himself on his willingness to take on anyone, writes, "That's a common S-P tactic: avoid face-to-face encounters, snipe from afar."

Later, he calls liberal watchdog Media Matters "vile" (presumably because it posts transcripts and audio of O'Reilly's contradictions and bias on its Web site). This despite refusing Media Matters' standing offer to send a representative to appear on The Factor to answer O'Reilly's frequent "snipes from afar" about the organization.

Yes, his reasoning really is that fuzzy: During yet another rehash of his dreary "war on Christmas" fantasy, O'Reilly scolds CNN for an article it posted on its Web site.

O'Reilly quotes the article, writing, "Then there is CNN's phrasing: ‘the more secular and inclusive happy holidays.' They got the secular part right (they're experts in that field), but to say that ‘happy holidays' is more ‘inclusive' is fallacious in the extreme. Polls show that 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas and 84 percent describe themselves as Christians, according to a study by U.S. News & World Report. So anything that is specific to that enormous group, like the words ‘Merry Christmas,' would certainly be ‘inclusive,' would it not?

"If CNN had a clue, it might be dangerous."

Yeah, great job there, Pythagoras. Seriously, we're not gonna have to bust out the Venn diagrams, are we?

Bill, what do you suppose the "more" in "more secular and inclusive" means? Even if just 5 percent of the country ignores Christmas, that's still around 15 million people who are being excluded. And thus not included. Thus the word "inclusive" and the modifier "more." While you personally may not like it, "happy holidays" pretty much includes everyone but the unhappy.

Isn't it wonderful when one is able to draw on multiple remedial disciplines in one's work, Bill?

Yes, he really is that petty: If Culture Warrior is any indication, the best way to get on the wrong side of the culture war is to cross Bill personally.

Conservative talk-show host Michael Savage is singled out for special derision here, getting lumped in with the dreaded left-wing smear merchant Al Franken:

"This is definitely not a 'hit' book written in an attempt to destroy certain people. I'll leave that kind of nastiness to smear merchants like Al Franken and Michael Weiner (aka Michael Savage) -- people who try to ruin people in order to make money."

Curiously, as we pointed out in Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly, Bill once called Savage "a pal" and said "I like Savage. I think he's very entertaining." It wasn't until Savage questioned Bill's ratings that Bill turned on him.

Indeed, Culture Warrior bursts at the seams with gratuitous shots at personalities, organizations, and media outlets that have challenged O'Reilly-far, far too many to cite here. Make no mistake, this book is as much about grinding axes as it is about fighting what O'Reilly considers pernicious ideologies.

Just one example: In a chapter titled "Close Encounters of the Secular Kind," wherein Bill recounts some of his more memorable S-P feuds, he writes that columnist Jimmy Breslin "dislikes" him and claims Breslin is "more comfortable with 'drive-by' guttersniping than with actual debate."

Then, in the next paragraph, O'Reilly for some reason mentions that The O'Reilly Factor for Kids, which Breslin had "tried to damage," outsold Breslin's book on the Roman Catholic Church (which was out when O'Reilly's book was released) by more than 500,000 copies to fewer than 10,000 copies.

Yes, he really does make shit up all day long: While discussing preschool programs the S-Ps support, O'Reilly claims, without evidence, that "there is no question that the S-Ps are banking on progressive values being instilled into young minds during these early-school programs. That is the hidden agenda."

Again, this is the same guy who harshly criticized a reporter-indeed, called him a fanatic -- for trying to read the president's mind.

Another common theme of Culture Warrior is that S-Ps are tragically reluctant to judge other people's behavior. Bill writes of the "standard S-P doctrine of no judgments on most human behavior."

Now, as part of the S-P community, I naturally take offense to that. I make judgments all the time. The point I think O'Reilly is trying to make is that he makes different judgments than I do, and he doesn't like my judgments and I don't like his.

For instance, I have no quarrel with a guy who smokes a joint on his porch if he leaves everyone else alone. If he drinks a case of beer and tries to drive to Applebee's, I'll have a problem with him.

Further, I don't consider it my business what a woman decides to do with her own womb, as long as she doesn't wait until her contractions are 10 minutes apart before discussing options with her doctor.

However, I do have a rather sour outlook on guys who write shitty books full of the very ad hominems they promised to avoid and then charge people $26 for them.

Yes, he really is that egocentric and crazy: Near the end of Culture Warrior, O'Reilly sums up both his genius and his latest masterpiece, leaving no room for debate among his T-Warrior minions or S-P foils: "This book is real life, no spin, the true picture of what is actually happening in America."

Sorry, oh great O'Reilly Tzu. I just don't get it.

Seems I'm still hypnotized by the evil, fire-breathing Susan Sarandon and the rest of the S-P cabal.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Joseph Minton Amann contributed to this review.

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