Tag: Bill O’Reilly

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Opinion The Last Word

Show and Tell: 59 Men and Counting

CREDIT: Denis Makarenko | Dreamstime

It’s a given that men are dogs and pigs, but, my God, the description of Harvey Weinstein’s conduct was shocking to me — then I talked to my wife. In my naivete, I never realized this ugly conduct happens all the time. Melody was and is an attractive woman, which means that since she was 16, practically every man she’s ever known has hit on her, including a cop and a former teacher. She’s seen it all — flashers, gropers, masturbaters, heavy breathers, and aggressive advances from acquaintances and co-workers both young and old.

And her female friends said these encounters are common with them, as well. Everyone had a tale to tell. Some of Melody’s stories were too harrowing to repeat. Fortunately, she escaped these incidences unharmed. The 30 women who accused Weinstein of sexual abuse over 20 years weren’t so lucky. Weinstein’s victims include a Who’s Who of Hollywood actresses — Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie — and Rose McGowan, who refused a $1 million hush-money offer and called out Hollywood talent agencies as being “guilty of human trafficking.” It only took one brave woman telling her story to The New York Times to open Pandora’s Box, so to speak.

Weinstein initially denied engaging in nonconsensual sex, but his unspeakable behavior was common knowledge at Miramax, the company he founded. Weinstein has reached seven settlements with other victims.

Weinstein’s predatory conduct was appalling because it was so disgusting. He invited women to his quarters and reappeared in a bathrobe, exposing himself. Ashley Judd was asked to watch him shower. Other unassuming targets were told that watching him masturbate would help their careers. Weinstein has been accused of giving alcohol to a minor, rape, and assault.

The bloated, bearded swine blamed his behavior on coming of age in the 1960s, when the rules were different. No they weren’t. Only in Hollywood could a dirtbag feel so entitled and powerful that women would surrender to his nascent charm. He had the power to make or break an actress’ career, and if rebuffed, he would go out of his way to punish them. After the Weinstein allegations, 59 more men in politics and entertainment have been accused of abhorrent sexual behavior, and the list is growing every day.

Denis Makarenko | Dreamstime

Harvey Weinstein

For 20 years, viewers spent their mornings with Matt Lauer. After learning that he had a button under his desk to lock women in his office and pull the old Harvey Weinstein bathrobe routine, I feel duped. It’s like if Dick Van Dyke were arrested in a child pornography sting. Same goes for Charlie Rose, fired by CBS, PBS, and Bloomberg for making lewd phone calls and incidences of groping. Thoughtful and soft-spoken political analyst Mark Halperin, co-author of Game Change, masturbated behind his desk while meeting with a female colleague. The hot comic Louis C.K., writer and director of the classic movie Pootie Tang, did bits about masturbation in his stand-up act. Now we know he wasn’t kidding. Accused of exposing himself and asking women to watch him masturbate, his upcoming comedy special and a new movie release have been cancelled.

The list goes on: Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Tambor, Dustin Hoffman, Garrison Keillor (!) for God’s sake. Bill O’Reilly paid out $13 million to five women. Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson successfully sued Fox Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes for $20 million for “unwanted sexual advances.” Ailes took the easy way out and died earlier this year. Of course, there’s accused child predator and our probable new Senator from Alabama, Roy Moore, cruising teen hangouts to make new friends. He claims all of his accusers are lying.

We have obviously reached a tipping point in male-female relationships. The old dinosaurs are going down, and the push is finally on for women to be believed. But must we blindly believe all women? Case in point is Senator Al Franken and his accuser, radio personality Leeann Tweeden. On a 2006 USO tour in Afghanistan, when Franken was still a comedian, Tweeden said Franken forcibly kissed and groped her. She later wrote Franken, “grabbed my breasts while I was sleeping and had someone take a photo of you doing it, knowing I would see it later and be ashamed.” Franken immediately apologized and called for an ethics investigation on himself, which was smart, because it could force Tweeden to testify under oath. The photo mentioned was childish and sophomoric but contradicts Tweeden’s account. She is asleep in a cargo plane wearing a flack jacket while Franken’s hands are hovering over her chest while he smiles for the camera — obviously a joke — a stupid one, but a joke just the same. Tweeden was a regular on Sean Hannity’s nightly propaganda broadcast, and a Trump supporter. Sounds like a hit job to me, yet some are demanding his resignation. Which brings us to the most blatantly hypocritical pot-and-kettle dilemma. Over the past two decades, taxpayers have paid $17 million for hush money and to settle Congressional sexual harassment charges for 264 Congressional staffers and other legislative employees. One other question remains: When is Donald Trump going to sue those 20 women who accused him of predatory sexual behavior, like he promised?

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Murdoch’s Legacy

Back in 1983, then-Representative Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.) was fixing eggs for her kids when she looked down and got an idea about President Ronald Reagan. She called him “Teflon-coated” because nothing bad stuck to him. The same could be said about Rupert Murdoch. He’s the Teflon mogul.

Richard Cohen

This year, Fox News, which Murdoch controls, signed Bill O’Reilly to a $25 million-a-year contract, even though the company knew that O’Reilly had recently settled a sexual harassment claim for $32 million. That tidy sum was just the latest of O’Reilly’s sexual harassment settlements, the grand total being about $45 million.

Not only was 21st Century Fox aware of the settlements, it even helped O’Reilly come up with some of the money and included, in the new contract, that he would be fired if new allegations arose.

Not too long before, Fox News forced out its president, Roger Ailes, who also, it turned out, was a serial sexual harasser. In sum, Murdoch presided over a smarmy frat house where sexual harassment was rampant, and, for the longest time and through Herculean effort, the network managed to look away.

Somewhat in the same vein, Murdoch did not know that reporters at one of his British newspapers, the News of the World, were hacking into the phones of newsworthy people. Murdoch, a newspaperman to his bones, apparently never wondered where the scoops came from. One of the hacked phones belonged to a murdered school girl. This was too much even for Fleet Street, but Murdoch, three monkeys in one, apparently never saw, heard, or said anything.

Murdoch’s lifelong passion has been newspapers, but his real power base is Fox News. The network is to Republicans what the Daily Worker was to American communists — the only trusted news source. With the possible exception of the way the once isolationist Chicago Tribune dominated the Midwest, there has never been anything like it.

In the most recent presidential campaign, fully 40 percent of Trump voters said their main source of news was Fox News. Just 8 percent of them relied primarily on CNN — enough, nevertheless, to send Donald Trump baying at the moon about fake news. These figures are not only bad news for Fox News’ competitor, but they are also bad news for the Republican Party.

Fox News has been a force in converting the party of Lincoln into the party of Trump. The network’s allegiance to Trump approaches mindless adoration. It once had the occasional nighttime skeptic, notably Megyn Kelly, but she is gone. In her stead has come Laura Ingraham, who spoke for Trump at the convention, and an even-more abrasive Tucker Carlson. As for the dominant Sean Hannity, he apparently so fears Breitbart News that he went soft on Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who is accused of sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32. (Even Trump withheld judgment.)

Moore has become the GOP’s litmus test. The refusal or hesitancy to denounce him is a consequence of where Murdoch’s Fox News has led the party. The GOP has gone so far to the right that it is about to veer off a cliff. The Fox News audience is old, white, and in a cane-stomping rage at the way America is going. It believes in the media mendacity that Trump proclaims and Fox News incessantly echoes. Aside from Fox News, it will trust only similar sources.

But look. Look, in fact, at Virginia. In that state’s recent election, the repudiation of Trump was beyond argument. Non-whites went Democratic in a big way. So did the more affluent suburbs, young people, and women. What’s left for the GOP is rural, less educated, less affluent, and, to be charitable, less young. On the back of any envelope, it’s a bad business plan.

Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump have long been friends. Murdoch has occasional access to the Oval Office, where he advises Trump — the amoral leading the immoral. Trump is 71; Murdoch is 86, and the median age of a prime-time Fox News viewer is 68. Anyone can see where this is going. The grim reaper has become a Democratic poll watcher.

Murdoch came to the United States from Australia to fulfill his gargantuan ambitions. He bought New York magazine by deceiving his friend Clay Felker. He buckled to China and booted the BBC from his Asian TV network. He has undoubtedly realized his ambitions but will be remembered not for what he built, but for what he destroyed — American political comity and a sensible Republican Party. No amount of Teflon can change that.

Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Predatory Behavior

In 2004, I wrote a column about Bill O’Reilly’s alleged sexual harassment of Andrea Mackris, one of his producers. Her suit charged that O’Reilly pressured her to have telephone sex with him. Mackris had taped some of their conversations, including O’Reilly’s threat that he would destroy any woman who retaliated against him. A transcript of that call was conveniently available on the Internet.

The consequence was hardly immediate: Thirteen years later, O’Reilly was fired.

I exhume O’Reilly and, if I may, Fox News in general, as a rebuttal to the argument that something awfully pernicious and immoral about liberalism accounts for the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

We are told over and over about how his alleged behavior was an open secret in show business but that the liberal press, in odious partnership with liberal politicians, looked the other way. Some of that is true — the bit about Weinstein’s behavior being an open secret. The man was known as a brute, possessed of a hair-trigger temper, shielded from the consequences of his behavior not by the press, but by a phalanx of lawyers and the purchased silence of his victims.

Without an accuser — or witnesses — willing to talk on the record, the hands of journalists were tied. Ken Auletta, who profiled Weinstein in 2002 for The New Yorker, was consistently thwarted by an inability to get Weinstein’s alleged victims to say what had happened.

But if Weinstein’s behavior was an open secret, then what about O’Reilly’s? He settled with Mackris for $9 million. Other women also agreed to settlements. In the end, he and 21st Century Fox paid out $32 million to settle sexual harassment suits.

The predations of Roger Ailes, the late chairman of Fox News, cost the network even more — not to mention costing Ailes his job. The list of his victims was long and distinguished — Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly, to name just two — and here, too, was yet another open secret. Ailes’ behavior was not only long-standing — TV producer Shelley Ross wrote that Ailes had made unwanted sexual advances to her back in 1981 — but it had been reported in a 2014 book by Gabriel Sherman, then of New York Magazine.

The consequence? Ailes got raise after raise and, ultimately, a golden parachute worth about $40 million. Rupert Murdoch, the proprietor of Fox News and much else, never had to account for the frat house he was running on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue, and Ailes reportedly prepped Donald Trump for last year’s presidential debates. Trump did not object to associating with such a man. As we all know, besides wanting lower taxes, the two apparently had another thing in common.

The Democrats clearly do not have Trump’s sang-froid. They rushed to either return Weinstein’s money — he has been a steady Democratic Party contributor — or donate the filthy lucre to charity. But why? Weinstein’s money was legitimately earned and, while it is not unconnected to the man himself, it is unconnected to what his accusers say he did — and it was accepted in good faith. The rush by Democrats to rid themselves of this supposedly tainted money is in itself an ex post facto confession of guilt by association and plays into the argument of conservatives that something is rotten about liberalism.

After Representative Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), a vehement anti-abortion member of Congress, was revealed to have demanded that his mistress terminate a pregnancy, op-eds popped up informing us that Murphy was a typical conservative hypocrite. Some other conservatives were named, but of course we would not know the names of those who were ideologically consistent — maybe the vast majority.

Still, the urge to slander an entire class of people by using a single person is apparently so powerful it cannot be resisted. In Weinstein’s case, he has been used not only to accuse the press of inexcusable sloth but also to represent men in general, or maybe the man who lurks inside every man of power.

Harvey Weinstein does not personify American liberalism any more than Bill O’Reilly personifies American conservatism. If anything, they personify the truism that sexual misbehavior is nonideological — as Republican as Warren Harding, who carried on an affair with Nan Britton in the White House, or as Democratic as Bill Clinton, who did the same with Monica Lewinsky. Weinstein is not a typical liberal nor a typical man. He’s a typical beast. Leave it at that.

Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Black Women’s Work

At the end of last month, a bunch of people learned about something that black women already have a ton of expertise in: discrimination. Twice in the same day, two impressively qualified, prominent black women were subjected to the same kind of stupid gender-based racism that many black women have experienced at the hands of countless Annes, Susans, and Bills throughout the history of the modern workplace.
First winner of the “disrespected by a white man” lottery unceremoniously held at the end of March was Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who was the target of consistent dumbass Bill O’Reilly, a man most notable in my mind for getting trolled by Cam’ron on his own show. After Congresswoman Waters waxed oh so eloquently in defense of those whose political stance is resistance against the Cheeto-in-Chief, O’Reilly chose to respond by attacking her physical appearance, saying she looks like James Brown. A masterful rhetorical stroke from a man who looks like a Ziploc bag filled with half-eaten mayonnaise sandwiches. He even has the nerve to work at a job where he exposes his pasty face to the American public.

Bill O’Reilly

Later that same day, Sean Spicer, chief manbaby for the Cheeto administration, spoke to White House Correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks April Ryan as if she was a child. “Please stop shaking your head” Spicer said, as if this is something you can actually say to an actual adult human being possessing decades of professional expertise in their field of work. Of course, as is expected of people who are systemically wronged, Ms. Ryan remained composed and professional in the face of condescending disrespect by a man who knows better. Ryan, you’ll recall, was first publicly disrespected by the current president, who made the age-old white-people assumption that all black people know all other black people and have the ability to ask other black folks for favors on behalf of whiteness.

This kind of disrespect is old hat to black women, who, for some reason, are the recipients of about 70 percent of all the unmitigated gall in the country.

Because this disrespect and discrimination is so common, black women across the country held a day-long discussion about it using the #BlackWomenAtWork hashtag on Twitter and Facebook, which was started by Brittany Packnett, a black woman who works on behalf of marginalized and oppressed people all over the country. #BlackWomenAtWork allowed these women to highlight true stories of work-related ill treatment at the hands of colleagues, managers, and society at large. The women participating in the hashtag discussion shared experiences where they were assumed to be underqualified for their positions, asked to perform menial service tasks even when they occupied high positions (or, in many cases, were managers!), and, of course, subjected to racial comments and improper physical contact. It’s like Solange didn’t even make an entire song about not touching black women’s hair. Y’all don’t listen.

Those of us who are not black women need to get it together. There are a lot of things that black women are not. Black women are not your best friend (unless they have explicitly said so). Black women are not your “sista girl.” Black women are not your maid or your stool pigeon or your Nubian queen or pets for you to touch without permission. Black women are not possessed of some inhuman amount of willpower that somehow makes them better able to endure stupid microaggressions. This is a good general set of rules to keep in mind for black women who are your personal acquaintances, but they are very necessary for you to remember when you are encountering black women in a work setting.

Black women are human. They usually work exponentially harder than the rest of us do, thanks to the super delicious cocktail of racism and sexism that they face on the daily. So when you encounter a black woman at work, remember that she has probably worked a lot harder than you to reach the same position that you’ve reached. Remember that she’s had to run a gauntlet of stupid comments and assumptions about her ability and outright discrimination since childhood. Remember that the weight of that gauntlet never really goes away no matter how accomplished she is or how much of a hardass she appears to be. Remember that this black woman has license to react to any crap that we subject her to in any way that preserves her sanity, and she doesn’t have to be nice about it. Remember that none of us, not you or me or the president of the United States, is owed black women’s labor, their time, or their kindness.

Troy L. Wiggins is a Memphian and writer whose work has appeared in the Memphis Noir anthology, Make Memphis magazine, and The Memphis Flyer.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From The Editor: The War on the War on Christmas

I’m hereby declaring war on the war on the “war on Christmas.” I can no longer sit idly by as Fox News escalates this annual crusade of duplicitous demagoguery every holiday season. Yes, I said “holiday season.” Get used to it.

Bill O’Reilly is the primary culprit, having spent the past several Novembers and Decembers ginning up outrage over the mythical “war on Christmas.” In O’Reilly’s world, saying “Happy Holidays” is an insult, part of a craven liberal plot designed to demean Jesus’ birthday and remove Christianity from Christmas. If a corporation, a school, or any other public entity posts “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” in its stores or as part of its marketing or advertising, it’s perpetrating the war on Christmas and insulting all good Christian Americans, and O’Reilly will call you out on it. Because … he’s tough that way.

Now, predictably, O’Reilly’s Fox-mate Sean Hannity is jumping into this ignoble fray. And, even more predictably, so is the grizzly grifter, Sarah Palin, who’s “written” a book about this horrific problem. It’s called Good Tidings and Great Joy, and it is neither.

Palin went on Hannity’s show on Veterans Day to plug her book. Hannity introduced her by bemoaning the “unbridled and unprecedented attacks” on Christmas. Palin turned it up a notch, claiming that “angry atheists” armed with attorneys “want to tell patriots … that no longer can you acknowledge that Jesus is the reason for the season.” Because … rhyming.

Stop it, you tools. There is no Santa Claus, and there is no “liberal” war on Christmas. Yes, we can all agree that the idea of Christmas as a simple Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ has gotten lost in the blow-up yard snowmen, the billion-light house displays, the shopping binges, the chrome and neon Christmas trees, and the relentless commercials and sales. But let’s be honest: It’s opportunistic retail capitalism and our own lust for more “stuff” that’s waging war on the true meaning of Christmas. If you want to get back to simply gathering your family, filling a stocking for everyone, and having a nice turkey dinner, no one’s going stop you, patriot — though Walmart won’t be pleased.

And people don’t say “Happy Holidays” because they are angry liberal atheists who hate Jesus. They say it because they’re aware that several other holidays occur in December and/or that not everyone celebrates Christmas. They’re being sensitive and sensible, especially if they don’t know you. They’re doing unto others as they would like others to do unto them. (I read that somewhere.) Anyone who could twist a greeting wishing you happiness into an insult or a declaration of war is not a Christian. They’re a fool or a demagogue. Or both.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion

A Pick (Guns) and a Pan (Bill O’Reilly) in New Books

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One winner and one loser, which is about my usual batting average, from my weekly haul at the public library.

“American Gun” is well worth reading, whatever your views on gun control. Author Chris Kyle takes a gun-centric view of American history focusing on ten innovative firearms from the Kentucky long rifle to the M16. A brilliant idea, well executed, by telling the story of the gun’s invention and manufacture and then highlighting its game-changing importance in gunfights, battles, and wars.

History, not to mention folklore, might have been different, Kyle convincingly argues, if General George Armstrong Custer and his men had packed a couple of Gatling guns instead of single-shot 1873 Springfield carbines against the Indians’ Winchester repeaters at Little Big Horn; if Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, and Machine Gun Kelly (Memphian and Central High School product George Celino Barnes) hadn’t fallen in love with Thompson submachine guns; if 18th-century American sharpshooters had not killed key British generals with Kentucky rifles; and if GIs in World War II had not carried what General George Patton called “the greatest battle implement ever devised,” the M1 Garand rifle.

If you’re a gun lover, you’ll appreciate the mechanical details. If not, you’ll still love the stories about Wyatt Earp, the Texas Rangers, buffalo hunters, and Sgt. Alvin York. I’m in the latter category, although a scary incident involving my daughter and a mountain lion has me wishing I had known enough to school her in firearms before she moved to Montana and started hiking the backcountry.

Sadly, Kyle, a much-decorated former Navy SEAL, died earlier this year. Coauthor William Doyle completed the book.

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I can’t say much for Bill O’Reilly’s “Keep It Pithy” from the dismal shelf of celebrity and self-improvement nonfiction books which all seem to somehow be “#1 New York Times Bestsellers.” I figured it would take a couple of hours to read it, but I plowed through its spare 142 pages in less than an hour. O’Reilly is an entertainer and shameless self-promoter who is never at a loss for words or certainty. Fair enough, Job 1 is to put on a show. This mini-book, however, a fair amount of which is recycled material from his columns and programs, is little more than a commercial and some quick bucks for O’Reilly and his publisher.

“I know that sometimes I come off as “all about me” he writes in conclusion. “But I think you know that’s not why I am in business. It’s about you.”

Bullshit.

There’s good pithy, which O’Reilly can be in his no-nonsense interviews, and there’s bad pithy, which O’Reilly can also dish out. At his worst is his “secular Ten Commandments” which purports to “expose” the “explicit agenda” of secular humanists and people who do not share his traditional views of organized religion. Look it up if you must. It is one thing to state your own pithy convictions, another to misstate the convictions of those who do not agree with you.