The (Ex)Governor's Goonsquad

Bill O'Reilly uses a comment from Bill Maher to smear lefties and to claim Sarah Palin did a good job for Alaska.

O'Reilly claimed Sarah Palin had a "solid performance" and ran Alaska fine. As far as Alaska is concerned, O'Reilly feels because Sarah left with a 54 percent approval rating [a year ago it was 86 percent approved, it is actually down to 47 percent now] she indisputably did a great job. This selectively ignores the facts - she has numerous legal clouds hanging over Alaska, the state is a huge welfare recipient, and Palin quit 15 months before the end of her first term. Is this what she was elected to do? Quit before her term was over?

Based on the precipitous decline in her approval rating, it appears the majority of Alaskans do not feel she has done a good job for Alaska.

And, O'Reilly asserts her intellectual credentials are just as impressive as all those elitist Ivy League liberals because she went to the University of Idaho (one of four colleges she attended). No one is claiming she is stupid because she went to Idaho. People claim she is stupid because they have heard her speak. As Mark Twain said, "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

There really is nothing to this. It's just another one of those oft-used, right-wing ramblings linking unrelated subjects, then springboarding that into one of their familiar rant themes: Liberals (the supposed slur for Democrats) are mean, smarty-pants, out of touch, tax-and-spenders.

This is just inciting anger into listeners that do not know any better. He is playing up the caricatures the right-wing has created. [You know] those elitist, latte-drinking, Volvo-driving liberals. There really is no point to this type of reporting other than riling up the base.

I can't believe some of the things these talking-heads say, do they seriously believe the vitriol they speak? The more I listen to O'Reilly and his cronies, I'm starting to think they don't believe it either. They are just salesmen. (Snakeoil salesmen, but salesmen nonetheless.) They're just doing their job: inciting fear and anger to attract viewers moved by the lowest-common-denomiator emotional pleas and invective, and trying to sell books. Spewing anger and hatred is quicker and cheaper than doing actual research, trying to add something constructive to the discussion, or trying reach a compromise and find solutions to issues facing us.