During an appearance to promote his children’s book on “Live with Regis and Kelly,” O’Reilly said he’d been repeatedly threatened with lawsuits and bodily harm over the past few years. He said he knew that by filing his lawsuit, he could perhaps ruin his career.
“If I have to go down, I’m willing to do it,” he said. “I’m going to take a stand. I’m a big mouth on the air and I’m a big mouth off the air.”
That’s very generous; but sorry, not interested.
Sorry about the Salon quote – if you want to read the full article, click the “Day Pass” link, watch a short ad, and read, read, read. Once the political season ends, I’ll go back to occasionally reading the weekly column by the airline pilot. For now, though, I tend to read a lot there, and then go looking elsewhere for quotable links. Not this time, though – couldn’t resist.
The link to the harassment filing at The Smoking Gun is here. I can’t access it at the moment, of course, but I wanted to go back and verify which hair-raising incidents happened before Ms. Mackris returned to work at FOX News, and which ones happened after her return.
I think that if the notorious “Caribbean shower fantasy, with falafel fetish” incident happened after her return, it was a case of “Oh, he couldn’t possibly try anything now. He knows I’d quit again.” Or if it was the “climactic” phone conversation, same thing. Some people have been questioning why she would possibly want to return to a “hostile work environment.” I think it may be a couple of things.
- She’s a conservative, and feels comfortable at FOX News
- She didn’t really like it at CNN, and wanted the plum Repub convention slot
- They would match her higher CNN salary (or so she thought)
- She thought she had made it clear to O’Reilly she wouldn’t stand for “funny stuff.”
Remember Anita Hill? I believed her then, and most people believe her now. I wonder if Ms. Mackris’ experience will be like that – disbelief from many, but eventually regaining her cred?
I was still licking the sublimely delicious Schadenfreude from my fingers over the “rubbing you with falafel” fantasy when I saw Bill’s “go down” remark. What an unfortunate choice of words. (Heh. Have I ever blogged so much about anything yet?) He was supposed to appear on The View today, but his lawyers demanded that he cancel.
All my years in DC showed me that men in power can be indescriably piggesh to their women suboridnates because they are convinced they can get away with it.
I was also savoring the “Children’s Book Talk Show Circuit” angle for the yummy timing – here’s Bill, all set up by his agent to appear on “soft” women’s talk shows like Rege and Kathy (by the way, *barf*) and The View (by the way, meh) to tout his kiddie wonk book (hey, kids! Politics is fun! Republicans rule, Dumbocrats drool!). And it’s before the election, so that’s part of the timing – let’s have a kinder, gentler Bill O’Reilly out in front of the soccer and security moms – and then this suit hit.
Oh, a very palpable hit, sir (or madam as the case may be).
Of course his lawyers demand he cancel, if he’s out there saying he’s willing to “go down.” That’s one primary and one secondary meaning that does not help his case. He really has no internal censor at all, does he?
Al Franken tried but failed to pass on the shadenfreude as well. I missed most of it on the radio show but happened to catch it on the nightly re-broadcast on the Sundance channel. He stated that he’d take the “high road” and not snark too much, because of course it might, *might* turn out to be unfounded. Every time he got a gleam in his eye and saw an opening to unload some snark, his co-host Katherine Lanpher would admonish him: “High road! High road, Al!”
It was very silly, but he didn’t really spend much time on it. There was much more important stuff to discuss.
I feel for Ms. Mackris – no matter what, she’s in the public eye in the most unenviable way.
I saw a review on Salon of a novel Bill wrote which was recently released. Apparently, it is about a celebrity with a job much like Bill’s who turns into a serial killer. It also features some tacky sex scenes, a la the shower. Who’d have thunk Bill was a Mary Sue fanfic writer?
It sounds like *exactly* the kind of novel he’d produce. The first and best advice to a new writer is “write what you know.” Heh.