Bill O’Reilly’s fall into Irrelevance

I remember sitting in the break room of my Company’s barracks building with a dozen other guys watching a television program. The cheap couches and chairs were packed and those who couldn’t find a seat were happy to stand and watch the show. No one played ping-pong; no one cared to knock the balls around on the pool table. Everyone was riveted to the television screen.

Normally, with dirt-chewing, gun-toting infantrymen of the coarsest variety, the only sort of on-screen feature that could command such attention was a film of the x-rated sort . . . and even that would have had to be remarkable in some way. This occasion, though, the soldiers weren’t watching the latest war movie or film starring adult entertainers. We were watching The O’Reilly Factor.

For the first time, we watched with no small measure of vindication and pride as a conservative television show host singlehandedly attacked the growing wave of liberalism that we all could see and understand. Show after show, he brought conservative ideas and arguments to bear against irrational left-wing notions, policies, and mouthpieces. We finally had a voice and he slew opponent after opponent to our great satisfaction. O’Reilly held nothing, or very little, back and broadcast the very sentiments we soldiers would, if given such a stage, around the world. His “Pinheads and Patriots” segment, which was justified but scathing in calling out public officials and personalities for authoring bad legislation and voicing their anti-American sentiments, was the perfect ending to his hour-long shows.

I and my small gathering of fellow soldiers clearly weren’t the only ones to follow O’Reilly’s fight. His popularity was almost instant as legions of Americans tuned in nightly. The new FOX news channel, due almost exclusively to The O’Reilly Factor, quickly became a media giant.

Sadly, this scene is one not to be seen these days. No, this happened more than a decade ago.

As the years passed, O’Reilly’s show, built on his original hard-hitting analysis, grew into the number one cable television show on the air. This success, I think, is the source of Bill O’Reilly’s current state of irrelevance.

Understandably for an ego such as his, though unacceptable, O’Reilly began to tame his conservatism to such a point that he can only now be considered middl-of-the-road, politically. Had his personal political convictions evolved, I feel that any reasonable American would shrug their shoulders, be disappointed, but move on without him. This, I’m certain, isn’t the case. O’Reilly climbed to the top of the heap and the change in his programming voice is about keeping himself atop that heap.

FOX news found a can’t-miss formula for gaining and holding viewers’ attraction: tight-bodied blonde women with brains. It’s an easy target for feminist critics of news coverage, but America must not mind overly much as FOX is more popular than any other network. And it is popularity that has sent O’Reilly in a mad dash to find the middle ground on nearly every issue he covers. Sometimes, he so overreaches in his search for the middle that he is well into the left’s territory, especially concerning social issues.

In keeping with the network’s successful recipe, O’Reilly trots blonde after blonde onto his set to offer insight into one thing or another. While Megan Kelly and Dr. Monica Crowley happen to be quite qualified for any political or legal commentary, even they happen not to wear their wedding bands. Occasionally, O’Reilly brings the obligatory male and non-blonde onto the set, but rarely. The faces and genders of his guests, though, aren’t the source of his turn. The subjects he now covers are no longer the sort of issues that lured in those who originally tuned in his show found him so captivating. The modern version of The O’Reilly Factor is an uneven mix of TMZ, Girls Gone Wild, Oprah, and politics. Viewers wanting to see skin and lots of it need only tune into FOX on weeknight from 8 to 9 pm.

O’Reilly once a hosted a talk radio program in the evenings before his television show aired in the way that Sean Hannity and Glen Beck do. He no longer does – maybe because he doesn’t want to be seen in the same rabble-rousing light with the likes of Limbaugh and Beck. He does, however, contribute political opinions to Townhall.com, one of the finest collecting points of conservative thought to be found anywhere today. While most Townhall.com writers post articles that discuss Obama’s latest political statements or the economical effects of the latest congressional spending spree, Bill O’Reilly’s latest post (O'Reilly's latest irrelevant opinion) deals in the latest celebrity gossip surrounding Lindsay Lohan. Truly earth-shattering stuff . . . which is also sure to be covered on TMZ, Oprah, and maybe even the next Girls Gone Wild video. Lohan’s private life has become a regular segment on The Factor.

I have come to see O’Reilly and his sensationalized program as an intermission between the serious program of Bret Baier and the goofy, goodhearted Sean Hannity. Even when O’Reilly brings himself to discuss a political issue, he is so careful not to “offend” any one or any group that he seems a shadow of his old bomb-throwing self. He has become so afraid to criticize anything Barack Obama does or says that he actually held/holds positive opinions of the trillion dollar stimulus bill and the Obamacare nightmare that already isn’t working even though it doesn’t take effect for the next three years or so. His aims to offend no one are driving away his original audience, which is why he chums around with Glenn Beck as much as he can. I would even go so far as to say that O’Reilly is now riding Beck’s coattails with conservative audiences while he continues to seek to middle-of-the-road in his opinions to appeal to a wider and more profitable audience.

Think about it: no one in the left-wing MSM complains about Bill O’Reilly anymore. Perhaps, he was too long outside of their favor and since he is now the king of the ratings, he thinks he can afford to play a little nicer. Instead, they are after Glenn Beck’s head. For good reason, too; Beck is exposing every political crook, liberal power grab, case of government overreaching its authority, and more. In other words, he’s doing what O’Reilly used to do.

In the end, I wouldn’t be at all bothered by O’Reilly’s drastic change in subject matter and tone if he didn’t pretend to still be the same liberal back-breaker he was ten years ago. My prediction is should Bill O’Reilly tread his current path much longer or further, he is going to fall very hard in the ratings that he loves so dearly.