April 19, 2017
Admittedly, my politics swing a wee bit left of center, but that was not why I absolutely abhorred Bill O'Reilly. I've watched his "O'Reilly Factor" over the years and became terribly frustrated, if not downright angry, with O'Reilly's constant interruptions of guests, only to skew their answers to prove whatever point he wanted to make.
The man was a master manipulator, somewhat on the same vein as, say, a Donald Trump. But Trump never pretended to be a journalist, while O'Reilly pretended to be one and called his reporting fair and balanced.
Over the years, I came to loath his broadcasts to the point I refused to go to my Club's fitness center because "The O'Reilly Factor" always seemed to be on at least one of the TVs pointed at my treadmill.
So now we have all this stuff about sexual harassment at the hands of Bill O'Reilly, but he is complaining because the women waited so long to scream for help. My husband was somewhat empathizing with O'Reilly, saying that all these women should have spoken up years ago. Seemed to my husband that they were piling on. Then I told him how this stuff works.
I once worked for a Texas state agency, and the executive director had a thing for me. One evening late, he hit on me in my own office ... almost came across the desk at me. When I naively rebuffed his advances, my career somewhat sank. The executive director went on to hire a mistress to handle some sort of consulting gig, and the two of them flew all over in chartered airplanes, using state or contributed funds.
Long story short: the exec eventually was "found out" and then several reporters and legislators interviewed his staff, including myself. I told them my story, and the executive director then blamed me as a disgruntled employee who had ruined his career at that agency.
I hadn't complained before because I was a single mom who needed my job. Also, I had hoped to develop a career at that agency, that is before I figured out there was so much of this type of behavior going on.
Anyway, that executive director is long gone. And Bill O'Reilly is now gone. I hope the world will be better for both events. But mostly I hope that FOX news broadcasts will now become more fair and balanced.