The No Spin Zone                                          Return to Book Review Page                                       Return to Home Page

By Bill O’Reilly

Broadway Books 2001

 

This brief, easy read focuses on 16 major topics of our time, including sex, drugs, taxes, rap music and Hillary Clinton.  Each chapter represents the O’Reilly treatment of one of the issues using the author’s well-constructed commentary combined with dialog from his Fox News show.  But anyone who has watched or listened to O’Reilly is likely to find an undercurrent of mystery in the book.  These readers will by haunted by an ever-present substratum underlying O’Reilly’s narrations: Is this guy really the right-wing archconservative that most people believe him to be?

 

O’Reilly unrelenting attacks on tax-and-spend politicians and unrepentant liberals such as former President and Mrs. Clinton would seem to present an open-and-shut case.  But complicating the easy verdict are these revelations about the news commentator…

 

…is that he believes:

 

·         That global warming is for real.

·         In decriminalizing the use of marijuana.

·         Automakers should develop far more fuel-efficient cars.

·         In massive fines for energy price collusion or gouging.

·         In government-negotiated drug prices with pharmaceutical firms for more affordable Medicare drug benefits.

·         In elimination of the payroll tax.

·         In a U.S. guest-worker program for Mexican citizens.

·         Former Senator Robert Kennedy was a person to be greatly admired.

 

…and does not believe in:

 

·         The death penalty.

·         Outlawing abortion.

 

On balance, the above, along with many opinions and beliefs with which a loyal Reaganite would be perfectly comfortable, leaves the “is O’Reilly a reactionary” case not closed as the final page of the book is flipped.  What’s perfectly apparent, however, is that he is intellectually gifted, unusually persuasive and hugely entertaining.  Guests on his show, such as minority activist Al Sharpton, receive a degree of respect along with his barrages of brickbats.  Despite being a man of massive presence with a devastating debating style, there persists a feeling that—like a modern-day Will Rogers--Bill O’Reilly likes and respects the guests with whom he crosses scimitars.