Relegated since his firing by Fox News to his “No Spin News” nightly podcast, O’Reilly defended Donald Trump’s ridiculous assertion that President Andrew Jackson not only objected to the Civil War he didn’t live to see but could have somehow averted it:
“You may have seen a bunch of people on cable news, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t really miss it, saying that President Trump is a moron for saying that Andrew Jackson might have prevented the Civil War because of Jackson’s skills in running the country.”
Sour grapes aside, we could add, to say nothing of Jackson’s role as a slave owner. But never mind all those pesky historical details.
Of particular note among Trump’s critics was longtime news anchor Dan Rather’s portrayal of Trump’s level of historical knowledge as “pouring gasoline on the fires of his ignorance” and ranking “below that of most gradeschoolers.”
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Bill O’Reilly thought he could set the record straight with the same careless touch he devotes to his historical novelizations:
“So Dan Rather, who knows very little about history, and others go out and they hammer Trump like he’s a moron.”
Bill O’Reilly’s conceit is that he is a historian of note. His “Killing” series of what are purported to be historical works (Killing Patton, Killing Jesus, Killing the Rising Sun, etc) are in fact works of fiction.
The gift shop at Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln was assassinated, refused to sell his Killing Lincoln (2011) because this allegedly “unsanitized and uncompromising … no spin American story†was so full of errors.
These lightly (if at all) researched books are the product more of wishful thinking and an attempt to present conservative-friendly looks at historical events for the fabulist-minded Fox News audience.
O’Reilly, who has made millions avoiding honest stories, went on to lament,
“These morons that you see on cable news, just turn them off. Just turn them off because you are never going to get an honest story. They know nothing.”
So says the man who knows nothing. The only thing that sets O’Reilly above his fans is that he knows how to spell “moron.” That is hardly a recommendation.
It is easy to see why with his reluctance to view himself in the mirror, Bill O’Reilly is such a fan of Donald Trump. Neither man cares much for facts, preferring instead to paint with their words the world they way they want it to be and less as, with all its warts, it really is.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
