rush & o'reilly

Yesterday I heard the Bill O'Reilly interview on NPR's "Fresh Air with Terry Gross." It was a repeat of the Wednesday show. Bill has railed against this interview on his show, claiming that it was an "attack."

No, Bill, your interviews lean more toward "attack mode." Terry Gross' interview actually seemed to go very well until the premature end. More about that later.

I learned some things about Bill in that interview that I never would have guessed. Of course, this is assuming that he was telling the truth throughout. (A mighty big assumption, I know.) He says that he is against the death penalty, for example, and for rigorous environmental standards.

But when Terry wanted to read an excerpt from a People Magazine review of Bill's latest book, he became incensed. "Why? Why do want to read that? Why? Why?" he said, sounding absolutely irate. Then he accused her of turning the interview into one long attack on him (it wasn't - it was remarkably civil until this point) and, since he couldn't very well tell her to "shut up" on her own show, he did the next best thing: he said "this interview is over" and stormed out of the studio.

That didn't stop Terry from reading the People excerpt.

Way to go, Bill. Way to show us all what a cool-headed gentleman you are. Until you got up and walked out, I was actually starting to gain a bit of respect for you. Now I have, if anything, an even lower opinion of you than I did before.

Part deux: Rush redux

Rush Limbaugh has publically admitted his addiction. Bravo! That's the first step on the long road to recovery: "We admitted that we were powerless over drugs - that our lives had become unmanageable."

He says that he will be in a 30-day program. I hope that there is going to be a lot more than that to it. He had a very serious habit, and the first week - at least - will be fully occupied by withdrawal. He'd be better served by a 45-day or longer program, followed by (at the very least) outpatient groups several times a week and one-on-one sessions. It's not like this would be a financial burden for him.