Bill O’Reilly has had enough, and it’s only Wednesday.
The Fox News pundit has spent the first two nights of the week working himself into a lather — as he is wont to do — over a pair of perceived evils that threaten not only the future of our Republic, but our children (think of the children!): Beyoncé’s and President Barack Obama’s appearance on
On Monday’s “O’Reilly Factor,” Bill spoke to Russell Simmons about “harmful entertainment marketed to largely unsupervised children” (and also Simmons’ new book, “Success Through Stillness”) when abruptly banked right and brought up Bey’s sultry “Partition” vid, which, in his opinion “Glorifies having sex in the back of a limousine.”
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“Teenage girls look up to Beyoncé … why on earth would this woman do that? When she knows [about] the devastation [of] unwanted pregnancies and fractured families,” O’Reilly said. “I believe an entertainer like Beyoncé [has] an obligation to protect children, not put out exploitive garbage … what she’s done here is inexplicable.”
To his credit, Simmons attempted to explain the inexplicable, pointing out that, in essence, Beyoncé was flipping decades-old gender stereotypes with the video — “There’s research that says that a man thinks about sex every 12 seconds, so when an artist expresses something that’s sexual in music, it’s a reflection of our reality,” he said. “If we want that reality changed, then we have to do things that affect the core.” — but Bill was having none of it, incredulously calling into question Bey’s art, and closing out the segment by joking to Simmons “When you see Beyoncé, tell her ‘Knock it off,’ from me.”
Of course, on Tuesday’s “Factor,” O’Reilly wasn’t in the mood to joke … not after Barack Obama had the audacity to appear on “Between Two Ferns” at a time when the United States is being “tested” by enemies like Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“For a president under intense scrutiny to do a comedy show raises some questions. I don’t have a problem with it in general … [but it’s] a little bit desperate, don’t you think?” he said. “There comes a point when serious times call for serious action.”
Indeed. O’Reilly then backed up that point with the salient (and technically factual) assertion that Abraham Lincoln never would have appeared on “Between Two Ferns,” and said that he would have had no problem with White House press secretary Jay Carney doing the show … but the president? Forget it, especially since the video will only serve to reinforce Putin’s opinion that Obama is a “lightweight.”
O’Reilly also let it be known that he’s “All for P.R.,” and in that spirit, here’s a clip of him promoting his book “Killing Jesus” on Monday’s show, just in time for Lent. Serious times call for serious action, after all.
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