Ok, so it's fluff...

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, in which he speaks of his disdain for Sean Penn (which is fair) and about his attacks on Hollywood in general. It is actually a pretty good interview (O'Reily, like a lot of the right-wing ideologues, is a fairly calm and reasonable guy when he's on somebody else's mike). But he does tell a few whoppers.

In one he claims that Fox does not promote any party or candidate. We all know that is a bald faced lie, and it can easily be disproved by looking at their coverage of President Bush over the last eight years, and their open war against the Obama administration (a war which O'Reily is not really part of--he is sincere when he says he likes Obama and wants him to succeed).

Another doozy is when he talks about right-wing actors, writers, or producers not being able to get work in Hollywood. He cites the late Ron Silver as an example of someone who left the "liberal mindset" and suddenly couldn't get work. And he may have a point--in the eight years since 9/11 Silver has 14 credits according to IMBD. In the eight years prior to that he had exactly half as many. But if that is the case how does Bill explain the success of Dwayne Johnson, let alone Chuck Norris, Tom Selleck, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Heather Locklear? Leave us not forget that Hollywood has produced some very notable republicans, from John Wayne and Charleton Heston to Ronald Regan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. among the loudest and most influential conservative voices of the past ten years have been Tre Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the wildly conservative (and wildly funny) South Park. O'Reily, when asked about his attacks against Sean Penn and George Cloony, said that if there were right-wing ideologues in Hollywood he would go after them, but they just aren't there. Really: and how did O'Reeily react to the Ayn-Rand inspired "The Incredibles," a film which was such a polemic in favor of Ayn Rand conservativism that they made her the basis of the movies best character Edna Mode? What they did with The Incredibles was exactly what conservatives excoriated Dr. Seuss for doing in The Lorax From everything I heard he waxed poetic about it and said it should win the Oscar for best picture. Of course, the gave O'Reilly a character cameo, so he was bound to go easy on them.

But probably the biggest lie O'Reily tells is when he chastises NBC and the New York Times for spreading hate and demagoguery. This from the number one guy at Fox Network News, one of the most hateful and ideologically strident institutions in America.