George Will’s mistake was appearing with Bill O’Reilly, who is no more than a shallow, prickly, narcissistic, show-biz bully, nowhere near the scholar and acute analyst Will is. No prosecutor could proceed in the bullying way O’Reilly proceeds here without hearing: “Objection, your honor, counsel is badgering the witness.” “Sustained — clean up your act Mr. O’Reilly.”
And Bill O’Reilly calling George Will a hack is in the same Can-You-Believe-It league with the Donald saying, as he did last week, that Ben Carson “doesn’t have the temperament to be president.”
Back in the day I didn’t think there would or could ever be a more obnoxious public personality than Howard Cosell. But O’Reilly wasn’t on the scene yet. At least Howard’s malapropisms, and Alex Karras’s reaction to them, were funny. (Howard: “His primary receivers were covered. His secondary receivers were covered. So he had to go to his tertiary receiver.” Alex: “Tertiary? — Geez, Howard, that’s not football. That’s sewage treatment.” Just so.)
See the original Will column that started the fuss here.
