Jesse has his list of the “20 Most Annoying Conservatives” up, and if you are a Democrat, it is a hoot. Hell, I thought some of them were damn funny myself. At any rate, there is only one problem with the list. His most annoying conservative is Bill O’Reilly, who is in no way, shape, or form, a conservative. Unless what conservative really means is ‘anything I don’t like or anything I think is bad.’
At any rate, Bill O’Reilly is a conservative like Larry King is a liberal. As Matt Stinson noted, he is more of an angry moderate who would have voted for Perot in 1992, and his ideology is simply not developed. I think he is nothing more than a faux populist who tends to lean tothe rigth slightly because of who his employer is. Certainly there are more annoying conservatives out there- I can pick a few- and at all of my picks would be conservative.
Try this on for size- who out there thinks Bill O’Reilly is more annoying than John Derbyshire?
That’s what I thought… and Derby’s an actual conservative.
Norbizness
Don’t worry, if Jesse comes up with a “20 Most Disturbing Conservatives” list, Derbyshire can occupy 3 or 4 out of the top 5 spots.
But in terms of sheer, throw your remote at the television annoying… hard to argue.
Slartibartfast
Wow…who knew the NRA was a person? Here I had thought it was a fairly large organization.
Matthew Stinson
Actually, it’s rather impressive how many of the people on that list are loathed by the right-wing of the blogosphere. Heh.
Ricky
O’Reilly has written and stated often that his favorite politician of his lifetime is Bobby Kennedy.
He’s anti-death penalty.
He supports most enviro efforts to stop global warming.
He was gung ho behind Clinton & our efforts in Kosovo.
It appears that anyone who thinks that their taxes are too high & that the gov’t spends too much money & actually (here’s the kicker) questions a Democrat is a “conservative”.
Labels are weird. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I was called a “liberal Christian”. :)
That said – I thought *EVERYONE* knew about O’Reilly’s populist stances. ??????
HH
Half of the offenses jesse mentions are actually true (as opposed to the bogus “he made a racist joke about Black kids!” for example)… he’s improving.
Dana
Michael Savage is WAYYYYYYY more annoying than Bill O’Reilly, and that’s just thinking off the top of my head.
Kimmitt
O’Reilley’s is a conservative and he’s more annoying than Savage because of his pretensions to balance.
Jettison
What does that mean?
O’Reilly is not a conservative. I think people just think he is because he’s religous (and doesn’t like the ACLU). In liberals mind, religous + white= Conservative.
In order to be conservative or liberal I think you first have to admit it. If O’Reilly is a conservative, why doesn’t he say so? It’s akin to calling someone gay because you “just get that vibe”. They’re not gay unless they say they are.
Ricky
Well, you have to take into account the stances of some folks making such assessments. One need only recall the “atrios is a moderate” BS to know that to some folks anyone to the right of Barbara Lee is a moderate & anyone to the right of Dennis Kucinich is a conservative.
Ken Hahn
Jesse may need to expand his list next year. Dean, Sharpton and Co. will bring conservatives out in droves and to our brothers on the left all of them are annoying. Look for 50 most annoying conservatives next December. And probably at least half of them will be conservatives.
Kimmitt
“It’s akin to calling someone gay because you “just get that vibe”. They’re not gay unless they say they are.”
If someone has sex with people of the same gender because he/she is attracted to those people, but never actually comes out and says that they’re gay, they’re still gay.
If someone consistently espouses conservative views in a fairly consistent fashion, then even if he pretends to himself that he’s a moderate (or whatever), he’s a conservative. That’s part of what’s so irritating about O’Reilley; he refuses to acknowledge his bias.
Jesse
O’Reilly is a conservative. He is listed as a conservative columnist at townhall.com and you can read all of his conservative essays there too.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/billoreilly/archive.shtml