Society Issues Talk

Gandalf Grey · Guest

Yes, I Am Crazy, Mr. O'Reilly. Crazy Like Your Network

By Steve Young
Created Mar 7 2007 - 11:40am

"He's a crazy guy!"
-- Bill O'Reilly referring to Steve Young (3/6/07)

Here's today's Talking Point: Yesterday, a column I had written for the
Huffington Post [1]about the Walter Reed scandal was reprinted in the
Philadelphia Inquirer oped pages [2]. In it I pointed out that, among
others, Bill O'Reilly had not held the Republican congress accountable for
Veteran Administration cutbacks over the past six years.

In deftly critiquing what I had written, Bill told his radio audience that I
was "a crazy guy."

I had worked for years trying to keep that quiet so to say I was
traumatized...well, you know how crazy people can get.

Then Bill said that "everyone says (I'm) crazy." To find out that not only
was my secret out but that now EVERYONE knows it made me all the
more...crazy. I don't think I know more than 10% of everyone, yet learning
that everyone knows me shows just how good my public relations guy is. I
would have hoped that they would know me more for my TV writing, than just
being crazy. But then Bill told his audience that I wasn't a TV writer.
Well, thank you very much, Bill. Now I'm guessing the Robert Wood Foundation
will want back the Prism Award they gave me for the prime time television
show I thought I wrote about alcoholism in kids. Or the Humanitas Award
Committee surely would repeal my nomination for writing a TV show that
"affirms the human person, probes the meaning of life, and enlightens the
use of human freedom." Worse...the Writers Guild will probably stop sending
those residual checks that some other Steve Young should be getting. I do
wonder though why Bill's cracked research team didn't check IMDB.com.

Perhaps Bill dealt the "everyone says I'm crazy" card as hyperbole, kind of
like when I wrote about Bill's penchant to blame everything on, "...The
Washington Post, The New York Times, the ACLU and Frank Rich" and that they
would "feel the wrath of an outraged O'Reilly for some incoherent connection
to the scandal." That was when Bill's Fox sideick said the "entire article
was crazy." That one really hurt because it's not like his sidekicks agree
with almost everything he says.

But Bill then hit his audience with the biggie. Not only was I not a
television writer. I was just..."a blogger." I don't want to cast any more
aspersions on the blogger profession. God knows aspersions are about the
only compensation most bloggers receive. But "just a blogger?" Although I
have more agents than anyone else in the unemployment line, I am as much
"just a blogger, as Bill is. In fact, if we were honest - and since we are
both in the media how can either Bill or I be otherwise - we are
spectacularly alike.

We both are published authors of kids and adult books. My book, "Great
Failures of the Extremely Successful" became required reading in the
Literature of Success porgram at the Wharton School of Business. Bill's book
became required reading the Heritage Foundation (Okay, the Heritage comment
is hyperbole, but just in case one of the folks is reading...).

We both have had radio shows. One of them was honest and full of good stuff.
The other is still on the air.

We both have harassed younger women with sexually explicit phone calls. Bill
settled out of court. My wife didn't sue me.

I won on the Gong Show. Bill created his own.

I write a ridiculous column that appears every Sunday on the Los Angeles
Daily News oped page. So does Bill.

Fact is, I've written for TV. Bill's writes facts for his TV show. Not every
fact, mind you. But, then again, I haven't written every TV show.

And the similarity which will pain Bill no end to read, we have both
appeared on The Factor...more than once

Crazy guy? Takes one to know one.

And that's a memo.
_______

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson