One of the best things written about the shootout at the Bill-O fantasy factory is by Jeb Lund at Rolling Stone:

This constant churning of preposterous shit runs through O’Reilly’s career like discarded picnic food through geese, a steaming heap of compensatory fantasy meeting defensive wish fulfillment. Media Matters could update daily by debunking The O’Reilly Factor alone. He claimed his tabloid show Inside Editionwon two Peabody Awards. He turned a comfortable childhood in the post-war suburban planned community of Levittown (with regular Florida vacations) into an Oliver Twist-tinged struggle, to complete the Horatio Alger arc corporealizing him as the American dream: “You don’t come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale.” Those who would dare wake him from it are met with violence. “I am coming after you with everything I have,” he told the New York Times‘ Emily Steel. “You can take it as a threat.”

That first sentence is to die for. I wish I’d thought of it first. Bill-O is indeed a goose and very full of shit. It’s lucky for Bill-O, and unlucky for the rest of us, that he works at Fox News where being a lying goose is not a problem. That’s why they keep talking about his ratings, he’s the goose that laid the golden egg as far as Roger Ailes is concerned. So what if he’s not house trained and takes the odd dump in the corner. That’s what staff are for…

There’s another lovely bit of writing in Lund’s piece that I cannot resist quoting:

O’Reilly isn’t a newsman, he’s a blue-eyed cirrhotic cyst erupting acid onto the brass rail at the Now I’ll Tell You What the REAL Problem Is Pub. He’s the guy who sits next to you and brags about how he’d kick the hell out of any thugs daring to bring violence into his neighborhood, stumbles off his barstool, goes outside, reflexively crosses the street to avoid two black kids on the sidewalk two blocks up, then drives home drunk. He’s the guy who picks a fight with you if you correct him, then refuses to throw down because he “was Gold Gloves in college and doesn’t want to end you, man,” then backs away toward his driveway while trying to make eye contact with anyone he thinks is a friend and saying, “I feel sorry for him! I have a pool in my backyard.”

We’ve all met that guy. You know the classic blowhard; one might even call him an Everytroll. He’s the bozo who flames everyone on social media and then squeals like a stuck pig when he’s called out. Unfortunately, those fuckers have neither power nor influence. Bill-O does and he uses it unwisely. The only way his worthless ass will ever get fired is if his sponsors cut and run. There’s no sign of that happening and Fox’s real motto is never retract, never apologize, which is bad for the country but good for the satire business. Thanks Roger, I guess…

I made a fleeting Traffic reference at the beginning of the post. I’ll give Winwood, Capaldi and company the last word: