Bill O'Reilly doesn't seem to care how much of a self-promoting shill he makes himself appear when he starts talking about cable-network ratings. Because he never makes one of these reports without claiming that Fox is Teh Awesome in the ratings, while MSNBC and CNN are always about to swirl down the toilet.
Rrrrrright. That would explain why Rupert Murdoch just reported a $6.4 billion loss.
But O'Reilly ought to consider it a warning when even Bernie Goldberg, fergawdsake, is telling him that his cockamamie Unified Theory of Media Suckage -- which explains that so many media entities are in trouble financially because they're liberal, of course -- is a load o'crap. Especially when he starts speculating, as he does in this segment, that CNBC hired Howard Dean as a contributor in order to placate MoveOn.org and other "far left loons."
O'Reilly: Well, we have a gentlemen's disagreement on that. The sop to them was, 'Don't hurt us anymore, and we'll put Howard Dean on.' That was the deal.
Well, here's Sam Stein's HuffPo report from which O'Reilly got the story in the first place:
But the decision to bring the recently departed DNC Chair on board, the source says, was finalized well before the current wave of CNBC-angst. So while grassroots groups have sprouted up in recent weeks petitioning the network to make wholesale changes, Dean's hiring can't be viewed as a direct result of public pressure.
"This was in the works long before the Jon Stewart stuff," said the source, "but it will be good for our side to have him on."
Ah, details, details.
Later on the show, Glenn Beck came on and gave O'Reilly a Mickey Mouse cap. That produced the following fitting image:
