Bill O'Reilly at the Phil

Snickers Man

Ranting right-wing American anchorman Bill O'Reilly was at the Phil last night and on his own TV show claims he was presented with "a big award" by the Philosophical Society.

What award did this guy get and what were the grounds for giving it?

I'd love to know.

NB I have asked the same question in the News and Media forum but I just figured there may be some Trinity students in this forum that might have been there last night and could shed some light on it.

Newb

Jackass of the year award. It's very prestigious.

Snickers Man

...and a most deserving recipient, IMHO.

But seriously....I could give him that award. What did the venerable Philosophical Society honour him with?

xeduCat

Probably honorary patronage, that's usually the carrot for getting big names. Not sure what sort of honour it is when it includes Desmond Tutu and Tommy Tiernan in the same category, but it's a nice way to recognise achievement (of whatever sort) and I'd imagine the Americans love to go home and talk about it

Was O'Reilly good?

There's an article in the Times about it. I didn't know his family came from Cavan.

Irish Times 13/04/2007

www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2007/0413/1176157072400.html



O'Reilly a major factor for Trinity students

Controversial American broadcaster Bill O'Reilly addressed students at Trinity College Dublin last night, telling them that "confrontation gets to the truth" and that the Irish should consider themselves Republicans - in the American political sense, at least.

The Fox News presenter also amused some, though not all, of the students with his mocking impersonation of the French.

His television show, The O'Reilly Factor , is the most-watched cable news show in the US and Mr O'Reilly's most recent book, Culture Warrior , is a New York Times bestseller. Often accused of bullying guests and pushing a conservative agenda, he has previously called for a boycott of French products, and told the son of a 9/11 victim to "shut up" after he spoke against the "war on terror".

Mr O'Reilly's arrival received a mixed greeting. While some students stood as they applauded, others jeered. This was followed by sporadic heckling during his speech, to the university's philosophical society.

Having told the students that he almost attended Trinity but "wasn't smart enough", he turned to world affairs. He complained that the European press was partly to blame for America's reputation abroad, and said that while there are many people who hold the opinion that the US is a bad influence, his is that "the United States is a noble nation".

"It has 300 million citizens. And if some people want to sneak in every time we turn our back, it must be good," he said. He added that "they're not kicking down the door to get into the Soviet Union. I mean Russia."

He argued that there is currently a battle between "traditionalists" and "secular progressives" in his home country, and that he stood on the side of the former.

"My people came from Cavan when they were starving to death. They came over to America and made it. And all that goes into my philosophy."

Taking written questions, Mr O'Reilly criticised the UN, saying that "all these people do is go out for lunch".

Of the International Criminal Court, he joked: "It takes four years to try Milosevic, and he drops dead of boredom."

Asked about the Republican Party's political philosophy, he said: "Everyone here in Ireland is a Republican . . . That's working pretty well for you."

Mr O'Reilly admitted that he was wrong in his support for the invasion of Iraq, but said that he did not believe that the US and British administrations deliberately deceived the public over intelligence on weapons of mass destruction.

However, he insisted that it was still important to trust the American administration. To laughter and applause from some students, he asked: "What's my alternative? France?"

Oirthir

Myth wrote:

There's an article in the Times about it. I didn't know his family came from Cavan.

Didn't you get the memo, all americans came from cavan..

syberspud

Dammit woulda liked to have seen him! The man's a total legend imo - I'm sure he ate a few stupid crusties for breakfast...

*goes back to studying*

Snickers Man

syberspud wrote:

Dammit woulda liked to have seen him! The man's a total legend imo - I'm sure he ate a few stupid crusties for breakfast...

*goes back to studying*

The man's a stage-managed bombastic pussy imo and I will cite as evidence for that the fact that questions from the floor were not allowed, they had to be submitted in writing in advance.

Nor were any questions taken from the floor when he appeared on the Late Late with Pat Kenny last night. Contrast that with George Galloway when he appeared on the Late Late a short while ago and Pat the Plank allowed him to be ambushed from the floor by that young fogie Eamon Delaney, editor of Magill.

Galloway chewed Delaney up with little bother, spat him out and stamped him into the carpet. Now there was an example of "a stupid crusty" being "eaten for breakfast" but O'Reilly wouldn't allow himself the opportunity to do the same thing.

I wonder why :rolleyes:

syberspud

Nor were any questions taken from the floor when he appeared on the Late Late with Pat Kenny last night.

Why should they be? It would have just been some crusty coming up with the same tired anti-American nonsense that has been debunked thoroughly elsewhere. The War in Iraq was about stealing oil, somone think of the children etc - what nonsense. Even an elementary study of the lefties claims against the United States can demolish these claims in short order. Why should he be forced to defend himself from these ludicrous claims from these Soviet Union supporting, tree hugging idiots (who are wrong about EVERYTHING in history) when he wouldn't have had the time to properly respond to them? And my God, why the hell am I defending Pat Kenny??! :eek: Well, jeez, against Islamofascist supporting left wing loons, I'd jump in bed with Satan himself...

Contrast that with George Galloway when he appeared on the Late Late a short while ago and Pat the Plank allowed him to be ambushed from the floor by that young fogie Eamon Delaney, editor of Magill.

Wait is this the same George Galloway that we see here sucking a mass murderers ****? Just shows you what type of guy he is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QZflE1y2m8&mode=related&search=
This is the same George Galloway who is on record as supporting terrorist & Islamic fudamentalist organisations like Hamas and Hizbollah? The same Galloway who supports dictators like Fidel Castro who continue to hold entire nations under the boot of tyranny? Oh yes, this is the same George Galloway who is a fifth columnist scumbag and who most definitely deserves to be ambushed & abused for crimes such as getting elected by stirring up Muslim immigrant hatred of the western democractic world within which they made their new homes and under whose freedom allows them to can criticize the system in the first place. The man's an absolute disgrace. And the last time he appeared at a university debate: he insulted everbody there, probably because he couldn't handle the heat from intelligent, prepared debaters whom were prepared to own him and his corrupt and self serving opinions. http://www.cherwell.org/news/i_dont_give_a_f_k

Galloway chewed Delaney up with little bother, spat him out and stamped him into the carpet.

It's pretty sad that you buy into and obviously revel in this populist scumbag' rantings; hook, line and sinker. Do you read The Sun as well? Oh don't get me wrong - I know Galloway is an arrogant bully with a gift for fine scottish rhetoric but the facts of history do not and will not back him and his corrupt stance up. Fact is, he's only allowed to continue ranting against the West and supporting scumbags because he lives in the West. If he was an anti Castro Cuban demonstrator for example, the fat bastard would have had a bullet in the head...long long ago.

Fundamentally speaking, it's by the cash and blood and steel and technical ingenuity of the USA that our little bastion of peace & democracy in Western Europe has been kept safe this past 50 years and continues to be kept safe.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

that's an awful lot of words coming from someone who can't spell cyber

Time Magazine

Mordeth wrote:

that's an awful lot of words coming from someone who can't spell cyber

Come on now Mordeth, if you don't have anything productive to add keep your mouth shut. I don't agree with much of what syberspud said but he has a point and he said it well.

PHB

And the last time he appeared at a university debate: he insulted everbody there, probably because he couldn't handle the heat from intelligent, prepared debaters whom were prepared to own him and his corrupt and self serving opinions.

Just like Bill O'Reilly would have been

OfflerCrocGod

Mordeth wrote:

that's an awful lot of words coming from someone who can't spell cyber

The truth hurts.

syberspud wrote:

Fundamentally speaking, it's by the cash and blood and steel and technical ingenuity of the USA that our little bastion of peace & democracy in Western Europe has been kept safe this past 50 years and continues to be kept safe.

Spot on. There is no shame in owing something to the greatest nation on earth but some people just can't stomach that fact. Jealousy is the root of a lot of Anti-Americanism.

Nietzschean

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

There is no shame in owing something to the greatest nation on earth but some people just can't stomach that fact. Jealousy is the root of a lot of Anti-Americanism.

Whatever about us oweing something to the american's, they owe us plenty too, but anyway the greatest nation on earth? how do you measure that? their rate of polluting the planet?cause they are still winning there.... Invasions of other countries in recent times? winning there too...

I've nothing against america but its amazing fanboyism to suggest they are the greatest nation on earth......

Fallen Seraph

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

The truth hurts.Spot on. There is no shame in owing something to the greatest nation on earth but some people just can't stomach that fact. Jealousy is the root of a lot of Anti-Americanism.

Why, then, not reason that we should all be insanely jealous of Italians and greeks because their ancient civilisations made possible our first world as we know it?

syberspud wrote:

he same Galloway who supports dictators like Fidel Castro who continue to hold entire nations under the boot of tyranny?

What irony when defending america...

Newb

syberspud wrote:

The War in Iraq was about stealing oil, somone think of the children etc - what nonsense.

Nonsense, how?

OfflerCrocGod

Nietzschean wrote:

I've nothing against america but its amazing fanboyism to suggest they are the greatest nation on earth......

The best method ever of course democracy - peoples votes are cast and the US of A wins hands down. No one is jealous of the Italians or Greeks because they are poor, backward countries.

Newb

Even though this belongs in a different thread, I will post it anyway since it has been brought up here. Here is a link to a Robert Newman show recording, that I think makes a good case for the US having ulterior motives with respect to Iraq.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7374585792978336967

It is 45 minutes long, but i think it is a good show.

Tricity Bendix

Nietzschean wrote:

Whatever about us oweing something to the american's, they owe us plenty too, but anyway the greatest nation on earth? how do you measure that? their rate of polluting the planet?cause they are still winning there.... Invasions of other countries in recent times? winning there too...

It's a subjective statement. I doubt it lends itself easily to measurement. But it doesn't need to.

And its not really "amazing" that someone would think America is the greatest country on earth. They are the World's only superpower. They didn't get where they are by being mediocre.

fiveone

syberspud wrote:

Why should they be? It would have just been some crusty coming up with the same tired anti-American nonsense that has been debunked thoroughly elsewhere. The War in Iraq was about stealing oil, somone think of the children etc - what nonsense

Right, grow the hell up. Just because someone chooses to question the motives behind war, or any other act of unjustifiable barbarism does not make them a "crusty." There's no un-American sentiment in stating disagreement for a war which was justified on gounds of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Pure fiction either way you look at it - that, my friend, is the real nonsense here.

syberspud wrote:

Even an elementary study of the lefties claims against the United States can demolish these claims in short order.

Em, no they can't and -

syberspud wrote:

Why should he be forced to defend himself from these ludicrous claims from these Soviet Union supporting, tree hugging idiots (who are wrong about EVERYTHING in history) when he wouldn't have had the time to properly respond to them?
Well, jeez, against Islamofascist supporting left wing loons, I'd jump in bed with Satan himself?

I am honestly shocked you can feel so justified in spouting this utterly irrational, racist, bigoted filth. Do you really go to college?

syberspud wrote:

Fundamentally speaking, it's by the cash and blood and steel and technical ingenuity of the USA that our little bastion of peace & democracy in Western Europe has been kept safe this past 50 years and continues to be kept safe.

How cute.


By the way, If anyone's interested in seeing O'reilly getting humiliated on his own show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPuGuaZTx8&mode=related&search=

Time Magazine

Nietzschean wrote:

Invasions of other countries in recent times? winning there too...

Oh come on. Germany have invaded far many countries since the foundation of the USA than the Americans themselves. From three wars to found modern Germany, to convening a conference to split up Africa, to two world wars. If you're talking modern as in post-WWII, then Israel and Vietnam have been the main offenders. If you're talking modern as in post-2000, you're taking an extremely myopic view of a time where America responded to violent attack. (And no, that's not justifying the invasion of Iraq.)

Nietzschean

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

The best method ever of course democracy - peoples votes are cast and the US of A wins hands down.

If you somehow recon that proves a point then the only valid figure is 'immigrants as percentage of state population', which by that logic puts UAE as the greatest country on earth?

OfflerCrocGod

Nietzschean wrote:

If you somehow recon that proves a point then the only valid figure is 'immigrants as percentage of state population', which by that logic puts UAE as the greatest country on earth?

One man, one vote last I checked. 38M > 3M - also people migrate to the UAE for money while many people go to the USA for a new life.

The overwhelming theme
of immigration to the United States is opportunity; many view America as a land of opportunities and travel here, either temporarily or permanently, to begin a new life by taking advantage of all the U.S. has to offer.

PDF.

Nietzschean

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

One man, one vote last I checked. 38M > 3M - also people migrate to the UAE for money while many people go to the USA for a new life.

The total figure of immagrants is entirely pointless in comparason to most other 1st world countries, given the US size and population its not a fair comparason, the only comparason's it make sence for are per land mass and per capita. Anything else is silly(give if ireland allowed in 30m immgrants then we'd just be overpopulated overnight....).

And most people equate having more money with a better life, higher standard of living and so on....

PDF.

you do realise your quoting an undergraduate american students report, and with a straight face?

OfflerCrocGod

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

One man, one vote last I checked. 38M > 3M - also people migrate to the UAE for money while many people go to the USA for a new life.PDF.

Are you an American?
You put forward many of the same arguments that I heard when I worked in the US.

InFront

I switched over to his interview on the late late show last night, and not really knowing who he was, I thought he was trying to be sarcastic with his references to the most noble nation on Earth (yes, USA apparently), and the apparent suggestion that Ireland was going down the tubes because nobody knows why Christians celebrate Easter or Christmas. Hatred of America was something he appeared to think was akin to blasphemy as well.
I could be very wrong, but he doesn't seem like the most intelligent of political journalists - "Everyone here in Ireland is a Republican . . . That's working pretty well for you" is one example the OP has quoted. If he is clever, he doesn't make it very apparent.

He's a strange character, and because of the trenchant all-out Americanism, I'm not sure what benefit there is in debating with him, or what he has to offer an intelligent audience. That his TV show is the most watched programme of its kind on US cable says a lot about the state of that place.

Fallen Seraph

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

No one is jealous of the Italians or Greeks because they are poor, backward countries.

a) what xenophobic, ignorant tripe.

b) you're missing the point.

irish_bob

InFront wrote:

I switched over to his interview on the late late show last night, and not really knowing who he was, I thought he was trying to be sarcastic with his references to the most noble nation on Earth (yes, USA apparently), and the apparent suggestion that Ireland was going down the tubes because nobody knows why Christians celebrate Easter or Christmas. Hatred of America was something he appeared to think was akin to blasphemy as well.
I could be very wrong, but he doesn't seem like the most intelligent of political journalists - "Everyone here in Ireland is a Republican . . . That's working pretty well for you" is one example the OP has quoted. If he is clever, he doesn't make it very apparent.

He's a strange character, and because of the trenchant all-out Americanism, I'm not sure what benefit there is in debating with him, or what he has to offer an intelligent audience. That his TV show is the most watched programme of its kind on US cable says a lot about the state of that place.

agree with everything in your post in front
o reilly is an appaling charechter , anyone who has seen his show knows the lieing , truth twisting viscious charechter assassin he is
he claims he goes after politicians who are out of line , one one conditin , thier democrats , he goes after those who attack the republicans like everyone else on the propoganda machine called FOX NEWS he works for

oh and as regards his apparent patriotism towards his country , o reilly and fox news shows nothing but contempt for most americans , i say most americans because most americans now do not support the bush admin , theese people are routinely refered to as simply thee anti war crowd by o reilly and the rest at fox news , you hear questions like is criticising president bushes war in iraq helping the terrorists while showing a picture of nancy pelosi of the democratic party

unless your an extrme right neo conservative , you are scum in o reilly and fox news eyes
you may find o reillys bluster entertaining and i admit i do sometimes but to see him as someone with principal and wisdom is folly in the extrme
guys a charlatan in an epic sense

Andrew 83

Looked to me like he was making up his 'facts' as he went along on the Late Late. His arguments, points and information seemed to constantly change and alter to make sure he stayed on top.

Snickers Man

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

from your sig:
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. - Voltaire
It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth - Alexis de Tocqueville

Wow!!! Two Frenchmen quoted with your evident approval!!! Mr O'Reilly wouldn't like that.

Though he's living proof of the appositeness of the second of those statements.

Mind you, given the prominent influence of the 18th century French Enlightenment on republican thought and the founding fathers of the USA, the case could be made for saying that the USA is basically a French idea. Like the Statue of Liberty.

I'd love to see somebody put that hypothesis to O'Reilly and watch him spontaneously combust with apoplexy.

Snickers Man

syberspud wrote:

It would have just been some crusty coming up with the same tired anti-American nonsense that has been debunked thoroughly elsewhere. The War in Iraq was about stealing oil, somone think of the children etc - what nonsense. Even an elementary study of the lefties claims against the United States can demolish these claims in short order. Why should he be forced to defend himself from these ludicrous claims from these Soviet Union supporting, tree hugging idiots (who are wrong about EVERYTHING in history) when he wouldn't have had the time to properly respond to them? And my God, why the hell am I defending Pat Kenny??! :eek: Well, jeez, against Islamofascist supporting left wing loons, I'd jump in bed with Satan himself...

Contrast that with George Galloway when he appeared on the Late Late a short while ago and Pat the Plank allowed him to be ambushed from the floor by that young fogie Eamon Delaney, editor of Magill.

Wait is this the same George Galloway that we see here sucking a mass murderers ****? Just shows you what type of guy he is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QZflE1y2m8&mode=related&search=
This is the same George Galloway who is on record as supporting terrorist & Islamic fudamentalist organisations like Hamas and Hizbollah? The same Galloway who supports dictators like Fidel Castro who continue to hold entire nations under the boot of tyranny? Oh yes, this is the same George Galloway who is a fifth columnist scumbag and who most definitely deserves to be ambushed & abused for crimes such as getting elected by stirring up Muslim immigrant hatred of the western democractic world within which they made their new homes and under whose freedom allows them to can criticize the system in the first place. The man's an absolute disgrace. And the last time he appeared at a university debate: he insulted everbody there, probably because he couldn't handle the heat from intelligent, prepared debaters whom were prepared to own him and his corrupt and self serving opinions. http://www.cherwell.org/news/i_dont_give_a_f_k

Galloway chewed Delaney up with little bother, spat him out and stamped him into the carpet.

It's pretty sad that you buy into and obviously revel in this populist scumbag' rantings; hook, line and sinker. Do you read The Sun as well? Oh don't get me wrong - I know Galloway is an arrogant bully with a gift for fine scottish rhetoric but the facts of history do not and will not back him and his corrupt stance up. Fact is, he's only allowed to continue ranting against the West and supporting scumbags because he lives in the West. If he was an anti Castro Cuban demonstrator for example, the fat bastard would have had a bullet in the head...long long ago.

Fundamentally speaking, it's by the cash and blood and steel and technical ingenuity of the USA that our little bastion of peace & democracy in Western Europe has been kept safe this past 50 years and continues to be kept safe.

You're funny.

Are you after O'Reilly's job or what?