YOU CAN COUNT ON BILL

by Steve Young

After a hard day of lifting the pen and pressing down letters on the keyboard, the wife, kids and I all settle around the old idiot box to watch our favorite box of idiots -- Fox News. What better way to forget the anxious realities of the day than to sit back and soak up the wondrous adventures of Bill, Sean, and the rest of their Fox News cartoon buddies.

The family and I have bets on when one of Bill's chronic hypocritical flip-flops will send him into a cartoon "Does Not Compute," head implosions that makes for such good TV. As a sleazy agent once exclaimed, "That, Mr. Cavett, is entertainment."

There's always plenty of laughs, but this past week Billy O'Reilly set the hilarity bar way high. He actually said, "I am a reporter." For those diehard fans of O'Reilly, you know that he abhors reporters giving their opinions. He tore Christine Amapour a new one when she gave hers on Larry King.

But every day is opposite day is on O'Reilly.

Bill sexually harasses subordinate employees and then rails against rappers for their sexism.

Bill writes and voices his own sleazy novel, then followups with a book of his morality suggestions for kids.

Bill says he gets more inside military information than congressman John Murtha.

To top off his dive into Bizarro World, this week Bill claimed he knows how reasonable people would act in a reasonable world, saying that, "...in a sane world, every country would unite against Iran and blow it off the face of the earth." Remember, those are Bill's reasonable people.

Perhaps the best moment in entertainment last week was when a caller mentioned Keith Olberman's show. Bill threatened that he would turn the caller's personal information to "Fox Security" and warned that he will continue to do so when callers say something "untoward, obscene, or anything like that," and that "Fox security then will contact your local authorities."

The same week Bill told everyone over 80 -- I mean, his demographic -- that "MSNBC's ratings are a disaster," even though the actual numbers show that most every cable news network, including MSNBC, has increased ratings. Um...except FOX.

To help out MSNBC, Bill pushed for his arch-enemy -- or at least, his foe when Franken isn't handy -- Keith Olberman to be replaced by Phil Donahue, the same guy he said was "clueless" in their last TV get together on Bill's show. Keeping in mind that Olberman has higher ratings than his conservative counterparts on MSNBC, it seems Bill's efforts are less helpful than retaliatory.

Still, Bill was so concerned with helping MSNBC, he turned the possibility over to the folks in his completely unbiased Factor Poll.

But since O'Reilly's numbers are actually down 21 percent, to help out FOX, I'd like the Albion Monitor folks to vote on whether FOX should replace O'Reilly with Deputy Dawg. Or, if you have another idea, please feel free to make your own suggestion.

Although, I have to admit, I would miss Bill.

For O'Reilly, Mr. Cavett, is truly entertainment.