Bill O'Reilly on "The View" Calls Senator Obama a "Communist"

Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly appeared on ABC's "The View" Wednesday, Oct. 22, and millions might have missed it, but the subsequent viewings on the internet of the exchange between the controversial Fox Channel talk show host and the women of "The View" has got to have equaled or perhaps surpassed that number. And for good reason. The lively dialogue between co-hosts Joy Behar and Barbara Walters on one side and Bill O'Reilly on the other is an amazing display of partisanship and effrontery.

The volume of the dialogue began to rise when Elizabeth Hasselbeck, "The View's" conservative co-host, served O'Reilly a soft set-up, mentioning the "redistribution of wealth" issue that had come up on "The O'Reilly Factor" when Bill O'Reilly had interviewed Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama. O'Reilly called it a "socialist tenet" and when Hasselbeck stated, "When you asked him about redistribution of wealth ... he couldn't --", O'Reilly said, "Right. He's a communist." The crowd erupted in booing while O'Reilly chuckled and Hasselbeck laughed behind her notes.

O'Reilly told the crowd to lighten. "This is 'The View,'" O'reilly intoned pointing at the audience. "This isn't 'Sixty Minutes,' what's wrong with you?"

Joy Behar then spoke up, "You know what a red flag that is - Commie - in this country."

O'Reilly turned and in mock solicitousness, said, "Did I offend you?"

Behar told him that it was "just ridiculous."

He took back his term, then said, "Just socialist. He's not a communist."

The back-and-forth was engaged from that moment on. O'Reilly accused Behar of going after Senator McCain when he appeared on "The View." They called each other partisans. Barbara Walters asked if they could talk about him and, when he asked if she would be nice, Walters said, "Not necessarily."

And then Barbara Walters, who is known to be friends with O'Reilly, led into a clip of O'Reilly literally yelling at Congressman Barney Frank and calling him a coward on his show. O'Reilly was accusing Frank of leading people to buy stock in Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac two months before the organizations tanked and were taken over by the federal government. He defended his behavior by asking the women of "The View," "Do you know what he's done to you?"

When O'Reilly, who kept scrunching his face up in supposed imitation of Behar (which did get laughs from the audience), called her a "Kool Aid drinker," Behar slammed him with: "You drank the Kool Aid on George Bush for eight years, Bill."

You would have never known it if Barbara Walters had not held up the new book, but Bill O'Reilly was there to promote the new release of his autobiography, "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity."

But is he? A "bold fresh piece of humanity," that is. It very much sounds as if Bill O'Reilly is just another garden-variety conservative who hosts a talk show and shouts down those he disagrees with. Much like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, only smarter and louder. He told the women of "The View" that he didn't take sides, that he grilled all his guests. Behar told him that he took sides - he worked for Fox.

They challenged him to get Governor Sarah Palin on his show and go after her like he did some of his guests. They all agreed they would like to get Sarah Palin on their shows. (Writer's aside: O'Reilly will have a far better chance of getting Palin on his show, especially after the complaining Cindy McCain did over her and her husband's treatment at the hands of "The View" women.)

O'Reilly's use of "communist" and "socialist" was definitely used in the perjorative to connote the worst that those terms have to offer for Americans. Many people still remember the Cold War before the break-up of the Soviet Union, a country dominated by an oligarchical Marxist-Leninism ("communist") that vied with the United States in proxy wars around the globe following World War II. It was the during the Cold War that both nations developed stockpiles of nuclear weapons and pointed them towards the other's major cities in what was hoped to be a deterring stalemate. The word "communist" and "socialist" became interchangeable during that time. And millions of Americans lived through the fear of it all.

Add to that the long, dark shadow of McCarthyism that still resonates in this country. It has been over 60 years since Senator Joe McCarthy began his witchhunts for socialists and communists with his Un-American Activities Committee, where, for whatever motives, he branded hundreds of Americans, many undeseredly, with the label of "communist."

O'Reilly's quick labeling on "The View" falls hand-in-hand with the current wave of McCain- Palin tactics of branding Senator Obama a socialist for his tax policies because he said that, in times of need, it was a good thing to "spread the wealth" to Joe the Plumber. The rallying cry was heard and began appearing on placards, banners, and signs at McCain- Palin rallies. But when Drew Griffin of CNN asked if she was calling Senator Obama a socialist, Palin backed off and indirectly called Senator Obama a socialist by putting words in Joe the Plumber's mouth, that he certainly thought Obama's tax plans were socialistic.

Senator McCain echoed the same runaround, stating that Obama's ideas were certainly socialistic in his interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. When asked how he could reconcile voting for the partial nationalization of Wall Street with the $700 billion bailout, which is technically a form of socialism and something he voted for, Senator McCain told Blitzer that the bailout was a necessary measure and not the same thing.

Then Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) went on MSNBC's "Hardball" and told Chris Matthews that Senator Obama was the most liberal senator and that he had anti-American views. "Absolutely. I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views." She then told Chris Matthews that she wished the press would do a "penetrating expose" to find out which members of Congress were "pro-America" and which were "anti-America."

That same day, Sarah Palin told an audience that she only liked visiting "pro-Amercan parts" of the United States.

But cries of "socialist" and "un-American" and "anti-American" that began with the Bush administration's resurrection of the "us-against-them" argument to wage their War on Terror caught hold during the presidential campaign with assumptions as to why Senator Barack Obama would not wear an American flag lapel pin. Those accusations and labels have swelled and grown to include those who voted for the unpopular $700 billion bailout (which Senator McCain holds himself above, apparently) and have brought the American public to its present state of political bickering, with people like Sarah Palin telling her audiences that Senator Barack Obama is different and a socialist and Bill O'Reilly flat-out labeling Obama a "communist" on "The View."

The "fresh and bold" that Bill O'Reilly might have been as a child may have become just another ugly version of recycled McCarthyism (a new public sound bite oriented McCarthyism), a piece of humanity that serves us better as a cautionary tale of political overreach and abuse of power better left in the past.

Sources:

IBTimes.com

CNN Television

CSMonitor.com