Tucker Carlson On Bill O’Reilly

Right-wing journalist and author Tucker Carlson describes in his book Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures In Cable News Bill O’Reilly’s exaggerations:

“I once sat on a panel with O’Reilly in Washington.  The discussion topic was ‘The Press In Wartime,’ and someone asked O’Reilly what he thought of the media coverage of the fighting in Afghanistan.  Rather than simply answer the question, O’Reilly began by trying to establish his own bona fides as a war correspondent. ‘I’ve covered wars, okay? I’ve been there. The Falklands, Northern Ireland, the Middle East. I’ve almost been killed three times, okay.’”

“O’Reilly said this to a group that included experienced journalists, some of whom had covered genuinely dangerous wars, not the Falklands, not Belfast, not stand-ups from the balconies of the Tel Aviv Hilton…

“O’Reilly had just patronized them in the most ludicrous possible way.  It was a little like bragging about your National Guard service to a room full of Navy SEALs.

“No one called him on it.  I bet no one ever does.  I imagine it’s been years since anyone he worked with has told O’Reilly to stop talking about himself to goddamn much, and to quit referring to himself in the third person as “The Big Guy.”  That simply never happens to O’Reilly anymore. In Bill O’Reilly’s world, there are only flatterers.”

(Updated post)