Rating: 
Summary: Cashing in on O'Reilly's name
Review: Sensationalism sells. No two ways about this. Mr. Hart realized this, and cashed in on Bill O'Reilly's popularity.Apparently, those who hate O'Reilly have neither watched his show, nor read his books, for those paint a very different story than this book. If you want a manual on how to hate Bill O'Reilly, you've got the right book. If you actually want some substantiated arguments without sensationalism, look elsewhere. Only in the far-left's world would a pro-gun control, anti-death penalty, pro-choice, anti-"corporate weasel", bipartisan basher be considered a "far-right conservative."
Rating: 
Summary: Thank you
Review: Thank you Mr. Hart and Mr. Mcchesney for writing a truth, accurate rebuttal of Rupert Murdoch's little lapdog. I enjoyed the book and the truths it contained immensely.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Great
Review: The book is a compilment of O'Reilly's distortions and screw ups. That's all it really is. It's good to point out the distortion, but many of them are floating around the internet. As a liberal, I say only buy this if you REALLY hate O'Reilly.
Rating: 
Summary: Grown Ups vs. The Kids
Review: This book and others like it kill me...it supports the idea that conservatives are like the grown ups and the liberals are like the kids. The kids (liberals)want to do what feels good and not have to think of the consequences. The adults (conservatives) have to make the unpopular but sound choices in order to "raise the kids" properly. Why you all beg for a socialist society so badly is beyond me...it never works and Bill O'Reilly deftly points this out time and time again. This book might be good for leveling a wobbly table, but not much more.
Rating:
Summary: Exposing the lies from the "No Fact Zone"
Review: This book exposes the lies of Bill O'Reilly. The man lies about his past (he grew up in an upper middle class family--he says he was poor) and he lies about his politics (he says he is independent--but this book makes it clear he is a Republican).
Rating:
Summary: A Scouting Report on a Righty
Review: This book is like a scouting report for a baseball pitcher--in this case a righthander(read politically conservative) who claims to be ambidextrous (unbiased). It is not a penetrating study of Bill O'Reilly's inner psychology or motivation, and the author, Peter Hart says so. It simply tells viewers/batters what to expect each night when they face him. The late great lefty, Warren Spahn, said "the art of hitting is timing; and the art of pitching is disrupting timing." That is the first thing that our scout, Peter Hart, tells his readers. O"Reilly claims to be "no spin;" he is, in fact, "all spin." When you face him you are going to get a lot of off speed junk, curves. He is not going to put any fastballs where you can hit them. He does not have much of an arm (read facts) to go all with his pitch (read spin). To beat you--and I am talking about "the folks," his target audience of working people who vote conservative and against their own self interest--he has to make you believe him about being "no spin." You must buy his deception. Hart adds, do not waste your time preparing to hit (read listen critically) a guy that throws with both hands. This guy never really has pitched with his left hand (read seriously espoused progressive positions). He just says he does to throw you off. He is just a righty (conservative) spinning tales. That is Bill O'Reilly in a nutshell. And though it might be fun, I promise not to belabor this metaphor anymore. As a teacher of speech, I know that one of the first rules of rhetoric or persuasion is for the speaker to ethically tell people where he stands. To say that he is no spin does a disservice to his audience; they are not hitters he is trying to trick; they are people he should be trying to help and illuminate. This handbook then is a manual on how he does not help and illuminate. The first thing Hart does is give O'Reilly's positions on a bevy of social, economic, and political issues. Each position is deeply conservative. On the few issues that he claims a liberal
position, Hart shows that his position is either weakly held or a dissemblance. So now the reader knows how to listen to O'Reilly. Now Hart tells us what to listen for. In a section called "The O'Reilly Fact-Check," Hart offers "at least" 100 lies and distortions--mostly lies that O'Reilly has told, mostly on the "Factor" TV show. The section runs 66 pages pp.53-118. It is filled with statements O'Reilly has made on the show, then Hart provides an "Oh Really" response. O"Reilly says "dozens of police officers were injured" by protestors in Sna Francisco and Chicago during anti-war demonstration in those cities; The Oh Really response: "the facts" are that only two officers were injured in Frisco and none in Chicago. O'Reilly claims that the US never supplied the Iraqis with chemical and biological weapons and that Donald Rumsfeld never meant with Hussein to close the deal. He tells a radio caller that is a "crazy thing that goes out on the Internet...and you guys think its true." The Oh Really response is that the account came from Newsweek and quotes the particualrs at length. And on it goes--plenty of O'Reilly's lies to enjoy.
Plus you must know that if O'Reilly wants 2+2=5, he will swing it so it does. His logic lacks internal consistency. He tells a high school student who supports Satanism in October 2002 that he "has no freedom of speech once he walks in San Mateo High." In November 2001 he applaudes a young man expelled for hanging pro-war in his high school for defending his "freedom of speech." He tells people who want to boycott Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh that boycotts are "unAmerican." "This is blatant censorship"..."You are against freedom of speech." He then turns around and calls for a boycott of Pepsi because the company hired the rapper Ludacris as a pitchman. He also calls for boycotts of France and many of those pesky countries who would not support our invasion of Iraq. Like the lies, the inconsistencies go on and on. What's really good about this scouting report is that it teaches you how to face O'Reilly in the future. Since Hart's report came out a few months ago, O"Reilly has further dissembled. He defended Mel Gibson's forthcoming movie "The Passion" which depicts the Cruxifiction of Christ from charges of Anti-Semetism. He urges free expression and letting "the folks" make up their own minds. Then a TV movie about Ronald Reagan is scheduled to air this fall, and he tells CBS to pull it because "the folks" might take out their anger on the network. He abused Jeremy Glick brutally on his TV show; and he cries foul when Terry Gross asks him a few tough questions on NPR's "Fresh Air." And he continues to lie. Remember the fiasco with Al Franken over the alleged two Peabody Awards he won while hosting Inside Edition. The book covers the incident before it became a major media bruhaha. O'Reilly got caught lying about something that could be easily checked and then compounded the situation by lying about the lie. Well, he has done it again. He claims his latest book "Who's Looking Out for You" is vying for number one nonfiction book of the year in sales with Hillary Clinton's book "Living History." Bookscan, USA Today and Neilssen all list it lagging badly behind both Hillary's book, and (this has to hurt big time) Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars." Bookscan has Hillary's book at 1.1 million; Franken's at 674 thousand; and OReilly's at 430 thousand. Yet he continually insists otherwise. And if Hart's scouting report is a good indicator, he will continue to do so.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Ridiculous Item To Date
Review: This book is like going to a fast food restaurant, it is fast, cheap and tasty yet you know the nutritional value is not the best. If you have found your way to this book you probably already have your mind made up that Bill O'Reilly is not your cup of tea. I found this book after reading the authors other book on Rush, which was not half bad. Basically what you get with this book is the authors attempt to classify O'Reilly inconsistencies with either the facts or his other musings. I think a fair review of the book would find that it is not really a negative attack on Bill, other then a few funny shots at his ego. It simply takes statements he has made over the years and then spells out the truth of the matter.
I am not a fan of Bill O'Reilly, thus my book choice, so reading books like this that spell out many of his errors are just a laugh a minute to read. Other then the fact that you have to read many of his outrageous and somewhat bombastic comments, the book is easy to read and fast paced. The authors list out their sources and from where the O'Reilly comment came from. I guess my only complaint with the book is that given many of the O'Reilly comments were simple sentences, a Bill O'Reilly supporter could always make the claim that the comment was taken out of context. To avoid that I would have liked the authors to add a bit more of the Bill's words before and after the comments. Yet this is a small complaint on my part and does not really take away from the enjoyment of the book.
I felt the authors could have given us a bit more. With the amount of air time Bill has, surly the authors could have come up with another pages of errors. The one thing that I did hit my limit on was that toward the end of the book I kept hearing Bill in my head and after about 100 pages, it was all I could stomach. Overall the book was a nice time waster, not too heavy and fast and easy to read. Did it provide any deep thought or interesting conclusions about the effect Bill O'Reilly has on the current Republican Party or the public as a whole, no. It just laid out many of his more bone headed comments. Would this book change any minds, again I doubt it. If you dislike O'Reilly or just disagree with a number of his positions then you will get a kick out of the book.
Rating:
Summary: good for the uninformed
Review: This book is terrific for those who have never watched O'Reilly and need to be aware of the dire need for media reform in the United States and for those who have watched O'Reilly as their only source of news and have no idea that he's spouting lies.
Rating:
Summary: A Useful Reference
Review: This book serves up poetic justice to Bill O'Reilly. Mr. Hart calmly and usually persuasively shows how often Mr. O'Reilly puts the shuck on his viewers, listeners, or readers. By the end of the book one must conclude that, if Mr. O'Reilly had a guest on "The Factor" who equivocated, prevaricated, or obfuscated as much and as often as Mr. O'Reilly does, the host would throw one of his tantrums. On the other hand, Mr. O'Reilly broadcasts so much and writes so much that finding his mistakes is not very challenging and not revealing. What is revealing are Mr. O'Reilly's attempts to escape from his own errors, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies. O'Reilly wants to play the Tribune of the American People each night, but he also wants to be smarter than the average guy. As a result, Mr. O'Reilly too often agrees with positions that ordinary folk who have not thought matters through accept but invents novel reasons or factoids to bolster those popular positions. And, like any pundit, Mr. O'Reilly knows so much that is not true. An advantage to Mr. Hart's compendium is that the author does not feel compelled to call O'Reilly a liar. Mr. Hart does better than Mr. Franken (although Mr. Franken is funnier) because he does not call every misstep or misinterpretation a lie. I have seldom caught Mr. O'Reilly in a flat-out lie, and I watch him regularly and listen to his "Radio Factor." Mr. O'Reilly instead looses blather and bombast on his listeners and viewers. That is, he is frequently dead wrong but almost always quite sincere. The author does a bit too little analysis, or else I'd give the volume five stars. I would like to have seen more attention to the rhetorical techniques and logic-chopping in which Mr. O'Reilly engages. Mr. Hart could do many readers and viewers a service by showing how a little knowledge of a few fallacies or intellectual bad habits would explain Mr. O'Reilly's antics. I thought that Mr. Hart might have devoted more space to Mr. O'Reilly's hypocrisy as well. When he is bullying a guest or shouting over a speaker, Mr. O'Reilly reeks of the incivility and ill-breeding that he piously laments. He rails about the excesses of Teddy Kennedy or others (and rightly so!) and how they are spoiling American politics. Then he behaves boorishly and intimidates those who come on his show. He profits from his perch on Fox News while ignoring much of the shock journalism and shlock that passes for content on Fox and other cable channels. Mostly, however, this book is terrific at showing how often Bill O'Reilly is talking through his hat. Mr. O'Reilly is often the populist whom he plays on TV. He has the vices of his virtues. He wants viewers and listeners to believe that he knows much more than he knows (and occasionally much more than anyone could know)-- just like the loudmouth two barstools down. He clings to whatever he has long believed despite all evidence to the contrary -- just like ordinary true believers do. He denounces ideas new to him as ideological nonsense -- which saves him from admitting how mindlessly conservative he all too often is and how far he is from those conservatives who inspire admiration and belief for their learning and wisdom. Taking the spin and the skin off O'Reilly is a public service!
Rating:
Summary: Spinning liberal heat
Review: This is a fun book, thin, but amusing in its own way. Bill O'Reilly is someone that is easily hated by the left. He is popular, well-educated, well-exposed to the public and lets the clowns out there have it. Are most of the clowns liberal Democrats? Well, "liberal Democrat" and "clown" is a tautology, and so the answer would be 'yes', but deciding that Bill O'Reilly is in the same camp as Rush Limbaugh is off the mark, as he really doesn't seem to like either Anne Coulter Donald Rumsfeld or several other conservative marks. I would consider him to be strongly conservative, however much Bill denies this. The crux of the book is that conservative-bad, liberal-good and with that in mind, the sky is the limit here. Read it with expectations of hearing what Al Franken has to say, but expect less of it and fewer smiles along the way (but for roughly the same price).
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