Who's Looking Out for You?

Rating:
Summary: It's kind of informative...
Review: if you're looking to take a crash course in professional sophistry. Bill O'Reilly is the master of false arguments if ever there was one. His latent racism and anti-semitism reveal themselves in every line. Sorry folks, O'Reilly ain't lookin out for you, he's lookin out for his bank account and Fox News' ratings. He'll say whatever he has to say to make the ignorant masses tune in every night. "The spin stops here?" Yeah right, Bill's got two turn tables and a microphone, and he's pumpin that B.S. like there ain't no tomorrow.

Rating:
Summary: Straight Talk
Review: Conservatives will cheer and liberals will jeer this straight-shooting commentary on the popular culture.

Bill gets a lot of things right-
- The government is not mother and won't solve everyone's problem or complaints.
- The media is loaded with liberal, self-seeking narcissists
- The courts are not places where jstice is impartially meted out to ordinary people

For mere mortals who are raising families, working daily, and paying taxes, this shatters any myths that might still be nagging in the corners of your mind that government is your buddy.

Your true friends. Your family, maybe. God, certainly. These are the ones who are looking out for you. And, oh yes, Bill O'Reilly, of course!

It is a fun read. Bill takes no prisoners. Love his refreshing, straight-from-the-hip style.

Rating:
Summary: Fair and Balanced?
Review: I spent as much time reading the book as vandal101 (basically, none). His post serves no other purpose than to rant.

Not interested.

My post serves no other purpose than to counter his 1-star rating.

Have a nice day!

Rating:
Summary: Looking for intellectual material? Look elsewhere.
Review: Despite the fact that I have been severely disenchanted with O'Reilly's show, I decided to give his new book a chance. I was hoping that perhaps he was different in written form, not as boisterous and bullying. However, I was completely wrong. Trust me when I say that this book is filed with outrageous hyperbole, flawed logic, a hard right political slant, and flat out lies and misinformation on a host of topics. O'Reilly prides himself on being in the know, the common man, and moderate, but these claims are destroyed with anything above a casual examination of this book.

Even if you are a conservative, I urge you not to purchase this book. You have every right to hold whatever opinion you want on any issue you want, but by no means should you allow yourself to be influenced by this angry, virulent, and misinformed man. There are many places to read conservative viewpoints and well thought out essays. This is not one of them.

Rating:
Summary: fair and balanced
Review: I will proclaim now that I don't like this man. his book suffers from conflicting remarks (boycott pepsi not Rush Limbaugh sponsers);he advocates people to think for themselves while telling you what to do with 1-sided arguments.He's against news from other sources (outside of U.S. media),how can one get a "fair and balanced" perspective w/out checking the otherside of the story?As a response to a reviewer who said "Glick started sprouting anti-American propaganda,which automatically disqualifies him from any credit for being a 9-11 victim"--first there is no "credit" for victims, only loss, 2nd no one can be disqualified from being a victim simply for having different foreign policy views.I urge everyone to check more sources for their news including the BBC,it is dangerous to only listen to one side of the story,something O'Reilly is guilty of (per interview of Glick).You're not guilty of being unpatriotic if you disagree with the government that is the soul of our constitution.

Rating:
Summary: Not Exactly God's Design
Review: The author took great pains to illustrate how man contorts the design of God for his own purposes. More than anyone else, he appears to have made great progress in showing how man cannot depend upon other men, God's first choice. When men (or women or children) must look out for themselves because there is so little of God in everyone else, it surely is a signal that mankind has failed in his mission to be "godly," the way we were taught to be, in theory, through the Bible and other religious texts. Since we cannot count upon God's presence and grace in man, we have either ourselves or no one. The author chooses the middle path since he apparently has no evidence of the former either, or can't seem to find it. Hence, it's either ourselves or no one. Basically, if we cannot trust ourselves, and cannot trust others, God is not likely to be there either since both are offensive, in theory, to him.

Rating:
Summary: Think for yourself
Review: From someone who is neither a conservative nor a liberal. Before you decide whether to read Bill O'Reilly's book, see how many 1-star/few-word remarks there are. It is obvious that most of these people did not read the book, as their reviews contain no opinion other than mere hate toward the author and his ideas. If the man is hated so much... well, he must be up to something good!
Read this book and think for yourself. It might be controversial at times, but Bill knows his subject well and is a good writer. You might disagree with some of his opinions, but you must give him credit - he cares about the average American. You will be forced to think and be concerned. About the future of this country, as well as your own and your family's. Be prepare to see lot's of "I", "Me" etc. That could be annoying, but in my opinion the author simply tries to remind you all the time - that's his own experience or perception, that's how he thinks - you are more than welcome to disagree (which I often do, too).
And more: I did not read anything by Al Franken yet, but I attempted Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men...". Please. Do not compare this to O'Reilly.
Thank You.

Rating:
Summary: Bill's mad at everything, but says it better on television
Review: My strongest impression from reading several chapters of _Who's Looking Out for You?_ is that I can remember almost nothing of it except the tone. O'Reilly's tone is outrage. He's mad at "elite scribes" in the media (other than himself), mad at "trust fund babies and corporate weasels", mad at "problem creators", mad at "crack smokers", mad at Bernard Cardinal Law and "perverted priests", mad at single mothers and deadbeat fathers, mad at households without "standards", mad at China where "they kill babies", -- mad at everything it seems. As he writes in his first chapter, he's even mad at his father, who "set a terrible example by inflicting unnecessary pain on his children." He offers endless examples of things to be angry about, but offers no solutions. OK, he does have his "Ten Commandments of Effective Parenting", most of which are reasonable common sense, but no solution to problems outside one's own family.

Another impression I got from the book is that I had seen a lot of the material before, in his newspaper column. He may not have been directly recycling it, but it didn't feel new when I read it. I think his newspaper column is better reading, since it is often more topical. And even with all the recycled material, it's still a very short book. Amazingly, the audio-book version is an abridged edition -- the book is so short that I wouldn't have thought they'd feel a need to make it any shorter for the audio version.

Amusingly, the introduction congratulates the reader on being a "person who wants to live life honestly and make his or her own way" and for being "responsible, generous, and aware that others around them also have lives to live, and unabashedly patriotic." Then he denies being "conservative," apparently in an effort to redefine his right wing opinions as "independent." Further, he denounces "so-called elite scribes" then trumpets a magazine's labeling of him as "the second most powerful person in TV news!" [The exclamation point was his.] Isn't he an "elite scribe" if he's the second most powerful person in TV news and author of books and newspaper columns?

Overall, I was unimpressed. As a writer, he's better in his newspaper columns than in this book -- and not nearly as good a writer as his fellow conservative George F Will (whose columns I enjoy, but whose books I have not read) or his liberal nemesis Al Franken. His talent is as a television entertainer, where his on-screen presence far outshines his writing. In that sense he is a lot like Michael Moore, an observation which would probably annoy both O'Reilly and Moore. If you want O'Reilly at his best, watch him on television. Don't bother with the book unless it's to reward him for his television entertainment talent.

My impressions are based on reading only a few chapters of the book (and to refresh my memory for this review, reading excerpts from his official web site), which I did to compare five current political books. The others were _Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right_ by Al Franken, _Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America_, by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, _Dude, Where's My Country?_ by Michael Moore, and _Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism_ by Ann Coulter. The best of the bunch were _Lies_ and _Bushwhacked_. Franken was funnier and more entertaining to read, but Ivins and Dubose were more focused and heavier on detailed research. Moore's was mildly amusing, but heavy on name-calling and not nearly as fun as his movies. O'Reilly's seemed like little more than a compilation of his newspaper editorial columns, and was deadly boring -- like Moore, O'Reilly is much more effective on-screen than in print. Coulter's was by far the worst; it was little more than a lot of hateful name-calling, misleading footnotes, without even the sense of humor that made Moore's name-calling amusing.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: He really has outdone himself. This is a wonderful man who has no agenda, unlike most other political authors out there. Great Great Great.

Rating:
Summary: The No Spin Hurricane
Review: I've read all of Bill O'Reilly's books and found them enjoyable, entertaining, and well-reasoned. He employs an honesty that makes his writing feel like a personal conversation, whether you agree with him or not.

The weirdest part is reading through the reviews here on amazon.com Wow.
To all the One-Star Reviewers: when you say we're better off reading Al Franken and Michael Moore, you've blown your cover. We know why you're here. We doubt you even read O'Reilly's stuff. You're just very, very angry people.
Just...calm...down. Everything's...gonna...be...okay.
(Quick, someone call the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and tell them we got another one here).