In response to Jon Stewart’s spoken-word takedown of Fox News, Fox patriarch Bill O’Reilly has officially thrown down the gauntlet. On yesterday’s O’Reilly Factor, the host had a message for Stewart: “I would like to debate you about the Common situation.” Thus, the stage is set for yet another O’Reilly/Stewart showdown, which will be sort of like an East Coast-West Coast-style rap battle, except without any killer beats, memorable rhymes, and also both men work in New York. (Actually, it will probably very genteel, since the two opposing hosts seem to positively treasure each other’s company.) For his part, O’Reilly arguably succeeded in escalating the “Commongate” debate a little bit. Where earlier anti-Commonites likes Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity had directly attacked Common’s music with all the self-awareness of preachers proclaiming that Elvis Presley’s gyrations were opening a portal to hellfire, O’Reilly focused on what he called Common’s “defense” of “two cop-killers,” apparently referring to Joanne Chesimard, a.k.a. Assata Shakur, and Mumia Abu-Jamal.)
O’Reilly then successfully de-escalated his argument into ambient culture-war territory, noting at one point: “We fought the good fight years ago against gangsta rappers. He’s not a gangsta rapper. Now, society has accepted all rappers.” I’m confused. Is Bill O’Reilly taking credit for making rap go corporate? Now that’s a debate I’d like to see! Check out the full video below:
Read more:
Rapper Common’s White House invitation makes Sarah Palin, Fox News go crazy
Jon Stewart raps Fox News with uncommon beat
Common talks Grammy nominations, teaming with Kanye West and No I.D. for his next album, and more
This would be epic TV and Bill O’Reilly would be smashed to smithereens. It’s quite pathetic when the conservatives like O’Reilly can’t admit they overstepped.
The thing is, Bill O’Reilly is NOT a real conservative. People like him, and like most of Fox News’s audience, use the term “conservative” as an excuse for bigotry, stupidity, laziness, ignorance, feeble mindedness, cowardice, hypocrisy, bad social skills, lack of culture, lack of tact, lack of common sense and an overall disconnect with reality and for “how things work.”
In short, for people like O’Reilly and most Fox News fans, “conservative” is an excuse, not an ideology.
What are you talking about? How is Bill O’Reilly a bigot, and what evidence do you have that most of the FNC audience is bigoted? What is “conservative” an excuse for, and how is it not an ideology?
I understand that Bill O’Reilly has in the past had some pretty ridiculous and/or bigoted stances on certain subjects, and maybe I’m ignorant of the full story, but it seems to me that in this case he’s being fairly rational about the situation. He doesn’t hate the fact that Common is a rapper, just that he has a controversial stance on an issue. That seems fairly reasonable. Someone please tell me if I’m missing something.
I’m with you, Lynn. At least O’Reilly has a real debatable point of contention. So many other media personalities have jumped the gun and deliberately misinterpreted lyrics or spoken out based on hearsay and assumptions. Personally, I don’t have a problem with Common being invited to the White House for a poetry event; he’s a fantastic and deeply moving poet. But I am interested in hearing what both men have to say in a debate about the situation, because I believe both of them could make some interesting and reasonable arguments.
Why can’t people with “controversial stance[s] on an issue” be invited to the White House. We have world leaders there all the time that we disagree with, and I am assuming “controversial stance” is a polite way of saying disagree with.
Re: JPop
It’s not about Common just having any controversial stance. O’Reilly takes issue with the fact that Common defended people who killed cops. Don’t forget that the President is the Chief Executive of the Federal Government. As such, he must uphold and enforce our laws. O’Reilly’s problem thus comes from the fact that someone who defended the killing of law enforcement officials was then invited into the Chief Executive’s home and office.
SHUT UP BILL O’RILLEY you are a waste of space and sad excuse of a human being
I don’t know who Bill “O’Rilley” is, but you certainly just put him in his place.
and you just put adam in his place, typo police.
Wow, you’re a nitpicky douchebag.
Probably a typo!
SHUT UP BILL O’REILLY you are a waste of space and sad excuse of a human being. That better?
I don’t like rap music, but Common seems to be pretty sedate. I think Jon will tear him apart.
LOL someone described him on these boards as “one level harder than Will Smith”, which seems about right.
Pretty sure he was also a spokesperson for Gap a few years back…probably one of the least “gangsta” stores out there.
Angie: Common is a rap artist but also a model. As a model he has worked with a number of rather “un-gangster” companies; but this is separate from his rap career.
Besides, when did we start judging a rapper’s skill by how “street” or “thug” he appears to be?
On Topic: Fox is sad and O’Reilly is worse. We have a new network in Canada now that seems to be similar to Fox… hopefully it doesn’t turn out the same.
When you’re stuck at a sinking ship like Fox News, where sponsors are dropping faster than the IQ of the channel’s audience, you have to figure out somehow to try to maintain your popularity, and piggybacking on the popularity of another is the easiest way to do it.
I hope it’s intended as comedy, because if not, it’s going to be kind of sad to see Stewart bully Billy into total insignificance.
O’Reilly gets 3x the ratings Stewart does, and Fox News has more viewers than CNN, MSNBC, and HLN combined.
Sinking ship? Hardly.
Bill O Riley should not be saving Hannity and Palins skin on this one, let them debate Stewart on the music issue first, than let Bill and Jon go at it, those two when they get together actually exmplify what american debate should be.
From the FOXNews Editorial Guidelines book:
debate (v): to cut off, talk over and completely ignore and refuse to respond to any and all differing opinions than those dictated by Lord Rove or Lord Ailes.
Yeah, Jon, you know you can skip this, right?
I like your definition!
I agree, explains the disrespect that O’Reilly showed the president during the preSuper Bowl interview.
But Jon and Bill have some really interesting discussions and they’re actually relatively civil to each other when they meet up. They really seem to like debating each other. Jon is totally doing this, because he would enjoy it. In the footage of their debates that I’ve seen, they don’t really talk over each other much. I get the impression that they may passionately disagree with each other, but they still respect each other for at least engaging in a conversation. It’s kind of nice to see.
Thank you for that comment. I’m so sick of the partisan BS that people are posting, Bill and Jon – whether you like them or not – are both open-minded, intelligent people. I love that they embrace debate.
ditto!
Does anyone know the exact lyrics about Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu-Jamal? Not that it really matters – the man is allowed to have his opinion. I’m just curious.
O’Rilled Up fundamentally misunderstood Jon Stewart’s argument. What a retard.
LOL…craziness! Let’s have some real talk: O’Reilly, bless his baby heart, thinks we are waaaay over quota with “the blacks” (as Trump would say) in the White House. Suck it up, dear, you got another year and half to go…and potentially more. Too bad he couldn’t have free-styled back at John…that would have made this black girl happy!
I hate people making assumptions about Fox News and its audience about as much as I hate Fox News. If you can’t see that the liberal media and the conservative media are two sides of the same coin, and are BOTH EQUALLY WRONG and biased when it comes to reporting the news, well then I feel sorry for ya. I’m really sick of the political extremes. Like we’re supposed to accept one or the other. I do’nt want either.
Sounds like Billo wants to save face for Fox News.
Jon Stewart Bill o Reilly …. rap battle
So Bill O’Reilly wants to debate a comedian about a rapper?
/Facepalm
“We’ll do it live!”
I’ve enjoyed their sparring matches before… but I really hope Jon skips out on this one. This is just another one of Fox’s silly, petty attacks on Obama, and really doesn’t deserve the attention.
Plus, like usual, the editors will just end up focusing on the jokier moments anyway to undermine what Jon is trying to say.
Ah, but do you acknowledge Stewart’s sill petty attacks on Palin? Probably not. That’s why I can’t stand this crap. As long as YOUR ox isn’t being gored, it’s OK.
But you miss the point. Palin IS silly and petty. Or don’t you pay attention?