O'Reilled up

If I must admit it, I actually do enjoy watching the occasional Fox News clip or Bill O'Reilly video. And, though it's not something that I have ever considered publicly owning up to before, I have watched my fair share. Once a month, once a week, maybe even once a day.\nSometimes we all just need a good laugh, and I've found that I can always rely on not only the Fox network's actual "news" to provide a good chuckle, but that even more heartwarming are its assorted political commentators. The spectrum of sweeping opinions expressed by these icons bring quality humor that only Fox can provide. More times than not, when I turn on "The O'Reilly Factor," it's so hilarious to hear a crotchety old man spew nonsensical verse laden with self-coined terms like "secular progressive agenda" and "San Francisco values" that it's very easy to just kick back and have a good guffaw. With this being said, as the midterm election season came to a close, there was one thing that I had anticipated nearly as much as the results of the elections themselves: I just couldn't wait to hear O'Reilly's reaction. Glorious would be the day that he writhed in self-defeat in front of that huge percentage of the nation that makes up his loyal audience. \nSo I waited and waited and finally, there it was -- an update of the "Talking Points" videos in the Fox Web site's Opinion section. I eagerly clicked play and sat on the edge of my seat until ... until I realized that he didn't seem the least bit defeated or dismayed, and he wasn't even very funny. I decided to listen to the rest of it anyway. After throwing around all the expected topics -- Donald Rumsfeld, no visible progress in Iraq -- he said something I never saw coming, something so terribly unexpected I jumped up to replay the track. Bill O'Reilly said something that I agreed with. After looking out my window to confirm that the world had not actually ended, I played the video several times more.\nDirectly after O'Reilly accused the Democrats of "seeking to create a scandal" in the ways they might use their congressional majority to investigate the Bush administration, he actually made a valid point by explaining that these partisan inquiries could "backfire on the Democrats." Unfortunately when it comes to those four words, I completely agree with him. The Democrats, who cannot afford to follow O'Reilly's example by completely shutting out any opposing view points, must be ready to compromise. If the Democrats have established anything of their party identity, the one unifying intent seems to be their call for a change, and with this change must come a shift in the congressional partisan attitude. The Democrats are being given a chance to prove they can run a Congress that works and, unlike O'Reilly, cannot afford to squander their position by blaming the other side -- and that includes probing into the Bush administration.