ZIP IT

The word is out. Bill O'Reilly is clearly not going to take his dismissal from Fox News 'lying down' – a dismissal which incidentally resulted from his own attempts to pressure his female staff into 'lying down.' The former host of the hostile if insipid O'Reilly Factor (more recently living what can best be deemed the Frustrated Factor installment) is, like most abusers, in the throes of feeling an overwhelming amount of sympathy for himself. Not satisfied merely playing offended and deeming himself the ultimate victim of his own lifestyle, O'Reilly is pandering to the populists by making as though he has been sabotaged by unseen forces, destroyed by an evil conspiracy, become the martyr of left-wing animus.

"Sad," says O'Reilly echoing the irreverent pomp of America's Tweet Meister, Donald Trump. "I was target No. 1 and it's sad." Recalling the same level of self-absorption as our President musters when evoking the word, O'Reilly sees as sad not the hurt he caused to the women working for him, nor the damage and shame he may have brought upon his family but the fact that some had taken it upon themselves to go after him and put an end to years of physical and verbal abuse at a male-dominated workplace. To him being caught is what's sad. Like for many misogynists whose conservatism is the only thing to have hardened over years of attempted womanizing (in O'Reilly's case, badly attempted), what strikes him as sad is that women have finally stopped allowing others to shame them into silence. Instead, they now willing come forward in an attempt to 'out' those who have mistreated them (or, in less severe circumstances, those that haven't accorded them with the same respect as their male counterparts).

O'Reilly goes on to say that in the future he won't take insinuations such as these, (yes, you guessed it) 'lying down.' If nothing else we can agree that O'Reilly loves 'lying down,' he avoids taking things 'lying down,'but is happy to settle for 'lying.' In a sense, he has lying down pat (no Buchanan pun). Despite numerous accounts to the contrary, O'Reilly flat out denies ever having done anything compromising to women. Perhaps, this is because he sees sexual harassment in the workplace as normal business protocol – a fringe benefit of sorts; something one has come to expect at FOX, notorious as it is for its ongoing abuses. The fact that certain allegations made about O'Reilly had all but been confirmed, and the fact that his company paid out settlements in the order of millions, does little to abate O'Reilly's incessant reprise – a chorus where blackmailers, Clintonites, free radical feminists, and liberal particles all collide at high velocities in a consolidated effort to besmirch O'Reilly's otherwise 'good name.' If not for these dark forces in the Universe, O'Reilly would – like Quaker Oats, Pepsi and numerous other brands from the 1970's – be a name you can trust.

"This was a hit," O'Reilly claims as though his forced resignation came by way of the Cosa Nostra rather the many human rights activists who had campaigned for his dismissal for months on end. It was something planned and executed by what he claims is the "left-wing cabal" – a non-existent order evoked by almost every deceitful conservative or right wing person who's ever had an accusation leveled against them. They like this term – especially because it carries its Jewish origins (Kabbalah) as overtly as a Star of David sewn onto left wing apparel. Venomously evoked, 'Left Wing Cabal' has a malevolent tone like 'Elders of Zion,' a term evoked by the anti-Semites of Czarist Russia who were not only trying to incite hatred against the Jews by making them an artificial scapegoat but went to the trouble of manufacturing a non-existent conspiracy that claimed that Jews had secretly been plotting against all gentiles for world domination. For O'Reilly the left-wing cabal inherently means feminists, minorities, human rights activists (or any of the exploited people who years ago may have rolled over and stayed silent as he and his like abused them); but mostly, it means a group of 'machers with now shorn payess (sidelocks) who still run the world.' Members of his left Cabal include any and all who today have finally found the strength to resist. In his mind, every woman he ever abused or harassed had probably enticed him, led him on and done so only to undermine and destroy him. This is O'Reilly's illuminati, this is O'Reilly's Free Mason-styled conspiracy – all those ordinary people who simply had enough of being damaged by his kind.

Encouraged by the rise of those like Trump – who have confidently gone on claiming what they've claimed even after being caught in lies – O'Reilly (in typically 'big lie' fashion) insists on the same fallacies that have already been disproven. Regardless what truth comes to the fore, O'Reilly, and those like him, will not be silenced. They will continue lying with impunity. Flagrantly denying all that which would ordinarily constitute our contemporary notion of 'in flagrante delicto,' he goes on, untroubled by having been shown up for who he is. He continues to manufacture larger and larger lies in order to have us doubt the credibility of the victims that have finally found the courage to speak up.

We must never allow bullies like O'Reilly to victimize the victims a second time by casting doubt over their accusations. Denying the past and casting aspersions on those who have suffered is a crime tantamount – if not more horrific in its premeditation – than the initial violation. O'Reilly, you are bully. We advise you: to zip it – and we do mean both pants and mouth.