Monday, April 09, 2007

I don't spend much time commenting on the right wing sideshow acts such as Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, and the like. Why bother. Depending on the clown, they're either crazy and/or shrewdly looking to garner ratings via manufactured half-truths, distortions, and outright bullsh*t. Smart people tune them out and the rest who consider themselves die-hard fans, well, the less said about them the better.

That said it's a bit amusing to witness O'Reilly losing his cool more and more these days. If he's not shouting down his guest and then cutting their mic, then he's simply blowing a gasket in red-faced, finger-waving fashion. Some recent examples here, here, and here (the last one with Geraldo is a doozy).

Me thinks much of his discontent may have to do with shrinking ratings. In key age groups, Keith Olbermann has passed him. O'Reilly's apparent solution: behave even more insanely than usual on air.

Whereas he's always been hilarious (a fact not lost on Stephen Colbert), these days Bill has become just downright sad.

CORRECTION: In the the 25-54 key age group, Olbermann has beaten O'Reilly regularly but only in the last 15 minutes of his show. For the entire hour, O'Reilly still has higher ratings in this group -- albeit his numbers have trended down for months whereas Olbermann is seeing huge increases.

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