Bill O’Reilly Once Again Accused Of ‘Family Values’ Hypocrisy As Ratings Remain High
Bill O’Reilly had a really bad week. The Fox News star, who has often talked about respect towards women and issues dealing with “family values,” has been accused of being a domestic abuser. On May 20, Gawker broke the story.
“Gawker has obtained partial transcripts from the custody trial at the center of Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly’s vicious dispute with his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy. The documents, which record testimony given last year, confirm that the ex-couple’s teenage daughter told a court-appointed forensic examiner that she witnessed O’Reilly ‘choking her mom’ as he ‘dragged her down some stairs’ by the neck.”
Gawker goes on to note that Bill O’Reilly allegedly told his daughter that his mother is an “adulterer” and the Fox News star is seen as an absentee father by his daughter.
Salon accuses Bill O’Reilly, along with fellow Republican Josh Duggar (accused of child molestation this past week) of hypocrisy.
“Of course, that didn’t stop O’Reilly from lecturing African Americans on how to raise their families, blaming black community troubles on ‘no supervision, kids with no fathers.’ Now we know that instead of taking care of their own children, O’Reilly and the Duggars were out telling other people how to take care of theirs.”
Erik Wemple of the Washington Post believes Bill O’Reilly’s recent problems are different this time around.
“Unavailable to O’Reilly is the denial strategy that worked so well against his winter tormentors. The political leanings of the case’s forensic examiner and O’Reilly’s daughter, after all, aren’t well known.”
Wemple goes on to note that O’Reilly often includes his private life to push his political and “family values” beliefs. Because of this, even though O’Reilly will deny that his private life is nobody’s business, it actually isn’t.
Bill O’Reilly has been accused of hypocrisy towards his “family values” beliefs several times before. One of the events O’Reilly would like to forget is the 2004 sexual harassment lawsuit from co-worker Andrea Mackris after lecturing to young adult men on how they better treat their girlfriends right.
The Andrea Mackris lawsuit didn’t hurt Bill O’Reilly one single iota in the ratings, and it’s likely that this latest scandal won’t either. According to Zap2it, Bill O’Reilly attracted 2.32 million viewers for his show this last Wednesday evening. O’Reilly still had a somewhat comfortable lead over Megyn Kelly, who attracted 2.09 million viewers the same evening.
The political left may be throwing arrows constantly at O’Reilly, but he appears to have amazing surviving skills. One wonders if there is any type of scandal that can actually hurt Bill O’Reilly.
[Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images]
