I mean, besides the same reason drivers crane their necks to catch a glimpse of a car accident.
Last week on his low-rated "Radio Factor" radio show, Bill O'Reilly verbally abused fellow Fox News personality Lis Wiehl, a law professor, over the U.S. attorneys scandal. This incident was the quintessential manifestation of all of O'Reilly's faults, and a fascinating example of how O'Reilly operates.
Listen to the clip at Crooks and Liars.
In the clip, O'Reilly and Wiehl are talking about the White House offer to allow Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to meet with a small group of senators in a closed session. O'Reilly calls Wiehl a liar when she correctly says the terms of the offer preclude testimony under oath or with a transcript. He then misunderstands Wiehl's recitation of the terms, "no oath or transcript," as "open transcript," a heretofore unknown term of art. (Go ahead, Google it; no such term existed before this incident.) He then goes on to define his newly-coined term, saying "open transcript means it gets to the New York Times," says that Wiehl was trying to mislead by slipping in the adjective "open," and repeatedly wrongly claims that Bush offered to allow a transcript. He cuts Wiehl's mic, shouting at her that she has insulted and lied to his audience, and then screams "what can we do to her? what can we do to her?!"
While this is an extreme example, O'Reilly does this kind of thing all the time. He is routinely rude to his guests, cutting their mics, calling them names, and smearing their reputations. He yells nonsense. He enjoys inventing threats to the republic, like his supposed "War on Christmas." The man is seriously unhinged; he even demonstrates some serious sexual problems. He's also a pathological liar; you can't believe a word he says, and he sometimes doesn't even appear aware he's lying. Bill O'Reilly's willful ignorance of the truth, and that of others like him, are contributing to the worsening political debate in this country.
O'Reilly is horrible, but his fans enable him to continue by propping up his TV show's ratings. Although O'Reilly repeatedly decries organizations like Media Matters as "character assassins" and "vile smear merchants," those same fans apparently don't actually bother to visit the Media Matters website. There are enough examples there (some 672 as of this writing), all backed up with clips from his show and evidence refuting his assertions, to convince even the most die-hard conservative of O'Reilly's pathological inability to tell the truth. If only his fans could summon enough independent thought to spend just a moment checking into his claims.
By the way, this post isn't about the subpoening of White House officials; there's a legitimate case to be made for executive privilege, and also a valid argument that executive privilege should yield to Congress's oversight responsiblities where a violation of law, such as the f