Ready, aim, fire(d)

Silber once again shows why BU is a joke. Wonder if he still hates Frank Erwin? Or William Worthy, Jr.? Or wants 8th graders to declare their sexual orientation?This self-styled beacon of academic independence and excellence once said, “You can call somebody an obscene name … and the horrible fact is that people laugh when comedians do that. Bob Hope and Steve Allen and Jack Benny, all them made people laugh and never used a dirty word and never did anything obscene.” Amazing that a guy of his age and education could be so ignorant of the fact that had they done so, they would have been brought up on obscenity charges, a la Lenny Bruce. Don’t confuse me with the facts. No wonder he thinks so highly of Bill O’Reilly. Sell any honorary degrees lately, John?

DAMN! And I was planning to watch Barry (any day now) for the first time since he left WBZ. I believe this is called “letting your mouth write a check your body can’t cash”….

The bigger question is, how much of an impact will this have on O’Reilly? I would think this would just reinforce his stupidity.

Lest we forget, Emily Rooney invited O’Reilly on at least one broadcast of Beat The Press. What will be said tomorrow evening?

io, call me a foolish dreamer who worked for at least one failed media company. Once upon a time, there was integrity. I’m not foolish enough to think principle trumps profits. It’s just a nice musing on a blog.

He was employed as a journalist, of sorts, and spoke out about an issue concerning journalism. Did Comcast have the right to fire him? Of course. Were his remarks protected free speech? Of course not. Does Comcast lose credibility for firing someone for speaking out about standards in the profession? Absolutely. But then, Comcast already suffers from a notoriously bad reputation for customer service and is even accused of using a U.S. Senator (spector) to lead a fight against the NFL so it can continue to refuse to put the NFL Network on a pricing package that makes it accessible to everyone.Comcast arrogance lives.

As an anonymous poster on another sad much better than I could: “(Nolan) was not fired for having an opinion, he was fired for making a scene at the Emmy’s and embarrassing CN8. If you work for a company and are representing the company at the Emmy awards, probably a good idea not to embarrass that company.” That’s not a free-speech issue. And as someone who watches O’Reilly regularly, sometimes with great disdain, I can say those who rag him the most have seldom ever watched him. He’s comes on strong, ’cause that’s his shtick, but he does a better, more fair (if your definition of fairness includes conservative as well as liberal points of view) than Brian Williams, Bill Moyers and all the rest combined.