Blog P.I.

At the risk of getting too meta in only the third post, I am happy to report that I was not bumped from The Radio Factor, and for about 7 minutes in the early afternoon yesterday, I went mano a mano with Bill O’Reilly.

The segment was ostensibly about lefty bloggers’ ongoing campaign against Joe Lieberman, as well as previous crusades against Deborah Howell and Richard Cohen of the Washington Post. What he was really more interested in talking about was how blogs are out to “hurt people,” a segment I’ve seen him do on his TV program more than once. Only this time I got to reply directly, rather than talking back to the television.

I never got really confrontational, in part because O’Reilly’s general point — that political bloggers can be irresponsible — is true. But that wasn’t his actual point. If I understood him correctly, O’Reilly believes the very purpose of blogging is to incite violence. My argument was that blogs are morally neutral, in and of themselves. They are tools to be used for good or ill. He’s certainly right that some people go too far, but it’s not fair to characterize the whole ’sphere that way.

In service of the point, I had a few stock phrases ready to go, such as: “The good thing about blogging is that anyone can do it. The bad thing about blogging is that anyone can do it.” And at one point I told him: “I have never seen a blog call for someone’s death.” In retrospect I’m pretty sure this is not actually true, but hey, close enough for talk radio.

In all, it went well, and I even got “the last word.” To hear the audio segment in MP3 format, click here.