How to Write a Funny Satirical Column: By David Brooks
How Not To: By Bill O'Reilly
Yet O’Reilly gets about a hundred times the weekly audience Brooks does, and his feeble-minded books outsell “Bobos in Paradise” by a substantial margin. No fair.
Speaking of Brooks’ 2000 “work of comic sociology,” it’s ranked by Amazon as the #12 most popular book at Brandeis University. The most recent “Harry Potter” book is #1, with more typical ‘deis books –“Fast Food Nation,” “Lies and the Lying Liars,” “Kosher By Design”- rounding out the top ten. No idea why Brooks is so popular in Waltham, but it may have something to do with American Studies/Environmental Studies professor Brian Donahue, who gave a long speech about “Bobos” at my departmental graduation four years ago.
Posted by Stephen Silver at April 7, 2004 09:53 PMURG. What makes O'Reilly a 'conservative' exactly?
Posted by: Karol at April 8, 2004 12:28 AMI am so glad O'Reilly is getting torn apart for that column.
Posted by: red at April 8, 2004 10:57 AMKarol-
Well yes, he always shrugs off the "conservative" label, and occasionally he'll throw the liberals a bone by ripping Ashcroft or something. But if the American Conservative Union, or whoever does those, did a 1-100 rating of his views like they do for the senators, I'd imagine he'd get at least 90.
And besides, lately O'Reilly's lapsed into the language of the "culture war" like no one I've seen since '92-era Pat Buchanan.
Posted by: Stephen Silver at April 8, 2004 12:03 PMWow, that O'Reilly column is about as subtle as your average pop/rap song (not good rap, obviously).
I did like the line, "the ho no mo'."
Posted by: Jeremy Wahlman at April 8, 2004 02:31 PMYeah, O'reilly is just a cranky guty with a tv show. Lord only knows why they'd give him a column as well.
Posted by: jaws at April 8, 2004 11:39 PM