O'Reilly had an on-air meltdown with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air last night. Personally, I can't stand Gross--her interviewing style comes across as high-minded and smug. O'Reilly launched into a tirade on NPR and on a vast conspiracy against him, got a few personal insults in, then promptly walked out on the interview with the last word.

Some of us remember O'Reilly as the smiling, almost genial host of the Hollywood news show 'Inside Edition' many years ago. He's gradually climbed the media ladder and is now perceived as one of the most important news sources in America. His books repeatedly make #1 in the NY Times Bestseller Lists. His television show is one of the highest rated news shows in the country. He has legions of fans.

He also propagates ad hominem attacks and derision, silencing those who disagree with him, while at the same time, unbelievably, bemoaning the un-civil state of political discourse today. He consistently discourages real intelligent or researched discussion on his show, opting instead to take the easy road and automatically proclaim all of his opinions as fact.

He believes that this country is being torn apart but un-civil discussion, by slander, libel, and by what he calls 'smear merchants.' He desperately hates the NY Times. Anyone who gives his books bad reviews are 'not reviewing the book, they're reviewing me' and therefore game to be ridiculed on his show. He just can't stand being challenged. Anyone who disagrees with his point of view is immediately stooping to a personal attack and guilty of the worst kind of character assassination.

He is a registered Independent because he is desperate not to be labeled as partisan. Although it was revealed that he was once a registered Republican, O'Reilly claims that he never 'consciously' registered Republican and it was a mistake.

O'Reilly works very, very hard to cultivate the image of an independent thinker, someone outside of politics, beholden to no one. He believes in legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes; he considers himself an environmentalist. He is clearly someone who has pulled the wool over the eyes of everyone who loves him, not least of all himself.

Famously, O'Reilly can't hold his own unless he's in the confines of his own Kingdom.

The advantage that O'Reilly has over a lot his peers is the ability to express his opinion as fact and do it convincingly. The problem is, his television and radio shows are all about opinion, and bluster, and he parades them as objective perveyors of fact so intrinsically true that anyone questioning it is just stupid, ignorant or unpatriotic. Bill O'Reilly bemoans the state of political discourse in this country, while simultaneously being one of the worst offenders. He has repeatedly cut off interviews when the other person starts asking questions or making statements that conflict with his own worldview.

He has repeatedly said that any bad review is invalid because the writer is reviewing him and not his book. What O'Reilly doesn't seem to grasp is that he is his books. His books are facts and theories being spun through his personality... what more fitting way than to review his personality. That's all you're getting anyway.

The most difficult thing for Bill O'Reilly to understand, and I doubt he ever will, is this: he is a top rated author, television and radio personality precisely because what he does is entertainment. What Bill O'Reilly does now, parading bluster, arrogance and theatrics around as solid news and information, is not much difference than what he did when he was covering red carpet galas for Inside Edition. "The O'Reilly Factor" and his other shows are all entertainment. That's why people keep tuning in and keep buying. What will that crazy O'Reilly say next? He holds court because he keeps things highly interesting and because he has an headline-getting way of proclaiming opinion as fact. O'Reilly is not a scholar, however, and he will never be remembered as an intellectual or someone who had a solid grasp of the truth. Instead, O'Reilly belongs in the 'Big Book of Jerks,' the comic edition, all bug-eyed and wrinkled, screaming into the camera, "Shut up! Shut up! Cut his mike!" while legions of entertained masses clap, entranced and entertained. But educated? I think not.