Spinnin' with Bill

Fox TV blowhard Bill O’Reilly may wish to revisit his famous words of mid October, when informed of pending legal troubles over reputed sexual harassment charges, O’Reilly took to the airwaves with a solemn vow to his audience to fight on against the situation he described as: "The single most evil thing I have ever experienced and I've seen a lot. But these people picked the wrong guy."

With true bravado he also hitched up his verbosity and declared on no less a pulpit than Live with Regis and Kelly that: "If I have to go down, I'm willing to do it," he said. "I'm going to take a stand. I'm a big mouth on the air and I'm a big mouth off the air."

And then the big mouth went silent! Lawyers talked and no doubt exchanged phone calls, faxes, e mails and depositions. And low and behold the wrong guy chose not to go on, quietly allowing his lawyers to dig him out of a deep deep hole.

In a fascinating reversal of testosterone O’Reilly’s lawyers have issued a notice that all legal hostilities have ceased, the combatants no longer wishing to carry forward with any form of legal proceedings.

In a Thursday statement Bill O’Reilly’s lawyer, Ronald Green issued the following wonderful testimony to settling ones differences away from the spotlight: saying both sides "regret that this matter has caused tremendous pain, and they have agreed to settle. All cases and claims have been withdrawn, and all parties have agreed that there was no wrongdoing whatsoever by Mr. O'Reilly, Ms. Mackris, or Ms. Mackris' counsel, Benedict P. Morelli & Associates." The no harm no foul, as long as the bills are sequential, clean and delivered promptly one guesses!

Green's statement also said he and O'Reilly "withdraw any assertion that any extortion by Ms. Mackris, Mr. Morelli" or his law firm occurred.
"Out of respect for their families and privacy, all parties and their representatives have agreed that all information relating to the cases shall remain confidential," Green's statement said.

And so will end the salacious details of O’Reilly’s relationship with his former assistant, the bombast replaced by bromo seltzer as the folks at Fox News finally shovel their news star off the front pages of every scandal sheet and website in the nation.

Has the damage already been done? Or will O’Reilly somehow find a way to skip over a rather unfortunate bit of publicity that certainly will bring down his overheated bellicosity a few notches. It most certainly will affect his latest publication "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids", some questions Mom and Dad just don't want to answer Bill!

Perhaps he can take on the task of a study on why Right wing commentators (Calling Bill and Dr. Laura), religious leaders (Hey Jimmy oh and you too Jim) and politicians (Howdo Newt, Jack et al) always seem to be knocked down a few pegs over sex scandals, a curiosity that seems to be the frequent domain of the right!

It may be a lengthy trip back to credibility (if he ever actually accomplished that in the first place) already his recreational activities are feeding the satire machine.

His latest little travails also have him the focus of those who wait for him to implode upon his own star. It will be watched with interest how the proclaimer of the NO SPIN ZONE, can deflect the issue without the benefit of a few revolutions of his own!