FLORENCE KING: Chapter and Verve
Kitman, Marvin
WE ARE NOW AT THE PART of Stealing Lincoln's Body where susceptible readers may think they hear music: specifically, the evocative tinklingragtimeofScottJoplin's"TheEntertainer,"as orchestrated...
...Heis,however,justified in his claims to be balanced because "he has a chiponbothshoulders...
...I bought second-hand leg pads, you know, leg pads that had been around since Gump Worsley's day...
...And I stand up, and he's like,youknow,lookingwayup...
...you know...
...For example, "Red Jimmy" FitzgeraldswindledCharlesFrancisAdams,adescendant of two U.S...
...Do start with Chapter Sixteen and then go back and read thefirstpart.Thisway,youwillbringtoKitman'sbest writingthementalfreshnessitdeserves.Hisdescription of the typical political guest--"think-tank turret gunners who make the rounds of news shows, spinning their yarns"--is perfect...
...otherkidswereaffluent,youknow,andlookedgreat," while poor O'Reilly looked like a ragamuffin on ice...
...Peter Jennings: No...
...I liked O'Reilly's anger...
...I'm uncomfortable with the word `proud,'" he says, and then offers a more suitable formulation: "What aspect of your Senate career do you least regret...
...I'm serious about this book's arrangement...
...He could find fulfillment doing other things...
...Aldermen "Hinky Dink" Kenna and "Bathhouse John" Coughlin threw parties to which the owners of brothels, saloons, and gambling parlors hadtobuyblocksoftickets...
...They limped back to their old Chicagohangoutandimmediatelywerearrested...
...This book does not start getting good until Chapter Sixteen, but there was no one to advise me of this so I foolishlyreadthefirstfifteenchaptersfirstandhavetheCTScan results to prove it.I should have read the book backwards but I didn't and now I am paying for the author's compulsive fidelity to chronology at all costs...
...Butthen,lestanyonefindhimguiltyofbeingtooprincipled, he goes on to point out a time when he voted for a bad bill out of political prudence...
...His Achilles' heel is the "Wally Pipp syndrome," the fear of being replaced permanently as YankeesfirstbasemanPippwasreplacedbyLouGehrig for the next 2,130 games...
...Teaching high school history in Florida, he lived in an apartment near the Miami Airport, where, said his breathless roommate, "the stewardesses were hanging from the balcony, falling through the door, I mean, like, they were always coming over--Jeez, you shoulda seen 'em...
...and his announcement that 87 percent of Jon Stewart's viewership was intoxicated...
...Justwhenwethink we can't stand another reference to his height, one of the rambling interviewees earns the reader's eternal gratitude with, "He was tall but he was slow...
...I mean, I would do anything just to not let that puck go in the goal...
...his recommendation that the government should not respond if San Francisco was attacked by terrorists...
...Instead we begin with his birth--1949 or the Year One, take your pick--in what O'Reilly the proud prole insists was working-class Levittown, Long Island, and what his enemies insist was a higher class suburb, and immediately find ourselves reading through a wrangle aboutzipcodesandpresentedwithaphotocopyofthe deedtothefamilyhousewithLevittownclearlyvisible on it...
...Chapter and Verve ISPEAK TO YOU FROM MY BED OF PAIN...
...Those are the things that won me over...
...When he started working he made sure he had a sycophantic roommate to help with the bragging as well as the rent...
...So here's this guy, see, he's about five-eight...
...Tobesure,itwasn'tsomethinghesetouttodo.If his life had gone according to his plan, he would have remainedalawyerinthefamily'soilexplorationbusiness, which would have enabled him to spend time withhiswifeandchildren,aswellasmanyhoursbird 7 0 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R A P R I L 2 0 0 7 B O O K SI NR E V I E W Gleanings From an Unplanned Life: An Annotated Oral History by James L. Buckley (ISI BOOKS, 308 PAGES, $25) Reviewed by Kevin Lynch Kevin LynchlivesinArlington,Virginia...
...Environmentally Sound HARD AS IT IS TO BELIEVE,thevotersofNewYork, thestatethatinrecentyearshasadornedthe U.S.SenatewiththetwingiftsofChuckSchumer and Hillary Clinton, once sent that esteemed body a man who is ill at ease when asked to name his proudest achievement in the Senate...
...his need `not to let those bastards get away with it' is an eternal flame, a nuclear pile of anger continually recharging itself...
...The worst uproar centered around the stillunclear sexual harassment case brought by Andrea Makris, when O'Reilly allegedly confused "loofah" with "falafel" and offered to wash her private parts withasandwich,butallofKitman'seffortstostraighten it out came to naught: nobody would talk...
...Liberals would have to acknowledge that O'Reilly's NewJournalismisMurrow'sOldJournalism,andas most of them lack Kitman's fairness, they would be loath to do so...
...Some upstanding citizens in Springfield, appalled by the notion that Abraham Lincoln's burial site might once again be desecrated, formed the Lincoln Guard of Honor...
...I was so much better than what they had, you know, it was ridiculous...
...WE ARE NOW AT THE PART of Stealing Lincoln's Body where susceptible readers may think they hear music: specifically, the evocative tinklingragtimeofScottJoplin's"TheEntertainer,"as orchestrated for the Paul Newman-Robert Redford movie The Sting...
...But, Ailes added, he could retire and write, because "he doesn't have that fear of not being on TV that most celebrities have...
...Fearful of another grave-robbery attempt, its members secretly reburied Lincoln's coffin in the basement of the tomb...
...All the uproars, bawled threats, and murderous fantasies notwithstanding, they add up to 25 years of experience in local TV, network, telemagazines, and cable...
...Hungry Joe" Lewis conned Oscar Wilde...
...It was this aspect of O'Reilly that explains why it took Kitman so long to publish this book...
...The same class-based picayune contention springsupoverhisschool:WasitaneliteCatholicacademyornot?Tohelpusgettothebottomofthiswehear allaboutthenuns,thepriests,thelibrary,thegrounds, the athletic field, scholarly priorities, and academic philosophy, all detailed in verbatim interviews of anyonewhoeversaworheardoftheplace...
...They were not very good at strategicplanning,either.BigJim,whostayedhomeon thenightinquestion,entrustedtheactualoperationto two pals, and they, in turn, enlisted not one, but two, police informers as assistants...
...The differenceis,it'sallO'Reilly'sspin...
...It seemed to be no more than a symbolic, patriotic-fraternal order, but it undertook a serious task...
...He's as happy beating the crap out of an anonymous single personasanentireaudienceandguest.Imean,hecanjust joust his paperboy, and he'll feel fulfilled...
...His most loutish act while at CBS, which earned the wrath of Bill Paley himself, was his at-tempt to question New York Governor Carey in a receivinglineaboutwhyMrs.Careywassounpopular with the voters--while the Governor's white-gloved Ladystoodbesideherhusband,listeningtothewhole exchange...
...Every night he brings passion to the tube...
...Though it has been more than 30 years since Buckley served in the Senate, the reader can't help wondering if that vote stillcauseshimsomesleeplessnights.Thereaderalso can't help wondering how a man this excruciatingly honest ever got elected to the Senate...
...He is perpetually upset...
...What he should havedoneiswrittenitbackwards,kickingoffwiththe MouthofO'ReillyPresent,thengoneintoaflashback on the Mouth of O'Reilly Past, and last, summed up his predictions in a final chapter called the Mouth of O'Reilly Yet to Come...
...When they all showed upatLincoln'stomb,Tyrrellandotherdetectiveswere waiting...
...Those skinny legs wouldn't support him...
...He went out for everything, always choosing, says Kitman, the position that would make him the center of attention: pitcher, quarterback, goalie...
...On and on it goes, what every man has heard in a bar, what every woman has heard on a date, with, in O'Reilly's case, the inevitable additional boast about his height of six-foot-four and all the shrimps who resented him for it...
...It gets even worse...
...Andsoon;BigJimKennallyandhiscrew,though, were never in that league...
...When recalling his school days he boasts about sports...
...The B O O K SI NR E V I E W 6 8 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R A P R I L 2 0 0 7The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly by Marvin Kitman (ST...
...The cure, he believes, is not exactly more O'Reillys, but more journalistic idiosyncrasy, a quality he dubs "O'Reillyismo" and compares to the opinionated, often heretical ideas of EdwardR.Murrow.Althoughthetwomencouldnot be more different in personality, Kitman contends that the quiet, urbane Murrow was just as angry as O'Reilly and just as ready to defy the powers that be, as when he criticized J. Edgar Hoover, Douglas MacArthur, Nationalist China, and the tobacco interests at a time when they were television's biggest advertisers and he himself was a heavy smoker...
...Watching the show is like being in a Laundromat with all the machines on spin cycle...
...Boom...
...Indeed, America's 16th president did not find his final resting place until 1901, when his coffin was enclosed in a steel cage, lowered into a vault, and covered with cement...
...The boast is thething;allboastsareequal...
...This would have won O'Reilly's approval in view of his famous campaign to rescue Christmas, and put some space between the wheat and the chaff that we are asked to digest...
...O'Reilly's claim to run a "no-spin zone" is, says Kitman,"abrilliantOrwellianconceit--blackiswhite...
...I made the varsity hockey team," he sighs, but hisworking-classfamilyhadnomoneyforequipment so"Ihadmymothersewapadthatcoveredmyarm...
...As for Makris, he predicts B O O K SI NR E V I E W A P R I L 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 6 9 thatshewillbethenextcorpseinThoseWhoTrespass...
...peaceiswar;entertainmentisnews--sinceitisactually all spin...
...Mostofthem,ifnotonforoneday,feelthereissomebodystandingontheirairhose.Billdoesn'thavethat...
...He goes after the dragon...
...An admitted liberal, he neither loves O'Reilly nor hates him, but places himself in a third group: "guilty of liking him--with an explanation.Idon'tagreewithmuchofwhathesaysbutIlike thewayhesaysit.Hisrageburnsliketheescapinggas at oil refineries...
...he never took drugs, smoked neither marijuana nor tobacco, and never drank--like Agnes Gooch in Auntie Mame, his favorite beverage was and is Dr...
...You can lose,andBilldoesn'tliketo.RogerAiles:Notifhehad to spend any of his own money...
...What does Kitman think the future holds for O'Reilly...
...girls all over the place...
...and then they were going for fieldgoals.Theholder,youknow,theguy,hetakesthe snap, intentionally turned the laces in to me because he didn't like me, didn't want me on the team...
...MARVIN KITMAN matches O'Reilly in experience, having been Newsday's TV critic for 35 years...
...Roger Ailes finally got him to stop coming into the office on his day off, but hissisterworriesaboutwhatamajorillnesswoulddo to his need for total control...
...This coach, he hated me, he was like five-four...
...Nevertheless, his response is still surprising...
...Blah, blah, blah...
...MARTIN'S PRESS, 318 PAGES, $25.95) Reviewed by Florence King Florence King's collections include The Florence King Reader,STET, Damnit!:TheMisanthrope'sCorner,1991 to2002,and,mostrecently,DejaReviews:FlorenceKing AllOverAgain...
...But the aborted grave robbery had an aftermath...
...The comparison doesn't quite make it: Murrow was a classic down-the-line liberal and O'Reilly, though he occasionally deviates, is too much of a conservative ever to be allowed to share Murrow's demigod status...
...This he can answer: "my willingness to take unpopular positions that I believed to be right...
...He sees O'Reilly as a non-conformist in a business that demands so much conformity that we ended up with "a generation of telegenic and totally uninvolved journalists...
...It was finished originallyin2003,butitssubjectisso"terminably pissed off" that constant new crises and explosions made it necessary to keep adding to the manuscript...
...Author Craughwell gives us a collectionofconmen,bunkoartists,andcrookedpols,most of them Chicago Irish...
...When O'Reilly entered journalism the profession witnessed "his uncanny ability to divide a newsroom...
...Willhegointopolitics?Kitman:Onlyifheseesit his duty to Stop Hillary...
...And everybody was like...
...I mean, it was absurd...
...There were, for example, O'Reilly's calls for boycotts against Canada and France, which many thought brushed close to a casus belli...
...He ventures a guess as to what happened: Makris invited O'Reillytobeherguestfordinner,andhe'ssuchatightwad that he couldn't resist...
...He has had so many TV jobs that they run together in a blur of fights--O'Reilly screaming "shut up!," O'Reilly calling people pinheads, O'Reilly jerking an editor by the necktie, threatening to break somebody's arms, burstingintoatelevisionexecutive'sofficetodemand on-camera credits, confronting Dan Rather about BobSchieffer'stheftofhisfootagewhentheycovered the Falklands War, and O'Reilly making Schieffer a corpse in Those Who Trespass, his novel about a TV reporterwhoturnsserialkillertotakerevengeonhis enemies...
...It's more than anyone else can claim, making O'Reilly the most seasoned and well-qualified journalistinthebusiness,somebodytobetakenseriously whatever one may think of him...
...O'Reilly thrived on this reverent SanchoPanzaness,somuchsothatheneeded no other stimulants...
...When one of the detectives accidentally discharged his revolver, however, the two would-be grave robbers fled on foot...
...Wherever he traveled, he was like Moses parting the Red Sea, those who hated him and those who loved him...
...I remember the punter...
...presidents...
...The Mouth of O'Reilly Past dominates these early rambling interviews, his unselective ego taking asmuchpleasureinbraggingaboutafightinthehallway as it does in bragging about demolishing a famous politician on TV...
...This disclosure comes more than halfway through this most unusual and fascinating book-based on interviews with James Buckley commissioned by The Historical Society of the District of ColumbiaCircuit--andbythistimethereadershould have had a good insight into the character of the former New York senator...
...Pepper...
...But I was so tough...
Vol. 40 • April 2007 • No. 3
