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Every journalistic medium produces a characteristic set of forms and attitudes; network news is—even now—about authority, and cable news, increasingly, is about itself. Back in the classical period, liberal media-watchers did a brisk trade in pointing out that Fox News was not actually "Fair & Balanced," as its slogan claimed. That was not an earth-shattering revelation; "Fair & Balanced" had always been a code whose meaning—here's news that gives you the world as you already see it—was perfectly understood by the Fox audience. But Fox's conservatism has acquired a lot of curlicues. Conservatives control the White House, the House, the Senate, and, perhaps, the Supreme Court. Internecine battles are much more important than they were ten years ago, and it is harder to be simply "conservative." O'Reilly insists (implausibly, but he does take the trouble) that he is ideologically unclassifiable.
His attitude toward President Bush is less than completely worshipful. "Summing up, I believe George W. Bush is personally honest but is also a charter member of the power-establishment club that plays by its own rules," O'Reilly wrote in his 2003 book, "Who's Looking Out for You?" He has a few "liberal" positions—he's anti-death penalty, pro-gay civil union, pro-gun control, and not entirely anti-abortion—although, if you look carefully, where he is on each of these issues is not where you are going to find Nancy Pelosi or Howard Dean. He has almost nothing in common with libertarians, except that he thinks taxes are too high. He is not a big fan of the Iraq war, or of the kind of maximalist, world-saving foreign policy that the war was meant to exemplify. Mainly, O'Reilly, like every political talk-show host with a big following, is a populist, who, in his beyond-irony way, is a rich, middle-aged white guy aligned with the ruling party, and who has the guts to stand up to the élitists who run (but also hate) this country. To say that that doesn't make any sense is to deny oneself the pleasure that a close study of O'Reilly affords.
