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The masterful Bill O'Reilly: "Whitney Houston wanted to kill herself"
By Jeff MillsFebruary 14th, 2012, 1:30 pmComments (12)
By now, pointing out Bill O'Reilly's ridiculousness is like shooting goldfish in a bowl, but his latest comments on the tragic death of Whitney Houston bear addressing. On Monday night's O'Reilly Factor, the opinionated host used Houston's untimely demise as an excuse to do his scolding schoolmaster routine, saying drugs are bad for you, blah blah blah, the pro-legalization Tony Bennett's "grasp on reality is slipping," Singapore is great, etc.
O'Reilly's thoughts on Houston, however, were not as innocuous. He said:
"Whitney Houston wanted to kill herself. Nobody takes drugs for that long if they want to stay on the planet. She follows in the footsteps of Elvis, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, and scores of other entertainment figures. The hard truth is that some people will always want to destroy themselves, and there's nothing society can do about it."
What's off-putting about that is how declarative the tone is. Did Bill O'Reilly really have access to Whitney Houston's thoughts? Houston had a very public battle with addiction, squandering a nine-figure fortune, and, according to reports, was reduced to borrowing money from friends at the end. One can imagine the amount of suffering Houston endured as a result of her habits. Whether she died from a combination of Xanax and alcohol or not is beside the point. At this time, Houston's life should be both celebrated and mourned, not written off as a suicidal fiasco.
I believe Whitney Houston wanted to alleviate her suffering, not "destroy" herself. She had an eighteen-year-old daughter who she clearly loved, and I can't imagine Houston willfully abandoning her like that. Does anyone really believe O'Reilly when he says he "said a prayer for her last night?" That was on the teleprompter, right? Houston's funeral will be held on Saturday at the Baptist church in Newark, N.J. where she sang gospel as a young girl. May she rest in peace.
Commentarium (12 Comments)
Nice condemnation of O'Reilly speculating on her thoughts, followed by... speculation on her thoughts.
Bill O R, happy V day asshole! It really say's something about our great nation when millions of people give a shit about what this Nazi has to say about anything. All you god fearin gun totin fag haters can rally-round this dredge and feel good about yer ignant dumb-asses yeeeehaaaawwww! Fuck Bill and fuck you if you like him.
While I agree that what O'Reilly did was offensive, I find it frustrating that this writer criticizes him for believing he has "access to her thoughts," when he goes on to make the same mistake in the next paragraph. It's easier to get away with this when your assumptions are born of compassion, but how does this writer know that Whitney Houston didn't want to destroy herself? Maybe she did. That's the thing about celebrities: We all feel that we have access to their thoughts because they live much of their life in public, but we can't assume we know what goes on in their heads with only their behavior as evidence.
Trust me, I thought about this beforehand, and knew it would sound like I was contradicting myself, but it was well known that Houston loved and adored her daughter, so it doesn't seem like speculation that she wouldn't want to purposely do that to her daughter. I think that's more plausible than saying she definitively wanted to kill herself. Perhaps anything other than an accidental overdose is too sad to contemplate. Either way, I'll gladly be put on the hook for my feelings about it, I think most people would agree that she wasn't trying to destroy herself, but rather trying to alleviate her suffering due to a drug dependency. Unfortunately, the nature of certain drugs is that they are both venom and anti-venom, and that can lead to tragedies like this. The point is, unlike O'Reilly, I'm not trying to coldly point a finger and moralize right after someone has died, I'm just trying to fondly remember an awesome singer and loving mother who died way too soon.
the writer does say ' i believe' and ' i can't imagine'. doesn't make a bold declaration of fact the way o'reilly does.
Unfortunately, a lot of people are willing to make this level of judgment about people with addiction struggles. "They just don't want to get better," etc. I do think he went over the line, but I think it's symptomatic of the way people in America generally feel entitled to judge issues of mental health in others.
Bill's two-cents, will never even come close to being worth that...
Nancy Grace was engaging in wild speculation, too, suggesting that someone else was in the room when Whitney died. Honestly, these people in the right don't mind engaging in what amounts to wild guesses based on no evidence at all, and they never apologize when they're wrong, and there's never any price to pay.
"...wild guesses based on no evidence at all..."
That's what the right-wing calls 'science'.
And what the left calls policy.
"...wild guesses based on no evidence at all..."
Anything that comes out of any politician's mouth.
Yes but Nancy is reliably liberal and thus is ok. O'Reilly is (relatively) conservative and therefore a worthy candidate of slander.
Now you say something