The No Spin Zone by Bill O'Reilly

I've been highly amused by O'Reilly's show the few times I've caught it, although I don't always agree with the stances he takes. The only time I distinctly remember not being amused was O'Reilly lambasting Vicente Fox for not helping with the illegal immigration problem from his side of the border. It sounded as if Bill had forgotten that we have a full range of unpleasant words for rulers who force their citizens to remain in the country against their will, and Fox was as flabbergasted by this memory lapse as I was. But I digress. The scary thing about The No Spin Zone was that I agreed with almost everything O'Reilly had to say. I'm not sure whether this is a credit to his writing skill, a comment on my gullibility, or not surprising at all because of course we're both completely right. ^_~

Overview
O'Reilly's book is separated into chapters by controversial issue, with one prominent guest for each chapter. It was slightly disconcerting to listen to, because sometimes the chapters flow very smoothly into each other, while other times there's a distinctive jump in topic. This resulted in my only noticing the chapter titles every now and then, and I had to check the table of contents to make sure I hadn't missed several chapters. Other than this, the book reads very well, as long as you don't mind O'Reilly's outrageous arrogance (aka, he actually believes his own opinions are right, and makes no bones about it). I don't, mostly because he makes no attempt to hide it, and because he respects people who he believes are wrong as long as they're honest. Issues covered in the book include sexual predators, working moms, fund raising scams, taxation, Bill Clinton, and the death penalty. (In other words, everything and anything came up, so the issues were probably just an overview of the significant guests O'Reilly had interviewed since his last book.)

Recommended for: Anyone, although the people who need to read it the most are probably the least likely to actually do so.

Audiobook Comments: Read by the man himself, which is as it should be. Only O'Reilly can deliver his distinctive oratory properly, and as expected for a TV personality, it is very well done.

Parental Worries: None, if they're old/smart/mature enough to make it through the book; unless you disagree with and/or dislike O'Reilly, in which case you should worry that your child might start seeing the world the way he does.

Ramblings
The opening topic is one that it's really hard to disagree with: the disgusting practice of protection for sexual predators. Specifically, protection of the rights of NAMBLA to publish information on how to molest young boys. O'Reilly interviews a representative from the ACLU for this chapter, since that organization is defending NAMBLA's right to publish information that has been directly linked to several cases of molestation. Disgusting. And O'Reilly wipes the floor with said representative, pointing out (among other things) that if nothing else, ACLU should listen to its donors, the vast majority of which are horrified by their action in this issue.

O'Reilly spends quite a bit of time describing the 'fundraising' (translation: extortion) activities of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. I have no real knowledge of the topic other than what's presented in this book, but it's pretty damning stuff. According to O'Reilly, here's the way it works: Rev approaches a company, rails at them for being evil white men without a diverse enough workforce. Threatens large-scale boycotts if company does not hire one of Rev's 'diversity counselors'. Company gives in, hires the counselor, lots of Rev's friends and family get hired, Rev gets plenty of donations for his pet charities (many of which support his own very comfortable lifestyle). Wow. It's astonishing that they can get away with this, which is one reason that I'm slightly skeptical. (Only slightly though, 'cause it fits with what I've seen of the two men in question.)

O'Reilly then takes Bush to task for his support of the death penalty because of its contradiction with his Christian faith. I've been frustrated by the death penalty debate for years because both sides have a knack for twisting facts left and right and backwards on themselves. (has it been proven to be a successful deterent against crime or not? is it more expensive to run endless hearings and appeals or just support criminals for the rest of their lives? I've received completely contradictory answers to these questions, both claiming the support of data) In the Christian view, however, the data doesn't matter--it's a question of morals and the teachings of Christ. Even though I'm a Christian, I tend to take a pragmatic view of the issue. I consider abolition of the death penalty to be a luxury of a sort--if a civilization is advanced far enough, they can afford to take the moral high ground and simply remove dangerous people from society instead of having to kill them. As one of the most advanced civilizations in the world, it seems that America should have that luxury, but a close look at our prison system may suggest otherwise. (I'm not using 'may' as a substitute for 'will' here, I honestly haven't researched our prison system or the death penalty debate closely enough to make that call)

O'Reilly provides the best solution to the death penalty debate that I've ever heard. He is against the death penalty, partially because of his Christian values and partially because he considers death to be too good for many of our worst criminals. He suggests a Federal prison in Alaska for murderers, child rapists and hard-core drug dealers--life sentences, hard labor, none of the cable television nonsense that we've got in most of our prisons these days. Removing these people physically from the mainstream of US life is a harsh exile, and O'Reilly is of the opinion that the threat of this life would be more of a deterent than death.

If this plan ever goes up for a vote, it's got mine.