Samodovolnost' and Bill O'Reilly

The Russians have a wonderful word, samodovolnost', which has no direct equivalent in English, but which should. (In fact, since English thrives in major part because it has the most larcenous vocabluary ever, perhaps we should just adopt the word with simplified spelling and pronunciation.) Nonetheless, it means, essentially, "fatuous or obnoxious self-satisfaction and unwarranted pride in self." For a world-wide Anglosphere populated with ticks in human form known as politicians and that peculiar variety of intestinal worm known as the "journalist" (really, the TV, radio, or newspaper talking heads -- I am more a "jounalist" in the original 18th cent. sense of one who maintains a journal of public discourse than they are; most of them are propagandists for the State Religion)(of course, there are those who would maintain that I am also a type of intestinal worm, but we'll leave that for the moment......)

Now, what was I writing about....? Oh, yes: Samodovolnost. And Bill O'Reilly. Apologies to many otherwise like-minded conservative friends such as Billy Bob, Frenkenstein, Cave Dave, colleagues at work, and others, but Bill O'Reilly really is a piece of cheese and a blot on the landscape; a fatuously self-congratulatory oxygen theif whose bloviation entails stealing way more than a normal person's ration of O2.

The first hint for me of his growing Samodovolnostification was when he lashed out at bloggers (whom he should realize are among his natural poltical and cultural allies) for conspiring to steal his ratings. Of course, I never really liked him to begin with, based simply on the same public persona of self-absorbed smugness that turned me off of Rush Limbaugh years ago.

Nonetheless, now there is proof unequivocal of his Samodovolnostishness:

An exchange between Bill O’Reilly and Neil Cavuto:

CAVUTO: Okay. Gas prices are down a lot. Why do you think that is?

O’REILLY: Because they’re afraid they’ll go to jail. And those C.E.O.s who manipulated them–

CAVUTO: Why are you sure that they manipulated them?

O’REILLY: I have guys that are inside the five major oil companies - my father used to work for one of those oil companies, by the way - who have told me that in those meetings they look for every way to jack up oil prices after Katrina, every way. When they didn’t have to. And they got scared because in my reporting and some other reporting, they said –

CAVUTO: Wait, you’re taking credit for gas prices being down?

O’REILLY: My reporting and reporting of others.

Bow to Rob of Say Anything, who's spot on in his analysis:

Right Bill. Oil prices didn’t spike because of the damage done to the nation’s refinery infrastructure during the hurricane season and the subsequent rebuilding of that infrastructure. Nope. Oil prices spiked because the evil corporate heads of the oil industry decided to take advantage of America during a weak moment, and the prices only came down thanks to the concerted efforts of hard-fighting media pundits.

Neither a Keynesian nor a Friedmanite; without Marx or Adam Smith; not supply side, but not demand-driven -- Mr O'Reilly has created a new "Third Way" in economics: the School of Heroic Journalism. The hand is no longer invisible: Mr. O'Reilly obligingly provides it for you as a public service (his only reward--a multimillion dollar contract with Fox News). He will tell you what you need to buy and he will tell the suppliers what they must supply and how they are to price it. You heard it here first.

Brain...or...something else?

This is Mainstream Media Disorder in one of its most extreme manifestations. It's mildly heartening to see that it doesn't just aflict the Left. (As Bill can tell you, it's a burden being right all the time...)

Monk