Did Don sl-IMUS know Bob SCHIEFFER bigfooted O'LOOFAH?!1

[UTUSN]

I have not missed sl-IMUS one bit, but couldn't sleep and there he was on some cable thing with "highlights&quot sic) of his past week. First surprise, he hasn't aged a bit in all this time out of the big time, looks exactly as putrefied as he ever did.

That was enough for me but then the promo said O'LOOFAH was on next. So the asskissing was flowing more from sl-IMUS to O'LOOFAH, who (on the phone) sounded like he was slumming but as always lapping up whatever attention is flushed his way.

They went through a perfunctory walk through of O'LOOFAH's latest jams and jellies he's hawking , and on to the coming jam and jelly, something about the JFK assassination, how original, and his only acknowledgment of his having a "co-"writer (who does it ALL?!1) was his use of the "we" as in, "We" discovered this and "we" discovered that.

sl-IMUS who has spent a lifetime dealing with being condescended to by Easterners played the whole segment doing the kow-towing, asking whether OSWALD was the single shooter blah blah, and then out of nowhere - STRUCK!1

He said, innocently (I'm *sure*), (paraphrasing) "And that's one of the ODD things, did you know how Bob SCHIEFFER was connected to all this?!1

O'LOOFAH had his lungs COLLAPSE with an audible GASP.

The backstory is that O'LOOFAH claims to have been a WAR CORRESPONDENT. This would be long before he did the entertainment gossip show. And this great conflagration he exposed himself to was the Falkland Islands deal. Since he doesn't know enough about Hispanics not to use the word "wetbacks" when he was struggling to find "coyotes," it is doubtful that he was reporting from the Argentine side of the water, was probably serving tea to a Brit ship's captain. So O'LOOFAH claims that the Young Him had gotten some kind of scoop, had done ALL of the work on it, and was looking to get himself air time. But then the suits decided that this story was just too big to waste on an unknown like him and Bob SCHIEFFER was glided in and read off O'LOOFAH's work on the air. This is called "big footing," where the Big Name reporter gets the credit for a peon's work.

O'LOOFAH's resentment at that and the other networks that stifled him is the source for his chip on the shoulder, the hungry scarfing up of any publicity for himself, any attention, any big name coming to guest on his circus, why he makes welcome for all of the DISCARDS (Bernie GOLDDIGGER, Dennis MILLER, BecKKK, Lou DOBBS, and countless others).

But back to the sl-IMUS sandbagging. When he brought up SCHIEFFER, O'LOOFAH's lungs collapsed. Then sl-IMUS blithely went on to tell the story: That in the chaos of the assassination, SHIEFFER was just there at the Dallas studio, a young no-name, when a phone call came in from a woman named Marguerite, who said she was OSWALD's mother and needed a ride to get into town to go to OSWALD's pad. So SCHIEFFER jumped in a car and picked her up, getting the scoop that put him on the map, gaining entry to OSWALD's rental basement.

O'LOOFAH suffered through the story without comment. Bwah-ha-HAH!1

[11 Bravo]

1. I heard that. We were heading home to Virginia after a family vacation, and were actually ...

just merging onto the George Washington Bridge when Bill-o came on. It was worth it just to witness him having to STFU and listen for a change.

[monmouth]

2. This would have been a much better read if the silly nicknames were omitted. n/t

[UTUSN]

3. And if Post #2 had been in Meta. Thanks for contributing. n/t

[grantcart]

5. The problem with the nicknames is not stylish, it may be a little too inside baseball for

the wider readership.

You unnecessarily limit your reading audience with it. I figured out who you were talking about but then thought the whole piece would contain a lot of similar references and clicked away. I got curious about the Scheiffer reference and clicked back, and enjoyed it. If it wouldn't hurt your creative sensibilities you could add the names in brackets the first time you used their nicknames. A lot of people are outside of Imus' market and may not recognize him easily.

[stlsaxman]

6. he/she has an excellent point- i really wanted to check it out but...

the "cute" name changes didn't help one bit. I read to myself in my head (okay I'm an idiot, get over it) and had to stop each time and "translate" in my pointy little head every time your cute little name-calling happened. I had a headache by the 3rd sentence.

Could you translate for us peons, please?

[UTUSN]

7. Nope, I won't. I also whistle (softly) along with the jukebox & occasional patrons are irritated.

Besides being Seamus, *I* am also a peon. I laugh at the pretension of "wide readership" -- FOR MOI?!1 Haha!1 As for its being too inside, uh, (I'm conflating the various meta critiques here) I've been using these same nicknames for going over ten years. I really believe that anybody participating in this kind of political/media board would have a wide general knowledge of political events, gossip about what pecadillos personalities like O'LOOFAH have run themselves into, such that there is no deep need to act like it's the NYT (that would be the New York Times, to spell it out) here and we have to pretend to respect somebody like O'LOOFAH and call him "Mr O'Reilly." I really don't think it is too much to ask that if somebody is interested enough to click-in to a thread to put a little of their own effort into it beyond hijacking the content. Certainly not too much to ask that if somebody doesn't like it, beyond disagreeing with the content, just to MOVE ALONG and let the one or two people who DO live with it to do it their way.

Now. As I've said many times to off-topic hijackers, I'm well aware that my posting is erratic, running from the execrecrable end of the spectrum to the perceptive, and my board experience has been that it don't matter one jack of a whit: The most repulsive flamewars will get more attention than one of my well thought out and executed posts like this (really!1) O.P.

But to top it off, I'm going to repair to just Page 1 of this GD and make a list, which I will bring here, of all of the nicknames that others are currently using and Edit them into this post. And then how about anybody with this particular gripe here explaining why they are not posting the same gripe in all those other threads.

Be back soon!1
******************ON EDIT, back:

I only had the stomach to trudge through about half of the page. I'm here so much, but I NEVER open up every single thread. I just open the Subjects I might be interested in and if it turns out I'm not I MOVE THE HADES ON to the next I *might* be interested in (NOT the "next" one).

So in HALF of the page, here are some nicknames (that I DO get), plus some other types of references that I don't get. How about everybody going over to all those threads and griping and throwing the threads off kilter!1 I insist!1

**********QUOTE, from HALF of Page 1 of GD********

*******QUOTE: Nicknames and other-translations-I-need********

“To think the lock up people for Ganja.”

“Rmoney” (multiple)

“Ftizmas”/”Fitzmas” (multiple)

“Rut roh”

“Mittens” (multiple)

“RR” (I think they were referring to PR, Paul RYAN)

“What the Blue Fairy said to Pinocchio”

“Bat Puchanon”

“walfare”

“Nate Silver” (Who?)

**********UNQUOTE*******

[JDPriestly]

8. Sorry. I can understand how you feel, but I may be typical of people on DU.

I'm pretty well versed in a number of areas, but when it comes to media personalities, media politics, even the history of it, I am at a total loss.

I'm sorry, but I still don't quite understand the story. It sounds interesting but what does O'Reilly's war correspondent past have to do with Bob Schieffer. Did O'Reilly get a story in the Falklands that was read by and credited to Schieffer?

And then what is the significance of the fact that Schieffer got his first story through an accident of circumstance? Did that have something to do with O'Reilly or are the stories related because having to sit through an account of a stroke of good luck that put Schieffer on the path to success was just really painful to that obnoxious clown, O'Reilly? I'm just not sure what the post is about.

I don't want to offend, and I'm not criticizing. I just want to understand this because the jealousies and politics of behind-the-scenes in journalism and the media are not generally reported on very honestly -- for good reason, I must say. So this is interesting. I had no idea that Schieffer and O'Reilly were unfriendly.

[UTUSN]

11. Oh, ya doth protest too much. Your summary shows you *do* quite understand

maybe just enjoy joining in the piling on a bit.

[JDPriestly]

12. So I did understand. No. I wasn't piling on.

I was sincere. I thought I understood, but I never knew that O'Reilly had this problem with Bob Schieffer or how these guys got started in the business so I was intrigued and wanted to make sure I had understood.

A lot of what you perceive as piling on is just the amazement of those of us for whom the curtain behind the stage of TV news broadcasting is closed tightly. We don't see beyond it.

Newscasters don't get the same publicity that Hollywood stars do. There personal lives and professional foibles do not make tabloid headlines, so most of us don't think about them.

We are all curious about the real story on Keith Olbermann. My feeling is that he struggles a very personal battle in some way, but the media doesn't dare go into it. A lot of us care about him and would like to give moral support.

I mention that not because I think you know anything about Olbermann but just as an example of the fact that the personal lives and professional problems of newscasters are kind of mysterious to us out here.

[UTUSN]

13. I really like your discussion in this post, just wish it had not been in this off-topic sub-thread

I really do dispute one point in your previous post, that the story in the O.P. could not be understood. If we take the Sub-thread's point and substitute all proper names for the nicknames, I think it will be even more obvious that it was a well written and cogent piece.

As for your content that my information about the SHIEFFER-O'LOOFAH incident from the past, I don't know anything more inside than anybody in the vast unwashed masses. I happen to have seen or heard the tidbit about the Falklands years ago and have used my unlicensed observations of sl-IMUS's chip-on-the-shoulder about feeling looked-down upon by Easterners, and recognize he *does* have slyness about him, such that it was interesting that he APPEARS (I don't know) to have set a trap for Easterner/O'LOOFAH and purposely brought up the nemesis name/SHIEFFER to take a dig.

As for OLBERMANN, I am frequently taking an unpopular, unapproved side here, and liked his ferocious attacks on my political enemies while feeling uncomfortable that he was a very loose cannon. All I know are the stories in the gossip pages that he is a prima donna who is ugly to subordinates, but all this is what is available to anybody with this board's interests.

Now, thanks for discussing content instead of the sub-thread's focus on my posting idiosyncracies.

[JDPriestly]

14. I know. It's like the posts correcting grammar. Silly waste of time and very

annoying. I did have questions, but partly because I was intrigued. Thanks for responding.

[monmouth]

9. No problem, just used ignore...n/t

[UTUSN]

10. Great, wish it had happened before the first post. Whups, guess I'm invisible in the chair now!1

Or that other choice of not offering advice unless it's asked for.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Bill's claim: 'I've been in combat' and Al Franken's hilarious radio sketch on it

(The beginning includes audio of O'Reilly saying on his show, "I've been in combat" and answering a caller's questions about it.)

The Al Franken Show -- Sgt Bill O'Reilly, Tales Of Combat!