Egads !! Did you hear yesterday's, Wed. Oct 8th, edition of "Fresh Air" on NPR with guest: Bill O'Rilley? He really does that "shut up" thing. Aside from being articulate, opinionated, and quick witted, he came across in the interview as venal, brutish, and displayed a grossly over-inflated ego.

As a book reviewer once said of Ayn Rand: "The author's overconfident sense of their own rightness and persistence at pressing their points with little respect for opposing views can quickly become more than a little annoying."

And like so many other "puffed up on-air celebrities" are prone to do, he stalked out of the interview part way through because the host, Terri Gross, would not respond to one of his baited questions as he expected. While physically he may be 6'4" and 200 some odd pounds, he came across in the interview just like the mentally lightweight bully that we all knew in high school.

His diatribes against Al Franken, the NYT, and "Liberals" sounded like a remake of a TV District Attorney's outtakes. And just as his loud-mouthedness gave a push to Franken's book, it seduced me into listening to Franken's Fresh Air interview which occurred a few weeks earlier.

As Terri Gross said: "...it was a different interview", where O'Reilly was loud and pushy, Franken was mellow and humorous. Befitting their respective public personas. Fine. Samuel Clements or the Good Doctor were highly skilled commentators, and realized the strength of their voice had nothing to do with the strength of their words. O'Reilly proved in the interview he does not value that concept.