Bill O'Reilly

The childhood background O'Reilly portrays on TV is a big lie. His dad was not some clock punching construction worker - he was an oil company accountant. O'Reilly has repeatedly stated that his father's salary was $35,000 in 1980, which translates to $82,000 in 2005. That's at least a solid middle-class salary. After 5 years of college and 7 years working, I wish I made that much. His family moved to Long Island when he was 2, where he later attended a private boys academy, a small and expensive private college, then spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London.

Do you believe O'Reilly knows the impression he gives when he uses the term "working class"? I think he knows that many people understand the traditional meaning of "working class." O'Reilly deliberately downgrades his past to make himself seem a more suitable spokesmen for the little guy. If we re-define "working class" to mean anyone at all who works for a living, that renders the definition virtually meaningless, since it encompasses everyone from the minimum wage earner, to O'Reilly's oil company accountant father, to Bill Gates. I would call that "spinning". O'Reilly has been a journalist for decades. Old Bill rakes in $50,000 per speaking engagement and has a salary of $9,000,000 per year. Like it or not, he is one of the elite. While he does good work fighting the child molesters and bitching about powerless movie stars, he hardly criticises the corrupt republican politicians who have held the real reigns of power in this country for six years. His father made enough money that his wife could stay at home in a house in the most expensive city in the USA, and also send his son to private schools. If you believe household incomes less than $100K is working class today and the O'Reilly household was just under that level. Consider that in 2006 the median US household income was $46,000, with only the top 16% making over $100K per year. With nearly 2/3 of US households making less than 60K, I would not fell sorry for the adjusted-income O'Reilly family coming in at $92,000.

*I would classify US household incomes per below (population % based on 2005 numbers):
$20K or less as impoverished (22%)
20K-60K working class (42%)
60K-100K middle class (21%)
100K-200K upper middle class (13%)
200K+ (top 2%)

BTW, O'Reilly really hates Mexicans for racial and cultural reasons. If you take offense at my charge of racism, do you believe Bill would have the same unhinged reaction if the USA were being overrun by illegal immigrants who were tall, blonde, leggy Swedish swimsuit models who arrived here looking for wealthy white American husbands? This is about the appearance and behavior of the immigrants, not their legal status.