Recommended Viewing

One of my beliefs about talk/interview shows is that it's nearly impossible to win an argument with the host. He has home court advantage. He sets the agenda. He decides when to change topics, go to a commercial, etc. On radio call-in shows, the host has the extra power to mute the caller's voice without the home audience realizing it. A favorite trick of Mr. Limbaugh when he finds himself in an actual argument is to cut off the other party, then ask him a question. The lack of response is allowed to suggest that the caller couldn't come up with an answer.

I stopped watching Bill O'Reilly some time back because he kept shouting down guests who were coming perilously close to scoring debate points against him instead of actually responding. The other day, he tried bullying Phil Donahue and here, through the courtesy of the folks at crooksandliars.com, is a clip. I don't know if Phil could win a shouting match with Marlo but he did a pretty good job of not letting O'Reilly knock him off-message. The segment runs a little more than eight minutes.