O'Reilly's book on the attempted assassination of R. Reagan savaged by historians.

[Yorktown]

Silver lining for O'Reilly: his book sells like hot buns, top of the Nielsen sales charts.

But I don't remember a book mauled so badly by the experts.

The wiki article is brutal:

Following the release of Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency, Reagan biographers Craig Shirley, Steven Hayward, Paul Kengor and Kiron Skinner, along with a handful of former Reagan aides, immediately began a broadside to challenge the book on its factual inaccuracies and historical fabrications. Those four Reagan Biographers, who have written 19 biographies on Ronald Reagan between them, penned an op-ed for The Washington Post that highlighted some of the major historical inaccuracies and outright fabrications used in O'Reilly's book. Additional criticisms surfaced from officials that actually served in the Reagan Administration, who were present at the events discussed in the book, yet dispute what actually happened. AB Culvahouse, who was Counsel to the President from 1987 to 1989, calls one of the key anecdotes of O'Reilly's book describing a meeting focused on President Reagan's fitness to hold office "a debunked myth."

In response, Bill O'Reilly took to the airwaves on October 19, 2015, ducking the criticism and calling his critics "zealots and jealous people." He also called the criticisms "comical," to which Reagan Historian Craig Shirley responded "So far, I've written four books on Ronald Reagan, written dozens of articles, given dozens of lectures, am a trustee of Eureka College, taught a course there [titled] Reagan 101, and have lectured at the Reagan Library and the Reagan Ranch. It is fair to say we probably know a little bit more about Ronald Reagan than Bill O'Reilly. We certainly know the facts of Ronald Reagan."

The following day, Ed Meese, who served as Counselor to the President (1981-1985) and as U.S. Attorney General (1985-1988) penned a joint op-ed with Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Executive Director John Heubusch detailed even more inaccuracies in O'Reilly's book, saying "we believe that 'Killing Reagan' does a real disservice to our 40th president and to history itself." The same day, President Reagan's Assistant for Political and Intergovernmental Affairs also penned an op-ed for The Washington Times disputing O'Reilly's key thesis as another discredited "senility myth" about Ronald Reagan.

Even more criticisms came from reporters at the Washington Post, who looked into O'Reilly's claim to have "double-sourced everything" in his book. On October 19, 2015, about a month after the book was published, O'Reilly's researcher first reached out to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to obtain a document that O'Reilly himself called a "key part of the book." On October 21, 2015, it was reported that the fact-checker that O'Reilly and Dugard commissioned to research and fact-check the manuscript for "Killing Reagan" bailed on the project after realizing that the authors were "distorting" material, in her opinion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Reagan

[Skittles]

1. you mean, Bill O'Reilly was making up shit for his stupid fans?

isn't that what he does for a living?

[KG]

2. ^^^thread winnah!

[bulloney]

7. I thought the same thing, Skittles.

I remember listening to an ESPN radio program recently when the two hosts were calling O'Reilly out on his exaggerations and lies about his college athletic career. O'Reilly claimed to be a varsity player when he played on a college club team. He also claimed to have pitched in practice with the NY Mets with a rookie named Tom Seaver, when the year he claimed was not Seaver's rookie year.

You can probably figure what happened from there: O'Reilly got huffy with the radio hosts and hung up on them.

If credibility was cotton, you couldn't get enough out of O'Reilly to make a T-shirt for a piss ant.

[Oneironaut]

20. O'Reilly is a fraud and a liar

Watch his program and weep for the current state of journalism. He won't even let his guests talk without screaming over them unless if he agrees with what they're saying.

[silvershadow]

3. Say what you will about Billo, but it will always be a historical fact that he

"was there" (wink, wink) before Brian Williams "was there". Never forget.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. He'll get away with it.

The Fox News addicts will still tune into his show every day and hang on his every word. About 30% of Americans have their heads up their asses.

[JHB]

5. Oh, there have been numerous books mauled by the experts...

Just about all of Billo's previous books, NRO editor Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism", the entire Anne Coulter oeuvre, etc.

This one's just getting more attention because Meese and the other people pushing back have more Beltway Insider clout than the people usually debunking these sorts of fiction-posing-as-fact screeds.

[nxylas]

6. It wasn't written for "the experts".

It was written for people who will believe any old shit that confirms their prejudices. Our "being savaged by the experts" is their "falling victim to the libtard conspiracy to silence real America".

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Senility Has Been Debunked?

I'm certainly not a O'Liely supporter, but if Meese and Culverhouse say Reagan wasn't senile, i'm thinking he probably was.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. Agree. Sounds like the whinings of Reagan fans who have been "rehabilitating" Reagan's image.

I lived through the Reagan era. The guy was not all there.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Yep!

I was in my late 20's and 30's. During his term, he clearly became an empty suit.

[LuvNewcastle]

11. He was definitely senile.

I was a teenager when he was in office, and I followed the news on tv every day. There wasn't much else to do back then. My history teacher got all of us subscriptions to Newsweek, so I also read it cover to cover. I watched Reagan deteriorate little by little, until they basically didn't let him do press conferences anymore. And Nancy did have a lot of control over what he did and where he appeared. I remember how he had that twinkle in his eye when he went into office, and I remember the blank stare he gave when he left. I don't know when his brain officially turned to mush, but he was exhibiting signs in his first term, IIRC.

[Tracer]

18. Senile in his later years as president, for sure.

I remember him trying to answer some questions from the press. He was at an outdoor venue and Nancy was behind him, feeding answers into his ear --- which he repeated almost verbatim.

[ryan_cats]

12. I keep

I keep seeing covers of books I might want to read. I saw George S. Patton and Adolph Hitler staring back at me from the book shelf and thought these might be a books that cover new ground. Then I noticed Bill O's name and lost any interest but gained revulsion.

O seems to think he has an original idea with the Killing... franchise but Rage Against the Machine might think it un-inspired.

[UTUSN]

13. R#13 for, *sweet* that O'LOOFAH is blasted from the wingnut side. n/t

[hatrack]

14. Oh, suddenly "facts", "accuracy" and "history" matter? I must have missed the memo.

Gosh, what changed?

[csziggy]

15. His book "Killing Lincoln" was also inaccurate

During the book's initial release, Rae Emerson, the deputy superintendent of Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, conducted a review of the book's text and discovered a number of inaccuracies, which she described as "factual errors" and listed as numbering ten, each different and one additionally occurring multiple times.[3][6] As a result of the review, the National Park Service, which manages Ford's Theatre, made the decision not to allow the edition of the book containing the errors to be sold at the Eastern National Bookstore located in the Museum at Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, although it is sold in a gift shop in the lobby that is operated independently by the Ford’s Theatre Society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Lincoln#Criticism

[BuelahWitch]

16. Why does he have to put the word "Killing"

in all his titles? "Killing Kennedy," "Killing LIncoln," etc. He's such a pompous dumbass he can't even try an original title for his "works."

[Johonny]

22. Readers like series from the same author thus it is simply good marketing

The books themselves are already pointless crap, but they sell to a set market of stupid people.

[mountain grammy]

17. The biggest buyer of O'Reilly's books

is Bill O'Reilly.

[Oneironaut]

19. O'Reilly is a massive blowhard who thinks he's smarter than he is

What more can be expected from someone who believed that the gas companies were decreasing gas prices because they were afraid of him? I'm surprised O'Reilly hasn't claimed credit for the Allies winning WWII as well. It's amazing that one person can achieve such a high level of douchebaggery.

[bullwinkle428]

21. This asshole has made a FORTUNE with his "Killing Whoever" books, so I'm sure

he's laughing all the way to the bank deep down. He couldn't give less of a fuck about criticism.

[Octafish]

23. O'Reilly mention Hinckley and Bush family connections?

John Chancellor of NBC reported that Neil Bush and Scott Hinckley were, that same evening, slated to have dinner together. Which might be a big coincidence or, from an operational POV, dumb. DailyKos has more details...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/06/09/32836/-Bush-Knew-Hinckley#

DU talked about it decades later...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Octafish/12