Shep returns
Shepard Smith is back in New York. After seeing raw nerves and blunt honesty, it was too bad seeing him last night packaged in the studio again. But the fire is still there.
He faced Bill O’Reilly — whose ego-bloated bombast he cut through last week — again. O’Reilly had earlier in the evening talked about criminals in New Orleans and, with characteristic charm, asked: “Are they driven by rage because their lives are so worthless?” Worthless to whom, Bill? That’s the question these days, eh?
O’Reilly condescends to Smith, treating him the way a good ol’ boy treats an angry woman: “You had some emotion,” O’Reilly smirked. “Upon reflection, what have you learned from the storm?” The implication is that Shepard was just having a hissy fit when he tore into O’Reilly: it was just emotion, not the product of reflection.
O’Reilly can’t ever help saying that he knows what’s happening and no one else does: “I knew, I knew that a huge bureacracy like the federal government couldn’t move that fast.” He tries to defend the feds and blame the locals; Shep won’t jump to conclusions and he just gives Bill a cold stare that, I believe, will become his trademark. He cuts O’Reilly down with silence and the authority of experience: He was where O’Reilly wasn’t.
Later, Shep appeared on Letterman, telling the story of spending the night on I-10 as “there were thousands of people coming out of the sewage with nowhere to go… and we weren’t seeing this…. things you never dreamed you would see in the United States.”
Next he says he’s headed to Mississippi.
“We gotta get the news to the people, Dave.”
September 6th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
Adam Housley just “reported” that the dead bodies surfacing in New Orleans are something “you do not want to touch…they’re GROSS”.
Thanks, Adam. Good job.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:12 pm
Well relayed, Jeff.
I though Shephard Smith did a terrific job communicating his displeasure to O’Reilly. And he hardly had to utter a word to the contrary. His smoldering eyes said it all.
September 6th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
Shepard is a class act—you can’t help but dig his style and the way he presents himself.
September 6th, 2005 at 8:00 pm
shep owning bill o’reilly without saying a word? tremendous.
September 6th, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Shep rocks.
September 7th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
I must have been watching a different channel than the ones you guys watch. I saw some of this but Mr. J’s hatred of O’rielly reflects in everything he talks about when veiwing the big O. Shep though is one of the few news casters that doesn’t usually show his personal side but this was a diiferent case.
September 7th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
Does anybody else remember when O’Reilly was on Inside Edition? Class-act all the way, that guy. From laughably stupid celebrity gossip to laughably stupid TV windbaggery, there’s nothing O’Reilly can’t do!
September 7th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
Shep needed a rest by the time he got off the air. He was all feelings but had started to direct them in the wrong direction. O”Reilly……I sometimes wonder how he manages to stay in the same room with himself. When he says “we’ll take care of it if they don’t do blah blah blah”, I hear scratching on a blackboard.
A note of possible interest since we saw all the reporters under stress and crying for someone to get in there……Today, I saw the head of the Red Cross confirm the report by Major Garrett on FOX, that the Red Cross was lined up with food and water ready to go in. The state of LA stopped them. Same when they say FEMA stopped the food and water. It was state controlled FEMA.