In "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up," Marvin Kitman, a veteran television critic for Newsday, seeks to explain O'Reilly's astonishing ascent. Kitman, who conducted numerous interviews with O'Reilly and his relatives, friends and co-workers, has performed Boswellian prodigies of research. If you've been wondering when exactly O'Reilly yelled at his wife, Maureen, for profligately ordering a bottle of sparkling water at a restaurant, Kitman is your guy. But he aims for more than that. Kitman states in his preface that as a liberal, he relishes the chance to set the record straight about O'Reilly. He adds that via his own Newsday columns "a kind of mentoring has been going on over the years, as he has assimilated my ideas with his own and put them into practice." Kitman does a remarkably good job of telling the story of O'Reilly's turbulent life in clear, crisp prose. Still, if this book isn't a valentine, it's something of a mash note. Kitman maintains that O'Reilly is a potent (and welcome) antidote to the pap served up for decades by the television industry. What Kitman really ends up revealing, however, is that O'Reilly's struggle isn't about conservative ideas. It's about parading his seething personal resentments in order to become the very thing he purports to despise: a celebrity.Read that full New York Times piece here.
Olbermann talks about O Reilly's new book
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