2008 Woodie Awards
It might be the worst April Fool's gag of all time
Alex Panagiotopoulos
Issue date: 10/7/04 Section: Opinion
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It might be the worst April Fool's gag of all time.
April 1, 1971, Marist College. Page four of The Circle. A senior history major and football player named Bill O'Reilly had one of the last editions of his weekly humor column, titled "Attitudes: Outrageous" published.
Mr. O'Reilly took a diversion from his usually light-hearted and whimsical soliloquies and chose a serious topic: a disturbing culture at Marist College that rewarded arrogance and ego inflation, and marginalized intelligent discourse and compromise.
O'Reilly had to take a stand on the self-appointed purveyors of Greatness who seemed to be taking over what should be an accepting and enlightened campus. In his own words:
"As everyone knows here at Marist we are a Community. A community of people who overlook petty differences and work together to improve life for all. We are not only interested in our own welfare but with the welfare of our neighbors. We may differ with another's opinion but we allow him to express it and discuss differences of opinion openly.
It is very nice here at Marist for all these reasons and many, many more. It seems that we have all overcome our smallishness and have become broadminded and tolerant of others. This, I hope everyone realizes, is pure unadulterated bullshit."
What is this, the Talking Points portion of The O'Reilly Factor? Replace community of people with the Coalition of the Willing, welfare with War on Terror, and the 100-proof scatological reference with flip-flop, and Rupert Murdoch could have started Fox News 25 years earlier.
However, the stance O'Reilly was about to take might have hurt ratings over at the sensationalist Fair and Balanced Channel:
"We are tired of the Marist Community Myth. We are fatigued by people who cut up people behind their backs. We are appalled by the lack of purpose and direction on the part of both faculty and students. We are fed up with people verbally annihilating other people's creative efforts again behind their backs. We are sickened by the hypocrisy of people who will not tolerate anyone else's view but their own."
April 1, 1971, Marist College. Page four of The Circle. A senior history major and football player named Bill O'Reilly had one of the last editions of his weekly humor column, titled "Attitudes: Outrageous" published.
Mr. O'Reilly took a diversion from his usually light-hearted and whimsical soliloquies and chose a serious topic: a disturbing culture at Marist College that rewarded arrogance and ego inflation, and marginalized intelligent discourse and compromise.
O'Reilly had to take a stand on the self-appointed purveyors of Greatness who seemed to be taking over what should be an accepting and enlightened campus. In his own words:
"As everyone knows here at Marist we are a Community. A community of people who overlook petty differences and work together to improve life for all. We are not only interested in our own welfare but with the welfare of our neighbors. We may differ with another's opinion but we allow him to express it and discuss differences of opinion openly.
It is very nice here at Marist for all these reasons and many, many more. It seems that we have all overcome our smallishness and have become broadminded and tolerant of others. This, I hope everyone realizes, is pure unadulterated bullshit."
What is this, the Talking Points portion of The O'Reilly Factor? Replace community of people with the Coalition of the Willing, welfare with War on Terror, and the 100-proof scatological reference with flip-flop, and Rupert Murdoch could have started Fox News 25 years earlier.
However, the stance O'Reilly was about to take might have hurt ratings over at the sensationalist Fair and Balanced Channel:
"We are tired of the Marist Community Myth. We are fatigued by people who cut up people behind their backs. We are appalled by the lack of purpose and direction on the part of both faculty and students. We are fed up with people verbally annihilating other people's creative efforts again behind their backs. We are sickened by the hypocrisy of people who will not tolerate anyone else's view but their own."