Remember Bill O'Reilly's sexy Falklands novel?
by digby
So it's looking like Papa Bear might have made up his war stories. He has repeatedly, on the record, claimed that he reported from the war zone during the Falklands war.
Unfortunately:
American reporters were not on the ground in this distant war zone. "Nobody got to the war zone during the Falklands war," Susan Zirinsky, a longtime CBS News producer who helped manage the network's coverage of the war from Buenos Aires, tells Mother Jones. She does not remember what O'Reilly did during his time in Argentina. But she notes that the military junta kept US reporters from reaching the islands: "You weren't allowed on by the Argentinians. No CBS person got there."
That's how Bob Schieffer, who was CBS News' lead correspondent covering the Falklands war, recalls it: "Nobody from CBS got to the Falklands. I came close. We'd been trying to get somebody down there. It was impossible." He notes that NBC News reporter Robin Lloyd was the only American network correspondent to reach the islands. "I remember because I got my butt scooped on that," Schieffer says. "He got out there and we were all trying to get there." (Lloyd tells Mother Jones that he managed to convince the Argentine military to let him visit Port Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands, but he spent only a day there—and this was weeks before the British forces arrived and the fighting began.)
Schieffer adds, "For us, you were a thousand miles from where the fighting was. So we had some great meals."
Ooops.
But it's understandable. He may have confused his experiences with his fictional alter ego, a psychopathic journalist who was assigned to Buenos Aires during the Falklands war and had his story stolen by a major anchor he later murdered.
I wrote this about it 10 years ago:
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Semper Falafel
O'Reilly understands that war is hell:
Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands War, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash. If that wounded insurgent had a grenade or other explosive device, the entire marine squad and the photographer could be dead right now. In a killing zone, one cannot afford the luxury of knowing what is certain.
As with all literary greats like Mailer, Jones and Heller, O'Reilly has memorialized his scorching wartime experiences in his novel, "Those Who Trespass" a murder mystery partially set in Argentina during the hell on earth that was Buenos Aires after the Falklands war:
The sky was clear, but clouds were assembling in the west. Shannon ran his fingers through his thick mane of wavy brown hair. His teal blue eyes were locked on the agitated crowd. It was his eyes that most people noticed first--a very unusual color that some thought materialized from a contact lens case. But Shannon, the product of two Celtic parents, didn't go in for cosmetic enhancements. His 6' 4 frame was well toned by constant athletics, and his pale white skin was flawless--another genetic gift. Shannon's looks, which he thoroughly capitalized on, made him a natural for television.
As the mob continued its boisterous serenade, Shannon slowly shook his head. Most wars were foolish, he thought, but this one was unusually idiotic. The Argentine Junta, a group of military thugs led by General Galtieri, had ordered an invasion of the British-administered Falkland Islands on April Fool's Day, 1982. The government claim was that the islands, which the Argentines called the Malvinas, became a part of Argentina through a Papal declaration in 1493. The British disagreed. So, nearly five hundred years after the grant of land, the Argentine Army swarmed ashore, startling eighteen hundred British subjects and tens of thousands of bewildered sheep.
Sends chills down your spine, doesn't it? I don't want to ruin the story by revealing the fiery hell that our blue eyed Celtic hero endured when he had to cover the street protest and deal with some gas cannisters and a soldier who looked at him funny. Let's just say that that marine in Falluja won't know what hell is until he's had to film a news story with his flawless white skin covered in dust and dirt. It just makes you sick to even think about it. The horror...
In case you were wondering the fictional account is probably taken from a protest he covered for CBS:
The protest in Buenos Aires was not combat. Nor was it part of the Falklands war. It happened more than a thousand miles from the war—after the fighting was over. Yet O'Reilly has referred to his work in Argentina—and his rescue of his cameraman—as occurring in a "war zone." And he once told a viewer who caught his show in Argentina, "Tell everybody down there I covered the Falklands war. They'll remember."
Update: Here's a clip of Billo reading a sexy shower scene from the book. Don't listen if you've just eaten:
"Closing her eyes she concentrated on the tingling sensation of water flowing against her body. Suddenly another sensation intruded, Ashley felt two large hands wrapped themselves around her breasts and hot breathe on the back of her neck. She opened her eyes wide and giggled. I thought you drowned out there Snorkel Man. Tommy O'Malley was naked and at attention, drowning is not an option he said unless of course you beg me to perform unnatural acts right here in this shower."