I may not be able to watch Bill O'Reilly on The Colbert Report tonight

I mean, I imagine a lot of bloggers are looking forward to seeing Stephen rough him up in his inimitable satirical fashion. And I was too, being as I think O'Reilly's a lying idiot who pisses me off, and it's usually fun to watch such people make asses of themselves. As he almost certainly will.

That was before I read Media Matters latest clip on him.

On the January 15 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly said of Shawn Hornbeck -- who was abducted at the age of 11, held for four years, and recently found in Missouri -- that "there was an element here that this kid liked about this circumstances" and that he "do[esn't] buy" "the Stockholm syndrome thing." O'Reilly also said: "The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents.

"I'm not buying this. If you're 11 years old or 12 years old, 13, and you have a strong bond with your family, OK, even if the guy threatens you, this and that, you're riding your bike around, you got friends. The kid didn't go to school. There's all kinds of stuff. If you can get away, you get away. All right? If you're 11."

Abridged version: It's the kids fault. Or, it's his parents fault. Anything but...it's the fault of the person who abducted him. I'm sorry, isn't it supposed to be we Democrats who are more concerned about the rights of the accused than the victims?

So, Bill O'Reilly just moved for me from national embarassment to actual living, active danger. There's nothing funny about thinking a pubescent boy should have been enough of a big, strong man to get away from someone who was holding him captive. And that is O'Reilly's unmistakable implication.

I don't want to laugh at someone who thinks that. I want them jailed and then I want them smacked upside the back of their head a few times.

I'm funny that way.

ETA: Shakespeare's Sister expands on the point.

When some of his viewers criticized O'Reilly for this horseshit, he then said on the following day's broadcast: "I actually hope I'm wrong about Shawn Hornbeck. I hope he did not make a conscious decision to accept his captivity because Devlin made things easy for him. No school, play all day long."

So, apparently, Bill O'Reilly hopes that Devlin terrorized a child so thoroughly that he stayed against his will. What. The. Fuck.

He then continued: "But to just chalk this up to brainwashing and walk away is turning away from the true danger of child molesters and abductors. All American children must be taught survival skills, must be prepared to face crisis situations. That is the lesson of the Shawn Hornbeck story."

The lesson of this story is that American children must be taught survival skills. Uh-huh. Because if an 11-year-old boy has "survival skills," then presumably he can escape with no problem from a 6'4", 300-pound man who's fucking with your head and your body. How fucking stupid is Bill O'Reilly? ...I guess it would be far too much for his puny little brain to engage the thought that adaptability is not only one of humankind's greatest attributes, but also one of our strongest survival strategies—and kids especially manage to adapt to all kinds of grotesquery if they can be convinced their survival depends on it.