Bill OReilly - Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama

This Ones for You

HEY, YOU! YOU, THE AMERICAN! You who believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This book is about you. No spin.

In this age of Obama, all that you take for granted is changing, yet many Americans have no clue. So Ive decided to fix that. After reading the following pages, you will know precisely whats going on in the United States. Then you can plan exactly how to deal with the massive shift in the way our country is being run. Trust me, you need to know what is really happening so that you can make effective decisions for yourself.

These changes are not all bad, but theyre not all good, either. Many will hurt you and your family. Most media people and politicians wont tell you that because they dont care about you. But I do.

Why? Its very simple: you guys have made me rich and famous. I worked hard to position myself to succeed, but you made it happen. Without you watching me on TV and reading my books, I would be just another energetic bloviatorperhaps teaching school in Miami or reporting the news in Dallas. I appreciate the fact that millions of you have contributed to my success, so now its payback time: I will vividly chronicle the changes occurring in an America that your great-grandparents would never recognize today, because knowing the facts is how you can preserve the things you love about this country mostthe things they loved, too.

As you must know by now, it has been a great adventure for me to write five consecutive bestselling nonfiction books over the years, and again, Im grateful that you were there right along with me on those adventures.

My previous book, A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity , was considered my most personal to date. It is about how my life overlapped with your life and how my upbringing and experiences brought me to a place where I can speak to millions of folks every day. We had a lot of fun in Bold and well have some laughs in P & P, too, but this effort is completely different. Again, this book is about your life in America. And there is no more important time to talk about you than right now.

As you may know, each episode of my TV program, The OReilly Factor, ends with a segment called Pinheads and Patriots, in which I call out both people who are doing good things (Patriots), and those who are doing awful, dumb, or evil things (Pinheads). Although the expositions range from the banal (dealing with Snoop Dogg) to the deadly serious (addressing the actions of world leaders), they are always about influencersindividuals whose actions, good or bad, affect you. Research shows that this segment has become a hit with the Factor audience for this very reason.

To break it down so that even Nancy Pelosi can understand it, there are basically two kinds of people in the world: those whose thoughts and actions say me first, and those whose primary goal is to look out for others the same way they would look out for themselves (a Judeo-Christian philosophy). Generally speaking, the Patriots come from the second category.

Sure, its true that most of us are self-centered, at least some of the time. But how we deal with that reality defines whether we are a Pinhead or a Patriot. As always, free will prevails.

Sometimes, the evaluation of these peoples actions gets complicated. For example, President John F. Kennedy did some great things for poor Americans, and he also handled the Russian threat in Cuba with admirable courage. But JFK was also needlessly ruthless at times and used people in deceitful ways. So the President was both a Pinhead and a Patriot. As you can see, defining his short life in consistent terms is very difficult to do because he was capable of both extraordinary good and incredible callousness.

Similarly, President George W. Bush is a challenge to define. He did a number of truly noble things, especially during his first term. His ferocity against murderous members of al-Qaeda likely saved thousands of American lives. His generosity in fighting disease in Africa also saved millions of lives, and that important humanitarian work continues to this day.

Unfortunately, the Pinhead factor exists for him as well, because the Iraq War was not only poorly planned but most likely unnecessary. Also, Mr. Bushs failure to aggressively oversee the economy led to rampant speculation and financial con games galore. The results were obviously catastrophic; the recession damaged the lives of countless people all over the world.

But this book is not about past Presidents per se.

In fact, much of it will be devoted to discussing the present occupant of the Oval Office. President Barack Obama is, perhaps, the most polarizing chief executive since Abraham Lincoln. Yes, opinions about Bill Clinton and Bush the Younger divided the country, but not in the way views about Mr. Obama have. Some Americans sincerely believe he is trying to change the fundamental core of the United States. You hear this critical refrain all the time: When do I get my country back?

The Obama factor is, of course, fluid. It is being played out every day in thousands of ways. For this reason, it is imperative that you, the loyal American, continue to watch and understand its impact on your place in America. Thus, the subtitle of this book Where You Stand in the Age of Obama and my mandate to take a hard look at the President.

On June 9, 2010, the worlds most influential newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, printed an op-ed piece by Dorothy Rabinowitz, a member of the papers editorial board.

The article, entitled The Alien in the White House, made a devastating case that Barack Obama has little in common with working, everyday Americans. Ms. Rabinowitz put forth the view that the President simply has no understanding of you and your life. As a result, his leadership is based on theory, not reality. She also asserted that Americans are beginning to notice the emotional distance between them and their leader.

The op-ed was provocative and damaging to the President, especially in the midst of a brutal economy and the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The polls show Mr. Obama losing the support of independent voters and even some liberal voters. Is the President detached from your reality? Is he a man who lives primarily within himself? We will try to answer those questions in the following pages.

But this much can be said with absolute certainty about all national leaders: sometimes they are Pinheads and sometimes they are Patriots, as we cited with the examples of JFK and W. But when the stakes are as high as they are right now in Americawith historical debt and a war against crazy Islamic jihadists, some of whom are seeking nuclear weaponsleadership becomes amazingly important. Lets be blunt: a Pinhead making a national security mistake could very well get thousands of Americans killed. And a continuation of out-of-control spending could shatter the entire economy.

Therefore, I have a responsibility to provide you, the reader, with an honest appraisal of your situation in this age of Obama. I cant embrace ideology, myth, or propaganda. Ive got to cut through the fog and define whether socialism, corruption, incompetence, and yes, even evil are in the air.

So determining the roster of Pinheads and Patriots is a complicated business, as you can see, and I do not make these designations lightly. Nobodys perfect, but, in most cases, a pattern of behavior does emerge. And well be looking for the pattern together in this book. To get us started, I have two clear examples of how I determine P&P status: say hello to Congressman Barney Frank, and please consider the late Tony Snow.