LOL. After skimming a few pages, I was hoping to just skip it and find the discussion about what this article is actually accusing O'Reilly of. I can see why the author may feel threatened by anyone who actually has communication skills.
In fairness to the author, this piece was written for a print publication, The Baffler, and included in that magazine's most recent print issue. Longer-form articles fit better in print than they do online.
OK, thanks to this and a few other intriguing defenses I went back and finished. It does eventually make a real point, although the ratio of actual quotations and other data points to the vaguely FUD-ish storytelling that he starts off with is pretty poor, especially considering the amount of research he claims to have done.
I'm left with the vague feeling that I could probably use the same approach to tear down Gandhi or any other more or less untouchable folk hero by using long tracts of insinuation interspersed with a few phrases in scare quotes.
