When it comes to Ronald Reagan, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly’s has no idea what he’s talking about, according to a fierce critic of the anchor’s new book, Killing Reagan.
Craig Shirley, who has written several books about Reagan, joined with historians Kiron K. Skinner, Paul Kengor and Steven F. Hayward this week to pen a Washington Post op-ed, titled “What Bill O’Reilly’s new book on Ronald Reagan gets wrong about Ronald Reagan,” rebuking O’Reilly’s book as poorly sourced revisionism.
“‘Killing Reagan’ … is supposed to be a book of new scholarship on the Reagan presidency,” they wrote. “Instead, it restates old claims and rumors, virtually all of which have been discredited by the historical record.”
“[T]here are no endnotes, no bibliography, no long list of interviewees and only a smattering of footnotes. There is a section titled ‘Sources,’ but it is only two-and-a-half pages long. It includes about two dozen sources, but that is not adequate for a subject, Ronald Reagan, who has been the focus of thousands of books and articles and who was one of the most consequential political figures of the 20th century,” they added.
“The works of three of us are not noted at all, and between the four of us, we have written 19 books on Reagan, not to mention countless articles. The sources section does, however, reference long-questionable works, including the sensational 1991 attack by Kitty Kelley — which is clearly incorporated throughout the book — and the 1999 biography by Edmund Morris, roundly criticized for its intermingling of fact and fiction.”
“So far, I’ve written four books on Ronald Reagan, written dozens of articles, given dozens of lectures, am a trustee of Eureka College, taught a course there [titled] Reagan 101, and have lectured at the Reagan Library and the Reagan Ranch,” Shirley told the Washington Examiner’s media desk. “[I]t is fair to say we probably know a little bit more about Ronald Reagan than Bill O’Reilly. We certainly know the facts of Ronald Reagan.”
But O’Reilly responded to critics of his book Monday by accusing people like Shirley and his cohort of experts of intentionally spreading falsehoods. For once, the anchor said on his show, “it’s not the left attempting to deceive us,” adding that Reagan supporters are merely afraid to tell the truth.
O’Reilly claimed that he was warned by two longtime Reagan allies, former California Gov. Pete Wilson and former Reagan White House staffer Christopher Cox, “not to say anything negative” about the former president. Cox and Wilson even “went to my bosses to try and spike the book,” he added.
O’Reilly later dismissed the historians’ criticisms as “comical,” and said they are merely trying to cover up his attempt to bring the truth of Reagan’s deeply unflattering legacy to light. For O’Reilly, these and other facts amount to little more than a shadow campaign meant to discredit him and deceive Fox viewers.
A spokesperson for O’Reilly did not respond to the Examiner’s request for comment.
