And I’m A Member Of British Royal Family

by digby

This just cracks me up:

In October, Bill O’Reilly renewed his contract with Fox News, winning a multi-year deal paying him roughly $10 million per year — placing him well above the top 0.1 percent of income earners. O’Reilly also reportedly charges $50,000 per speaking engagement. Yesterday on his show, O’Reilly said he supports more fuel efficient cars because he has a “middle-class…sensibility”:

INGRAHAM: And what this is, whether you like the green initiatives or not, ultimately, will end up being a continued war on the prosperity of the middle class of America. That’s what this is. It’s part of the remaking of the middle class of America – O’REILLY: Why, why, why? Look, I consider myself a middle-class guy. Even though I make a lot of money, my sensibility is there. INGRAHAM: Yeah.

Watch it: O’Reilly’s middle class “sensibility” curiously favors the wealthy. Last July, he complained that if President Bush’s tax cuts “on those making $250,000 or more” are repealed, “me and other rich folks” would have to finance “folks who dropped out of school, who are too lazy to hold a job, who smoke reefers 24/7.” This isn’t surprising, of course. A Wonk Room analysis found that O’Reilly saves over $400,000 per year under Bush’s tax code. In March, speaking to anti-tax crusader Glenn Beck, O’Reilly accused “30 percent” of the public of being “jealous” of the rich, saying they want to “take from the rich and give to the poor.”

Being middle class isn’t a “sensibility” even though wealthy celebrities like O’Reilly love to think of themselves as regular guys. Just because you prefer beer to champagne, it doesn’t make you middle class. It’s about how much money you have, period.

The Census Bureau shows the middle 20% of the country earning between $40,000 and $95,000 annually and The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a non-partisan and non-profit organization, reports that the middle class has conventionally come to mean families with incomes between $25,000 and $100,000 each year.

Bill O’Reilly hasn’t been middle class in decades and his interests simply don’t intersect with middle class interests. But he and other wealthy, know-it-all, angry white male celebrity blowhards have managed to convincde an awful lot of people that what’s good for Bill O’Reilly is good for them. It’s a beautiful scam which sadly, is not being exposed for the con it really is, even now.
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