Richard Cohen lights into Bill O'Reilly's latest historical obscenity, Killing Patton--the fourth and one hopes last in his exciting, paranoid quadrilogy, which also includes Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, and Killing Jesus--for "its chaotic structure, its considerable padding and its repellent admiration of a war-loving martinet who fought the Nazis and really never understood why."
Cohen is even more offended by O'Reilly's deliberate neglect of Patton's documented anti-Semitism. In his postwar diary, for instance, the general described liberated Jews as nonhuman and "lower than animals." But such is the common vice of the hagiographer: suppression of any idol-reducing material.
Should we expect any less from "No Spin" O'Reilly? No way. Nor should we be surprised at this cash-mongering martinet's penchant for bamboozling the conspiracy rubes with yet more paranoid bugaboos--this time, about Patton's death. The general died as the result of an auto accident--pure and simple. From what I could gather from his "This Week" interview with George Stephanopoulos (and by the way, what was that all about?), O'Reilly hustles the fantasy of a Stalin hit.
And it can all be yours for a mere $18, via Amazon. I dare you.
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