The only interesting passage in The Hill's communiqué on last night's rather awkward O'Reilly-Trump summit reads thus:
"[The former] sought to appeal to Trump’s capacity to forgive, reminding the billionaire businessman that he’s a Christian … and that the Bible says to 'turn the other cheek.' Trump shot back, saying he’s a regular church-goer, and that the Bible also says 'an eye for an eye. You could look at it that way too.'"
Item #1: "Trump's capacity to forgive." I assume this is one of those Bill O'Reilly worldly facts so casually and so often invented on Fox News; that is to say, it reminded me of Mark Bowden's recent Vanity Fair remembrance of his 1996 profile of Donald Trump (published in Playboy, 1997). What one feature of the Trumpian personality struck Bowden perhaps more than others? "What was clear was how fast and far one could fall from favor," wrote Bowden. "The trip from 'genius' to 'idiot' was a flash. The former pilots," for instance, "who flew his plane were geniuses, until they made one too many bumpy landings and became 'fucking idiots.'"
Item #2: O'Reilly "remind[ed] the billionaire businessman that he's a Christian." I should think that Mr. Trump would have to be reminded that he's a Christian.
Item #3: Yes, "the Bible says to 'turn the other cheek.'" But, as every "good Christian" knows — even those who have forgotten they're Christians — divine injunctions are, happily, always subject to other divine injunctions, which compelled the pious Mr. Trump to note …
Item #4: … "the Bible also says 'an eye for an eye.'" O'Reilly responded (this section is omitted from The Hill's communiqué) by plumbing the depths of his theological knowledge: "That's Old Testament. If you're the Christian, the eye-for-the-eye rule goes out." Goes out. One savors the sanctity with which O'Reilly treats what are, according to Christianity, nonetheless divinely inspired Words.
At any rate, to really make his point the exegetical Bill O'Reilly might have otherwise countered with the rabbinical interpretation of "an eye for an eye," which means just that: "an eye for eye" — not, that is, an eye for a empirical slap on the cheek, which is all that Megyn Kelly had theretofore delivered upon Mr. Trump's unforgiving face.
As amusing as all this is, for sheer entertainment value it still can't beat the preceding, noble yet utterly self-unaware statement of Mr. O'Reilly's employer: "Capitulating to politicians’ ultimatums about a debate moderator violates all journalistic standards."