The Donald, O'Reilly and Obama A Basically Honest People

The Donald, O'Reilly and Obama

A Basically Honest People

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 - Philip V. Brennan  Saturday, April 9, 2011 I have long had a sneaking admiration for an English nobleman – not something to which most of those of us of Irish ancestry would ordinarily tend to admit.
One of my heroes is Lord Melbourne, who at the age of eight, to the dismay of his parents, had not uttered a single word.
That ended one night at a dinner party when the lady seated next to him at table asked “Little boy, why do you not speak?”
His young Lordship looked at her and said his very first words – “Because Madam,” he said,  “I have absolutely nothing to say.”
Some years later he observed “The Irish are a basically honest people; they seldom speak well of one another.”
He was right on target.
In that tradition allow me to speak critically of a onetime fellow Long Islander, the loquacious Bill O’Reilly, a Nassau County native but, as he once told me, a onetime resident of neighboring Suffolk County, L.I.,  that his Dad was among my fellow Brooklyn Prep alumnus, although he was a few years ahead of me at the Prep.
He went into the Navy in WWII and I soon joined the better part of the U.S. Naval Service, the Marine Corps. (I had to get that in. It’s obligatory Semper Fi).
I must admit that on the single occasion Bill and I spoke – when I was doing a profile of him for Newsmax -  Bill was both gracious and friendly.  That having been said, allow me to have at him. Albeit gently and admiringly.
In simple terms, Bill O’ tends on occasion to be what we used to call a smart Aleck. I attribute that failing to the unfortunate fact that he graduated from Harvard University, not a fit place for any proud Mick. 
He could, instead,  have attended one of the many fine N.Y.C. Catholic colleges such as Manhattan College where most of my father’s family, including my grandsire matriculated and my late Uncle Joe, a Basketball Hall of Famer, once coached.
Bill’s smart-alecky attitude was on display when he took on “the Donald,” as his ex-wife calls Mr. Trump. He appears to have been offended by the Donald’s expression of doubt about Barack Obama’s true birthplace, noting as Mr. Trump has, the President’s adamant refusal to reveal his birth certificate.......................