Send Bill O'Reilly to Africa

Partly to get him out of my face, and partly to teach him a lesson: that a lot of stuff is happening in this world outside the Fox News Studios.

After a heated back-and-forth exchange between O'Reilly and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Kristof has started a pledge drive for people to pay to send O'Reilly to Africa, and give him a clue about the humanitarian problems happening throughout the continent.

According to Kristof:

"Mr. O'Reilly has a big audience and a knack for stirring outrage. Lately, he (quite properly) galvanized an outcry over a ridiculously light sentence for a sexual predator in Vermont. The upshot was that the sentence was increased. Good for him.

"So imagine the furor Mr. O'Reilly could stir up if he publicized the hundreds of thousands of rapes, murders and mutilations in Darfur. He could save lives on a grand scale."

But alas, O'Reilly's response was typical diva: "I do three hours of daily news analysis on TV and radio. There's no way I can go to Africa."

Right, because we wouldn't want to burden a self-proclaimed "news analyst" with actually having to report hard news.