I would wonder if even the most stricken Bill O’Reilly fans could stomach the narcissistic love fest Bill engaged in after his interview with President Obama on Super Bowl weekend. Even Steven Colbert’s excellent parody couldn’t equal real life – that is if you aren’t blinded by decades of odious self-idolatry on decades of O’Reilly’s shows.

The pity is that O’Reilly could never see it since criticism of any kind is not tolerated. It is either sloughed off by rude and arrogant banter, which his show’s medium controls, or self-festooned comments on his show following the offense, pillorying those who offend in any prominent media source like the Daily Show or Colbert Reports.

O’Reilly wants his audience and the world to know that over a hundred million people watched his interview, and not just Americans. And, of course, that he is the greatest (Mohammed Ali used that too).

“I asked tough questions that nobody else would ask,” Bill says, poking his finger emphatically at his captive Fox studio lessers. Perpetuating the self-lovefest, he pursued more interactive suitors during his continued imperial appearances, asking his audience to grade Bill’s interview with the President. Shockingly, Bill got good grades from fawning viewers, but not exactly a bell curve:

As witnessed on Stephen Colbert, Bill R guaranteed — poking that authoritarian finger at his minor associates, that what he said in the interview would be the focus of Congressional discussions in the coming months. His self promotion continued, saying his auction of his interview notes — signed by President Obama and more importantly, Bill — will start out at $10,000.

In his parody, Stephen Colbert retorted, “It was the interview of the decade in that Bill would be talking about it for the next ten years.”

Seriously, O’Reilly has a formula that keeps his audiences watching “The O’Reilly Factor.” Some of us tend to gag at his bullying, his intimidation of guests who don’t agree with him, his self-idolatry, and his egotism, but he continues to sell.

His brand sells books with titles the NRA must love:  Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy and now even Killing Jesus, the latter, I’m sure he feels does not affect his spiritual status.

His aggressive manner, his bullying, his self-promoting persona is perhaps a caricature of an America global presence that markets a self-indulgent, self-absorbed, bigger-than-life image that much of the American culture still supports, but many foreigners hate.

As most purveyors of the news have demonstrated – liberal and conservative, alike, you promote while you have the following and the podium. You push your name in the social media, in your publications, and you try to promote your face time.

We are a celebrity culture after all. As shameless as O’Reilly is at doing this, it has worked for many years.