Until today, I never thought of O'Reilly as a "politician," though he clearly was a political advocate. Now, with the revelation that The O'Reilly Factor was taking its talking points straight from the White House press corps, my perception has changed. He isn't an independent voice advocating for a particular political slant; instead, he is an arm of the state. Just as much as, say, Armstrong Williams, who was caught being paid to propagandize, O'Reilly is an unelected, hence anti-democratic, politician, like Rove, etc. The difference is that O'Reilly concealed this fact from us, posing as an independent voice.