O’Reilly, in the process of hawking his new book, Killing Lincoln, set up a facile straw man argument about current US politics.

On one side are Americans who believe we need radical change in this country, that we are not a noble nation, that our economic system has to be torn down, and that the old traditions are useless. That movement is led by secular progressives.

Of course, he’ll never be able to cite any such blanket statements from SecularProgress.com. Yes, big changes are appropriate in a long list of areas such as electoral reform, health care, and so on. Feel free to call reform radical. And yes, you sure won’t find me forcing school kids to answer “America is exceptional because God willed it” in order to pass an exam. But his polemic about tearing down the economy, and abandoning all traditions are ridiculous. (And what is a tradition, if not old?)