[Eric Bolling] parted ways with Fox News in August after an investigation into allegations... that Bolling had sent female colleagues an "unsolicited" lewd photo. Bolling moved to sue the HuffPost reporter and vowed to fight the claims, which he called "false smear attacks."...I've seen a report elsewhere that bluntly says "suicide," but here I'm reading that no cause of death has been announced and the autopsy hasn't take place yet. The son was a 19-year-old college student. It's hard to imagine a young man throwing his life away simply because of his father's disgrace and misfortune.
Fox announced his departure around 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Fox said it happened "amicably."
Does the timing make it look that way? Yes. But one might choose to make a suicide look as though it were caused by something other than the true cause. In this case — and we don't know that it was suicide — it might be that the son was already suicidal, and he chose yesterday because it allowed him to express great anger at the people who are hurting his father.
It's very sad to lose a young person to suicide, and terrible to think about how much pain it inflicts on the family. Condolences.
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44 comments:
I'm betting the kid used his Dad's phone to send the pics...does not seem in character for Bolling.
What a wild, wild week. Bolling must be a very effective political opinion personality to get targeted that much. I wonder what will come next for him. Talk radio?
Very sad, regardless of cause. I remember watching Eric Bolling when he led The Five and he was very, very proud of his son.
Suicide, a drug overdose, or natural causes. Doesn't matter much which. Losing a child--especially a young adult child is a brutal blow.
Bolling put out a statement there was no evidence of "self harm". Not sure where I read that.
it might be that the son was already suicidal, and he chose yesterday because it allowed him to express great anger at the people who are hurting his father.
Or it allowed him to express great anger at his father.
Not saying that is the case, just another option.
Humperdink, Bolling tweeted "Authorities have informed us there is no sign of self harm at this point. ... Please respect our grieving period." That's quoted in the article I linked.
It could simply be an overdose (or some sort of health condition) that might have been brought on by the shocking news about Bolling. Presumably it was not a gunshot. If someone uses drugs to commit suicide, it's hard to tell the difference between that and an accident (unless there's a suicide note).
I really do find it hard to believe that an adult beginning his independent life would throw everything away because of setbacks suffered by his parent.
Thanks for that.
Caroline Heldman is all I need to know. Same cunt that ran off O'Reilly. Any sane man can look at her and know in a second she's ugly, trouble, and vengeful. No way any man of accomplishment could fall for her shit, certainly not two.
and he chose yesterday because it allowed him to express great anger at the people who are hurting his father.
Adding grievous insult to injury?
Ann - even if it was a gunshot, that does not mean it was suicide. When I was young I believed we should be kind to everybody, which was a rare belief among high schoolers - believe me on that - and I learned a lot of things. One of the things I learned was this - There are a lot of hurting people who believe it is extremely funny to pretend they are about to kill themselves (this was dramatized in the awful movie about John Travolta as some Italian kid who everyone admired as a "disco dancer" when some kid pretended to jump off a bridge (the Verrezanno?), scaring all his friends who he expected to laugh about it), and it happens when kids are showing off with loaded guns or putting stuff in their mouths that, if swallowed, are potentially fatal. These 'semi-comical' flirtations with suicide usually just end in everybody saying "wow that was totally unreal" (to use an expression from the 80s) or 'wow that dude is intense' (from the 90s) but sometimes people actually die by 'joking' with their friends - "look at me, I am suicidal," they say, jokingly, and they make a technical mistake. Happens more than most people think, so people should not joke about this sort of thing.
Its possible, but there is likely no way to determine what motivated this tragic act
"Condolences" meaning what?
It irritates me when people toss off expressions of empathy without owning them. Every time I hear someone say "Love you" without owning it (as they would by saying "I love you") it seems glib and insincere; as if they are performing some expected social rite in a perfunctory manner.
Try, "My condolences to Eric and his family for their loss." It may be just as insincere, but we don't have to know that. It's much classier.
Is there nothing you can blog about today other than speculation re why a young, private person may have or may not have killed himself?
Sicko.
There was a similar incident under different circumstances, brit homes sons
Heluva sick, oppressive culture at Fox!
" No way any man of accomplishment could fall for her shit, certainly not two."
It wasn't easy to find a photo of her. Occidental has become a cesspool of leftist orthodoxy,
I don't know what the relationship is.
"Heluva sick, oppressive culture at Fox!"
Says the creepy leftist who loves that the kid committed suicide.
FUCK OFF !
How many sexual predators fired now from Fox? How many racists?
Blogger sunsong said...
How many sexual predators fired now from Fox? How many racists?
This from a person who supports the democrat party who still venerates a man who raped more than one woman and made him president. Then you voted for a woman who tried to destroy his victims.
No seriously you people are disgusting. You don't actually believe anything you say.
The truth about right wing values is found in the culture at Fox!
Right, sunsong. What are Billy C and Anthony W up to?
And..Rahmbo of "never let a crisis go to waste" fame.
Rahmbo is just crossing his fingers that more people die in from Irma than "gun violence" in his city this weekend.
Trying to change the subject won't change the reality of what it was like in the right-wing Fox News culture.
You extrapolated to "right wing culture" in general. Your left wing culture heroes are fair game.
But nice of you to reframe the discussion at on the back of a young death. Good on ya.
Sunsong appears to have some anger issues. She used to be so sweet--you know, "sun" and "song" like "good morning Starshine, the earth says hello", that kind of thing. Now it's all accusation and recrimination. What has society done to our sunsong? What are the root causes of her spiral down? How can we lift her up? Isn't it time for a national initiative to make sunsong feel good? Bring the Sun back to the Song! Or the Song back to the Sun! Or whatever!
If it was an OD, the timing of his death likely has nothing to do with his father. The semi-glee some people have in hoping to tie young Bolling's death to his father is appalliing. TMZ is doing this.
Prescription drugs, opioids, and benzos are a scourge that can scoop up anyone. Don't find glee in it when it hits someone you don't care for, because it might secretly be engulfing someone you care about or even love.
sunsong said...
How many sexual predators fired now from Fox? How many racists?
I had the same thought. Not that there is anything "right wing" or generalized about the question, because it is a sort of a small cadre of people at Fox, and because it coincides so much with the level of Trump support among the troubled staffers.
So there was Roger Ailes.
And Bill O'Reilly.
And then Eric Bolling.
There was Sean Hannity, investigated (and who seems to have narrowly escaped dismissal) for pointing the laser sight of his pistol at Juan Williams.
There was Ed Henry, who took an enforced break when an extramarital affair went public.
Andrew Napolitano, before being promoted to his own show(!) was suspended for having promoted a story that attempted to breath life into the conclusively-destroyed story about Obama "wiretapping" Trump Tower.
There was Andrea Tantaros; and I don't know why she was fired and maybe she was brought back?
There was the pair of Steve Wilson and Jane Akre; two of the weirdest conspiracy theorists in the modern history of tv news.
There were Greta van Susteren, and the contributors Sarah Palin and Michelle Fields, all under very different but vaguely similar "non-renewal" circumstances. Michelle Fields in particular found herself in the middle of a Trump controversy as she was dumped.
Brian Lewis was the Fox VP who was fired and who, after he threatened to go public with a long list of Fox secrets, was given an $8 million settlement. That has an NDA.
George Will left Fox, shortly after he publicly criticized some weird parts of Bill O'Reilly's "Killing Reagan" book, and O'Reilly freaked out on his show in an interview with Will.
Eric Burns' show was cancelled; not sure why.
And let's not forget Fox's favorite blue-collar shirtsleeve liberal (and roaring drunk) Bob Beckel.
There are a few wonderful conservatives at Fox. Brett Baier. Brit Hume. Tucker Carlson. Steve Hayes. With a few exceptions, it is the "NeverTrump" conservative contingency that consistently avoids scandal, plus the best tv journalist on air today, Chris Wallace.
If you think being conservative or liberal makes you or protects you from being more likely to have someone caught up in prescription drug addiction, you are fooling yourselves.
"It irritates me when people toss off expressions of empathy without owning them. Every time I hear someone say "Love you" without owning it (as they would by saying "I love you") it seems glib and insincere; as if they are performing some expected social rite in a perfunctory manner. Try, "My condolences to Eric and his family for their loss." It may be just as insincere, but we don't have to know that. It's much classier."
1. It irritates me when people criticize somebody else for choosing one thing rather than another and the other thing isn't obviously better. Why criticize? Why criticize on the occasion of supposedly caring about the death of a person? How is that more caring? How is that -- to use your word -- "classier"?
2. Your words are still a sentence fragment, and, as you admit, they sound "just as insincere." The fact is -- and you're staring it in the face -- it's hard to figure out what to say, and most people just do their best.
3. If empathy is really your central concern -- as opposed to criticizing or aimlessly expressing anxiety -- why not be empathetic toward the people who are trying to figure out what to say? If expressing sympathy is such a minefield, exposing a person to judgment, the easy way out is to say nothing, and that isn't an improvement.
4. I considered longer phrases like the one you suggest, but rejected them as more trite, more phony. Writing this blog, I follow the rule of avoiding phrases that I'm used to seeing in writing. (That's the #1 lesson I take from Orwell's "Politics and the English Language.") I understand the sort of mind that thinks a phase like "My condolences to Eric and his family for their loss" is better precisely because it does look like what you always see in print, but that's a reason for me to feel compelled to find another way.
5. The idea that more care is taken when more words are used is mistaken. Stock phrases are easier.
6. The sentence that precedes "Condolences" expresses empathy, making "Condolences" more of a sign-off, like "Sincerely" at the end of a letter. But perhaps you think that's uncaringly brusque and finish letters with a salutation like: "With my sincere regards to you and your family, I am, as always...."
"...John Travolta as some Italian kid who everyone admired as a "disco dancer" when some kid pretended to jump off a bridge (the Verrezanno?), scaring all his friends who he expected to laugh about it)..."
Reminds me of... I was just reading a David Sedaris story in which he finally gets a colonoscopy after years of his father's telling him he needs to get one. The test shows he's just find, but to be funny, he tells his father "Daddy, I have cancer," etc.
"The semi-glee some people have in hoping to tie young Bolling's death to his father is appalliing. TMZ is doing this."
Aren't some people on the right using it against the people who've made feminist demands on Fox News?
The best non-empathetic "thoughts and prayers" was on Silicon Valley.
Aren't some people on the right using it against the people who've made feminist demands on Fox News?
Possibly, but I haven't seen that. That is also appalling.
The words 'Love you!' is used by my family members after every phone conversation. Yes, it is automatic but it's also true and we are reminding each other of our continued affection. 'I love you' was what my husband and I would say to each other.
If one does not have a personal relationship with a bereaved individual and the medium is a public platform not a 'message service', I think a simple "condolences" is perfectly appropriate and fine.
What does appall me, on the other hand, is when people who are personal friends/colleagues of the bereaved send out 'condolences' via something like Twitter - eg, Sean Hannity re Bolling! My god, I find that crass and self-centered! Yes, yes, by all Tweet up your 'hits' on the back of your 'friend's' loss. Gag me.
MayBee said...
The best non-empathetic "thoughts and prayers" was on Silicon Valley.
Which one? I've been watching that and haven't laughed so hard in months.
Prison guard to well-dressed guy walking into the prison: Are you an attorney meeting with your client?
Guy (Richard): No, I'm a client meeting with my attorney.
Fernandinande -
Season 3. I think in the episode The Keenan Vortex, but I'm not sure . An weather-related accident at a warehouse means Jack Barker can't get what he needs for Hoolicon, and at first he is annoyed that California drivers can't handle rain, but then he hears how tragic the whole accident was. And he just says, "Well, thoughts and prayers obviously" in the most perfunctory way. It is the most brilliantly delivered line ever.
And yes, it is the most hilarious show. I binged it and am trying to get everyone I know to binge it.
I don't know if the scandal was a causal event, but it was part of the equation. How much a part I'm sure Eric Bolling will spend the rest of his haunted nights trying to figure out........I watched The Five with fair regularity. Bolling seems to have been leading a charmed life. He made a pile of money on Wall St. and then transitioned to a successful career in broadcasting. His son was athletic and healthy and, on air, Bolling showed pictures of him with obvious pride.......Whatever went wrong had nothing to do with politics, but something went wrong. No one envies Eric Bolling's life anymore.
I have full confidence there are no coverups at the other networks. Absolute.
"The truth about right wing values is found in the culture at Fox!"
Is that why people are being let go?
Or not?
Can't be both, you grave-dancing asshole.
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