Okay, so you may remember way back on August 28th when I posited that trying to fight for the sanctity of the Ten Commandments while simultaneously supporting the campaign of Arnold “Governor Gang Bang” Schwarzenegger might “make some conservative heads explode.”

What I didn’t realize was the fact that explosions only occur when there’s sufficient mass or energy on the inside. Which brings me to Bill O’Reilly.

Despite my oft-stated (and oft-violated) rule against commenting on commentators, O’Reilly deserves a special mention for pulling off the aforementioned feat of moral gymnastics in his “Talking Points” essay, offering the two seemingly irreconcilable stances on two consecutive nights. [August 28th and August 29th, respectively.] Even though I disagree with Bill on just about everything, I have to take my hat off to him. And then promptly vomit into it.

But strange as this may sound, I only bring up the above as a means of getting at a much smaller, pettier point that’s been eating away at me all week. Yes, I’ve checked in with Bill O’Reilly a few too many times this week (three!), and it’s all because of what I happened to hear him say on Wednesday. Rather than try to sum up, I’ll quote directly. The gist of the rant was that if we don’t straighten up and fly right we’re all goin’ straight to hell. And then:

“Here’s an example. I went to a rock concert the other night, The Doors — not so great � and in front of me are two boys about nine and 11 years old, sitting next to their parents. In front of them is a guy who lights up a marijuana cigarette. The father says nothing. But the mother taps the guy on the shoulder and says will you please not smoke that in front of my kids.

The doper sneers at the woman, whereupon I, your humble correspondent, get involved. Thirty seconds later, after some friendly persuasion, the joint is on the floor.”

Now I don’t advocate smoking pot in front of kids, especially if you didn’t bring enough for everybody. I’m not even what anyone could accurately call a “doper,” assuming that anyone besides O’Reilly could still use that term with a straight face. And despite what such a controversial stance might do to my Presidential campaign, I’m prepared to come right out and say that I believe that sneering at mothers who are trying to protect their children is Wrong.

But for cryin’ out loud, it was a Doors concert.

O’Reilly has said he’s a huge fan of The Doors, even though he does not approve of the lifestyle and choices of the late lead singer/ songwriter Jim Morrison. [O’Reilly’s not big on the whole cognitive dissonance thing. When thoughts meet opposition inside his head, he just twitches violently and yells at somebody, and then he feels better.] And me, I’m not a huge fan of The Doors. I like their stuff okay, I guess. At their best they were a unique and passionate psychedelic rock band with a hard blues sound and occasionally brilliant lyrics. At their worst they sounded like a polka band trying to cover John Lee Hooker.

My point here is that O’Reilly went to see The Doors in concert (or rather, the remaining Doors with a young feller standing in for the guy with all the talent who drank himself to death three decades ago). And even a passing fan like myself knows that The Doors were all about drugs, the use of which Jim Morrison believed would help him comprehend the mythic archetypes that compose our collective… etc. Hell, Morrison even named the band after Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception,” which is Huxley’s first-hand account of a truly sensational mescaline trip. Morrison was fond of inciting the crowd and himself to perform what he liked to call “Dionysian acts,” and what the arresting officers generally liked to call “getting high and drunk and mooning the audience.”

I’m not condemning Morrison for that. It’s just a way of getting to my point: What was O’Reilly doing collaring some sad kid who was trying to join a party that ended thirty years ago when he should have been grabbing the parents in front of him in his clammy fists and yelling, “Why the hell would any parent bring their 9 and 11 year-old kids to a DOORS CONCERT!!??”

And I suppose neither the parents nor O’Reilly were fazed by the possibility that someone might end up having to explain to a 9 year-old the lyric “Father - yes son - I want to kill you / Mother I want to fuck you… kill kill kill kill kill kill.”

I realize that O’Reilly’s an extremely easy target, and that lambasting him is ground so well-trod that it’s been paved and assigned a route number. And I’m not even sure why this particular bit of idiocy bugs me so much. I just know that I’m prepared to say something I never thought I’d say about the concert given by those creaky ol’ Doors and their Morrison stand-in:

I wish I’d been there.