I like Gavin Newsom. His forceful stand on behalf of equal rights in 2004 remains one of the most courageous things I've ever seen a politician do. This is the guy who earned the wrath of millions of Californians and Americans by introducing us to the radical idea that two men or two women could marry one another and live happily ever after, pissing off even his city's former mayor, and California's most popular political figure, Dianne Feinstein. So why did he act like such a spineless wimp during his debut appearance on The O'Reilly Factor the other night? Bill O'Reilly crudely insulted the City of San Francisco and inaccurately blamed the entire phenomenon of budget deficits solely on liberal policies, and Newsom... pretty much sat there and took it. (The clip is available here.)

What, I wonder, was Mayor Gavin thinking when he let Bill-O claim that California's $20 billion budget shortfall is attributable exclusively to the actions of the Democratic-controlled State Legislature? Watch the clip. When Newsom feebly protests that California has had a Republican governor for the last six years, O'Reilly shuts him down by claiming that Arnold Schwarzenegger "doesn't have any say over what the Legislature does." Never mind that Bill's statement is shockingly false; the Governor submits the annual budget and signs it into law, and has the line-item veto power that allows him to strike out individual spending items he disagrees with. Gavin doesn't correct Bill on this, nor does he point out that, in his first month as Governor, Schwarzenegger blew a permanent $4.2 billion hole in the state budget by overturning Gray Davis's Vehicle License Fee increase. How about the $1.7 billion in corporate tax breaks Schwarzenegger signed into law as part of the 2008-09 budgets? Nada from Newsom, yet again.

As for the larger issue, O'Reilly's claim that "liberal governance simply doesn't work," and causes huge deficits, Newsom would have been well within the bounds of logic and reason to point out that, up until 2009, the largest deficits in American history had all been signed into law by conservative Republican presidents - Reagan and both Bushes, to be exact. Those deficits, he might have added, were caused by massive increases in defense spending and large tax cuts skewed overwhelmingly to wealthy taxpayers and corporations - both of which are policies supported by conservatives, not liberals.

Even more shocking was Gavin's meek response to Bill's degrading and purely emotion-based attacks on San Francisco, a lovely city which has twice elected Newsom. In response to O'Reilly's ranting about "panhandlers everywhere," Mayor Gavin correctly points out that the city has over 10,000 fewer homeless people living on the street than it did when he was elected six years ago, thanks to initiatives like Care Not Cash. Still, though, he lets Bill-O continue to rant. Not once does he forcefully interrupt O'Reilly to say, "Look, Bill, you're not backing up these statements with evidence. I'm giving you indisputable facts about what San Francisco has done to improve its homeless problem under my leadership, and you're making wild claims that are not supported by the numbers. I mean, have you even been to San Francisco lately?" With all due respect to Bill O'Reilly (oh wait - there is no respect due to this scumbag, that's right), I have been to the City plenty these past several years, and when I go there now I notice far fewer homeless people than I did when I grew up in the Bay Area.

No, instead Newsom insists on kissing up to O'Reilly, even pathetically pandering at the interview's outset by claiming to watch The O'Reilly Factor "every night." Really, Mr. Mayor? What do you hope to accomplish by acting this way? Bill O'Reilly is a man who has repeatedly demonstrated his contempt for civil discourse and responsible journalism by shouting down and intimidating his opponents, or sometimes just making up lies out of thin air. (My personal favorite was when he cited economic statistics about a boycott of France from a publication called "The Paris Business Review" - which does not exist. At all. Anywhere.)

If Gavin Newsom hopes to have a real political future in California (and an item in today's San Francisco Chronicle hints that he may jump into this year's race for Lieutenant Governor), I'd advise him to rethink his media strategy a bit. It's not that he needs to shun or disavow the right-wing propaganda machine that is Fox "News" altogether, as some Democrats and liberals do. But he shouldn't suck up to it, either. He's better than that.