Jessica Alba is smarter than Bill O'Reilly!

Ha! I hadn't heard about this before. Apparently, at some inaugural event, Jessica Alba got into a conversation with a reporter. She asked the reporter what he thought was President Obama's greatest characteristic going into office was. The reporter didn't know how to respond, so Alba made a comment about journalistic neutrality. "Be Neutral! Be Sweden about it."

Much mockery ensued. (Seriously, how did I miss this? I would have loved to catch this immediately.) Celebrity websites mocked her for "confusing" Sweden with Switzerland. Bill O'Reilly said unkind things about her intelligence and knowledge of history. There seems to have been a lot of clucking, head-shaking, and general "those silly celebs are so ditzy" snarking.

But here's the thing. She was right and everyone who mocked, judged, and snarked (and, yes, I mean you, Bill'o) were wrong, wrong, wrong. As many of the commenters to the celebrity websites seem to have known. Sweden was most definitely neutral in World War II. Switzerland may be more famous for it, what with being smack in the middle of Europe and all, but Sweden is not an incorrect choice, either.

I love it when Bill O'Reilly, the smuggest SOB on television, is proven factually wrong about something he states with his characteristic level of certainty, complete with that dismissive, you're-such-an-idiot-if-you-thought-for-one-millisecond-otherwise head toss and hand wave. I remember when Lawrence v. Texas came out, he said in just that tone and with just that head toss and hand wave, that good conservative justices, Scalia and Thomas named specifically, were on the side of the gay men in that case. (This was the case where the US Supreme Court ruled that consensual sodomy could not be criminalized.) Well, Bill'o was most definitely wrong on that, as anyone who had actually read the case should know. Scalia and Thomas were the dissenters on that case, perfectly a-ok with our state legislatures criminalizing private, consensual adult behavior. Strangely, I never got a response to the e-mail I sent correcting him.

I wonder if Jessica Alba will get an apology. If I were her, I wouldn't hold my breath.