The Bill O'Reilly lies come in, the Bill O'Reilly lies go out, nobody can explain that.

So I thought it would be a good idea to do a kind of round up of where the Bill O'Reilly Lie-o-meter is today. Because, simply put, I LOVE this story.

First up we have some input from the former Bill O'Reilly producer and Fox News mole, Joe Muto, who claims that Billo will probably survive this scandal:

The only way O'Reilly can be seriously damaged is if more allegations about his statements come forward from sources other than partisan organizations, said Joe Muto, a former O'Reilly producer fired by Fox after he began writing an anonymous blog as the "Fox mole." 

"Ultimately, he'll survive this because he's not held — by his bosses, or the public, or himself — to the same standards of truth-telling as Brian Williams is," Muto said. "People expect a certain degree of hyperbole and exaggeration from O'Reilly. It's baked into the job description. It's part of his persona."

That seems to be the opinion of a number of news pundits, but it may not be accurate.

According to a new HuffPo/YouGov poll only 35% of Americans believe that O'Reilly should be considered trustworthy: 

The allegations building against Bill O'Reilly are apparently taking a harsh toll on his trustworthiness and favorability among Americans. 

Only 35 percent of Americans still find the Fox News host trustworthy, while 21 percent find him "very untrustworthy" and 16 percent find him "somewhat untrustworthy," according to a HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted this week. 

Thirty-seven percent of participants now have an unfavorable view of the host. 

The poll also revealed that half of Americans have now heard about the allegations against him.

I am not sure where the trust level was BEFORE these revelations came to light, but I am somewhat stunned that more than one third of Americans trust a single thing that falls out of this assholes mouth.

According to Media Matters the idea that all of this is not having a lasting effect on O'Reilly and Fox News may also be a misreading of the situation:  

Year after year, newsroom embarrassments like O'Reilly's undermine Fox's credibility to the point where it seems more and more journalists today start with a working assumption that Fox is not a legitimate news operation. That represents a major shift from President Obama's first year in office and it's a key reason why O'Reilly's fabrications matter. (The fewer journalists who view Fox News as being legitimate means that less of Fox's misinformation has an impact beyond the right-wing media bubble.) 

There are other clues that the ongoing O'Reilly storm has taken a toll: If the fabrication controversy has been such a home run for Roger Ailes and company, why has the rest of Fox team remained largely silent on the subject? If it represented a win, wouldn't colleagues help O'Reilly circle the bases while taunting the "liberal" media? 

Since this is reflective of the point I myself made last night, I of course find myself in total agreement with it. 

Right now Fox and O'Reilly are going to pretend that none of this matters, and that it is only another attack by the liberal media jealous of their success.

However that really only works with the original Fox News demographic.

In the real world, where people expect a certain level of accountability and trustworthiness from its journalists, this is going to leave a very sour taste. And that has an impact on Fox's efforts to attract new viewers who are NOT watching their program while strapped to an oxygen tank.

It should be noted that while the Brian Williams scandal hurt Brian Williams, it did NOT hurt NBC News who just posted the highest ratings in quite some time.

However Fox News, who get only a fraction of NBC's numbers, is already suffering a crisis of confidence among the viewing public, and this scandal can really only cause a further erosion of trust and, perhaps more importantly, of ratings.