More O’Reilly Bashing, this time by Al Franken during CSPAN’s Book TV. Really funny. It’s odd to be rooting for the liberals here, but I’ve really grown to hate Bill. It’s this odd claim of his that he’s somehow an independent. There’s nothing independent about him. Yes, he’s against the death penalty. Yes, he occasionally offers criticism of the Christian right. But come on… independent? I wouldn’t go as far to label him “partisan,” but he’s clearly biased by his own political leanings. I’m glad that he’s willing to criticize the current administration, but so does Rush Limbaugh. That doesn’t make him “independent.” And Bill, you weren’t a chimney sweep, so enough with the “working class” angle.

update (via This Modern World): Here’s the transcript from O’Reilly’s radio show where he discussed the incident:

What this guy writes and says does not matter to me, other than, Mike, he insulted me in a forum where I was at a decided disadvantage*, you know, he went over his time limit. It was very, very sneaky, and you know, as I said at the top of the broadcast, somebody calls you a liar to your face, you don’t just laugh that off. That’s an insult. In the old west, that woulda got you shot. See in the old west, and I woulda loved to have been in the old west, Al and I woulda just had a little, uh, a little shootout. You know? We woulda went out, on Wilshire Avenue, and uh, six shooters, now he’s a much smaller target than I am, about four foot eleven, but he’s wider, and it woulda been you know, Clint Eastwood time. I woulda had the cheroot, the serape, woulda given my squint, and I woulda put a bullet right between his head. Woulda been wrong, woulda been wrong, but it was the old west, and I would not have known any better, so I wouldn’t have been held accountable because I would not have known any–now I do, now in 2003 that would have been wrong.

So if the conditions were right, Bill would actually kill someone with whom he disagreed? Jesus God, this guy is insane.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2003 at 15:49 by pete and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.