O'Reilly Factor

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera has devoted his last two columns to the spreading scandal over News Corp., owned by Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who incurs the hatred of liberals.

Nocera, not content to report on the woes afflicting News Corp. outlets overseas, insisted without evidence on Saturday that one of Murdoch’s American media properties, the Wall Street Journal, has succumbed to the dreaded disease of “Fox-ification,” “The Journal Becomes Fox-ified.” As you can guess, that is not a compliment at the Times.

Bill O'Reilly and Bernie Goldberg took the White House to task on last night's O'Reilly Factor for their treatment of Fox News, and their difficulty with handling criticism. "They are not the first administration to go to war with the news media. But I don't think this administration wants to be compared to Richard Nixon. That's not a good PR move."

World News host Diane Sawyer swears she simply "brings the facts" and makes sure people "know what the truth is." The anchor appeared on Thursday's O'Reilly Factor to promote her new special on kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard.

O'Reilly pointed out that such stories of brutality infuriate him and are the reason he's a commentator and not a straight journalist. Asked if she ever shows anger as a reporter, Sawyer professed, "No, I get purposeful, which is different. I always think that my job is to marshal facts and bring the facts out and let the facts deliver whatever information there is to deliver."

Gary Sinise is one of the rare Hollywood stars these days willing to give back to the nation by showing his support for the troops.

On Thursday, he sat down with substitute host Laura Ingraham on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" to discuss a new documentary chronicling his tremendously patriotic efforts (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Wallace told Don Imus Thursday he intended to fully respond to the fallout from last week's interview with Jon Stewart.

True to his word, at the conclusion of the most recent "Fox News Sunday," Wallace struck back at Stewart's claim that Fox watchers are the most misinformed media viewers by demonstrating that folks who watch "Hannity" and "The O'Reilly Factor" were actually better informed than "Daily Show" viewers (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Karl Rove and Juan Williams had quite a lively debate Friday evening about politics, the economy, and who can beat Barack Obama in 2012.

With Williams acting as substitute host on "The O'Reilly Factor," guest Rove asked the question that has been plaguing conservatives for approaching three years - "How can an obscure United States senator from Illinois who had done diddly squat in the senate become the nominee of the Democratic Party and the President of the United States?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News and former CBS News reporter Bernie Goldberg exposed left-wing media bias on Monday's edition of The O'Reilly Factor when discussing NBC's editing of the Pledge of Allegiance. "I don't know if it was an honest mistake or, more likely, if it was a lefty producer flexing his muscles. I don't know. But I know one thing. It was really, really dumb," said Goldberg.

O'Reilly ascribed the decision to secularism in today's media. "I think that inside NBC there is so much of this secular left-wing craziness that Comcast is --  if you ask the head of Comcast --  Burke I think his name is [Steven Burke] -- do you want me to take out the words "under God, indivisible" from the Pledge of Allegiance, I don't think Mr. Burke would say, 'You know, yank that right out of there.' It's so unbelievable." said O'Reilly.

The Media Research Center’s Dan Gainor has been digging up the dirt on the deep-pocketed lefty media mogul George Soros’ funding of media operations, and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly invited him on to discuss Gainor's latest piece in which he says there are ‘nearly 30 Soros-funded media operations that are part of the ‘War on Fox’.”

Video below fold.

One of the startlingly inconvenient truths about America is the double standard by which conservative women can be treated by the media compared to their liberal sisters.

Having been seriously besmirched by far-left MSNBC commentator Ed Schultz earlier in the week, talk radio's Laura Ingraham discussed sexist and racist hypocrisies with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly Thursday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charles Krauthammer said Tuesday that the press are so in bed with President Obama that they are actually supporting Democrat lies about Medicare and Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) plan to save it.

Appearing on the "O'Reilly Factor," the syndicated columnist also told the host that Fox News is "extremely powerful" because it "broke the monopoly that liberals had on all the media for about 30 years" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

According to the man ABC News relies on for religious analysis, it's impossible to say whether Osama bin Laden was "evil." Father Edward Beck, the network's religion correspondent, appeared with Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday and offered moral equivalence on the subject of the terrorist's death.    

When the O'Reilly Factor anchor pressed Beck on whether bin Laden truly represented malevolence, Beck replied, "That's not for me to judge. His actions were certainly were evil."    

O'Reilly pressed Beck on this point, prompting the ABC News analyst to assert, "No, I think that's up to God to ultimately decide who's evil."

The outrage over Martin Bashir's absolutely pathetic interview with Andrew Breitbart Wednesday continues.

On Thursday's "O'Reilly Factor," the host and his guest Glenn Beck wondered how long MSNBC can stay in business with commentators behaving this way (video follows with transcript and commentary):

During his Talking Points Memo at the top of Wednesday's O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, host Bill O'Reilly called out NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer for denouncing Republican efforts to cut spending on things like "climate control": "Are you kidding me, Lauer? Funding for climate control? Nobody can control the climate but God. So give a little extra at mass or services."

As NewsBusters reported, on Wednesday's Today, Lauer lamented: "...some of the things the Tea Party and others on the far right are asking for – no funding for Planned Parenthood, no funding for climate control, public broadcasting." In response, O'Reilly remarked: "Funding for Planned Parenthood and public broadcasting when the debt stands at 14 trillion? Have a telethon on the Today show for those concerns. Raise the money privately. This is nuts. The country's nearly bankrupt. China holds more than a trillion dollars of our debt and you guys want climate control funding? I feel a cold front coming on."

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Tuesday cherry-picked an "O'Reilly Factor" segment to drum up a feud between Fox News's top prime time host and the former Alaska governor.

Five sentences about Sarah Palin pulled from a six and a half minute segment ridiculing President Obama for not scheduling Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates as guests on last weekend's "Fox News Sunday" led "The Last Word" host to conclude that O'Reilly is now assuming a role in Republican politics "bullying the nuts off the stage to make room for viable candidates" (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

They won't agree on much, but Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and Medea Benjamin, founder of the far-left anti-war group Code Pink, found some common ground on one fact Tuesday night: MSNBC talkers Rachel Maddow and Ed Shultz are hypocrites.

Both Schultz and Maddow defended President Obama's decision to impose a no fly zone over Libya on their respective shows. Maddow trotted out the "reluctant warrior" line, while Schultz insisted that the president "deserves the benefit of the doubt and our support."

O'Reilly asserted - and Benjamin agreed - that neither MSNBC host would have been so generous had Obama's predecessor engaged in such a conflict. "The word 'hypocrisy' comes to mind," Benjamin quipped (video and partial transcript below the break).

After Bill Maher called the Koran "a hate-filled book" on HBO's "Real Time" Friday, NewsBusters asked if he would be attacked by the media for doing so.

With no outrage having ensued, the folks at Fox News on Monday questioned why Maher's comments went ignored by the Muslim defenders in the press, with Juan Williams telling Bill O'Reilly that if he had said anything like that, "They would have tied you to the pillar and be whipping you and stoning you" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's certainly not surprising that the New York Times would publish a hit piece on Glenn Beck, but coming hours after CNN's Howard Kurtz spent almost ten minutes bashing the Fox News commentator makes me smell a rat.

Add to this the increased pressure Beck has come up against from MSNBC personalities since Keith Olbermann surprisingly left America's most liberal television news network in January, and one has to wonder what Times author David Carr had in mind with his Monday piece "The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms":

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, while George Soros likened Rupert Murdoch and Fox News to Nazis on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," the host never once challenged the far-left billionaire on any of his wild accusations.

On Monday's "O'Reilly Factor," former CBS Newsman Bernie Goldberg blasted "supposed journalist" Zakaria for sitting there "like a bump on a log when somebody is making crazy statements like that" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

Update: Video and audio added

On Friday's O'Reilly Factor, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly held ABC and NBC News to account for failing to cover the recent Planned Parenthood video stings conducted by the pro-life organization Live Action: "Fox News and CNN covered the...tapes extensively and CBS News did as well...However NBC and ABC News both ignored the situation....it was a pretty big omission." [Audio available here]

O'Reilly challenged two liberal political science professors on the lack of coverage and the reasoning behind it. Speaking to Dr. Caroline Heldman of Occidental College and Dr. Mark Sawyer of UCLA, O'Reilly cited the Media Research Center's reporting of ABC and NBC's silence on the issue: "Brent Bozell's organization basically says this is a pattern, because those news organizations are liberal and they like abortion – not like abortion – but they support abortion rights. They don't want to bring any attention to this kind of stuff." Both networks have continued to ignore the story.

View video below

On Monday, President Obama announced that 2011's budget deficit is going to be an all-time high $1.65 trillion.

In an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly later in the day, ABC's George Stephanopoulos predictably blamed the red ink on former President George W. Bush (video follows with transcript and commentary):

With his total number of viewers having declined by 45 percent since his premiere in the 8PM time slot, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell appears to be taking a page from his predecessor Keith Olbermann's handbook.

On Monday's "The Last Word," the host did two segments about Fox News, the first included insults about Irish guys and  Bill O'Reilly's "gullible" audience that ended with a school yard challenge to cable news's most-watched personality (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On the February 8 edition of MSNBC's "Last Word," left-wing comedian Bill Maher disparaged Bill O'Reilly as "unpatriotic" for the way in which the veteran Fox News anchor conducted his interview with President Barack Obama on Super Bowl Sunday.

"And Bill O'Reilly, who claims he's such a patriot, how unpatriotic in my view to treat a president that way," railed Maher. "How does that look to other countries when you're interrupting and belittling? I just find it astounding."

[Video embedded after the page break.]

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday gave some advice to Fox News about how to treat Keith Olbermann now that he's partnered with Al Gore's struggling cable network.

"Do not ever talk about what goes on over there and nobody will ever hear about it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The geniuses at MSNBC actually misspelled Bill O'Reilly's last name during a lengthy opening segment Monday bashing the Fox News star's interview with President Obama the previous day.

For the first minute and a half of the ten and a half minute "Last Word" piece, the graphic on a television screen behind and to the right of host Lawrence O'Donnell read "Interruptus O'Reilyus" (video follows with commentary):

On Wednesday's O'Reilly Factor, guest host Laura Ingraham devoted two segments to Lila Rose's latest undercover video showing how Planned Parenthood aiding and abetting the covering up of sex crimes. During the first segment, Ingraham interviewed the pro-life activist. The conservative talker then debated Fox News contributor Jehmu Greene, who defended Planned Parenthood.

On the other hand, the Big Three networks' prominent morning and evening news programs have yet to cover the secret videos.

The guest host's two segments on the controversy came just before and after the bottom of the 8 pm Eastern hour. After playing a 30-second video clip from the undercover video, Ingraham turned to Rose and noted Planned Parenthood's claim that the video only showed an "employee gone bad."

The activist replied that Planned Parenthood's complicity was much broader (see the entire interview of Lila Rose here):

As NewsBusters previously reported, Sam Donaldson on Sunday's "This Week" actually thanked the anti-American television network Al Jazeera for what they do in the Middle East.

On Tuesday, Fox News's Bill O'Reilly invited Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley on his program to discuss the matter, and by the end of the segment, O'Reilly was practically screaming at Sean Hannity's former partner (video follows with commentary):

As media quickly accused conservatives of inciting the tragedy in Tucson two weeks ago, they ignored the fact that one of those they were pointing fingers at was a friend of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.).

On Monday, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly what it was like for her that fateful Saturday morning to not only find out that someone close to her had been shot, but also that she was being accused of causing it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 As he hosted a special two-hour edition of Countdown on Saturday night to cover the violent attack on Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann ended up delivering a "Special Comment" in which he called for an end to the use of violent imagery by political figures of all ideologies, even apologizing for his own history, but he also at one point seemed to describe Sarah Palin and other conservative public figures as "slightly less madmen" than the gunman who attacked Giffords. Olbermann:

We will not because tonight what Mrs. Palin and what Mr. Kelly and what Congressman West and what Ms. Angle and what Mr. Beck and what Mr. O'Reilly and what you and I must understand was that the man who fired today did not fire at a Democratic Congresswoman and her supporters. He was not just a madman incited by 1,000 daily temptations by slightly less madmen to do things they would not rationally condone.

Although the MSNBC host only provided one example of his own past misdeeds - which involved a comment he made about Hillary Clinton in April 2008 - Olbermann’s own history also includes a June 2006 case in which he depicted an image of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh as a target of gunfire, and in October 2008 when he showed a cartoon image of FNC’s Bill O’Reilly being beaten bloody by the Stewie Griffin character from a Family Guy DVD extra scene. And just in November of last year, Olbermann complained that President Obama would likely negotiate with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over tax policy "instead of kicking him in the ass."