O’Reilly’s “Have you no shame, sir?” Moment
Keep you eyes on Crooks & Liars today. You’ve got to see the Letterman/O’Reilly clip when John posts it. I haven’t seen Letterman this serious since his first show after 9/11. The best part :
Letterman : See, I’m very concerned about people like yourself who don’t have nothing but endless sympathy for a woman like Cindy Sheehan. Honest to Christ.O’Reilly : No, I’m sorry.
Letterman : Honest to Christ.
O’Reilly : No way – no way you’re going to get me, no way that a terrorist who blows up women and children.
Letterman : Do you have children?
O’Reilly : Yes I do. I have a son the same age as yours. No way a terrorist who blows up women and children is going to be called a ‘freedom fighter’ on my program.
Letterman : I’m not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. But I don’t know that for a fact.
Paul Shafer : 60 percent.
Letterman : 60 percent. I’m just spit-balling here.
Even better than seeing normally affable Letterman deliver a long overdue verbal ass-whoopin’, it’s nice to see O’Reilly try to defend his views in a venue he doesn’t control. It’s hard to pull that filibuster crap when you’re on somebody else’s show.
UPDATE : John’s got the clip up here with this doozy of a quote from O’Reilly :
“Mr. Letterman is a smart guy who can spot a phony with telescopic accuracy and expects his guests to bring something to the table. If a guest begins to sink on this show, the bottom is a long way down.”
It’ll be interesting to see how O’Reilly will demonize Letterman on tonight’s show. Will Dave be portrayed as a shrill liberal harpy who should be boycotted or a poor victim of liberal propaganda who deserves pity?
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Does this mean that 40% of O’Reilly isn’t crap? That seems high.
Comment by Kamachanda — January 4, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
No, the other 40% is crap as well, it’s just crap that hasn’t been substantiated yet.
Comment by patricia — January 4, 2006 @ 12:12 pm
Thanks.
Comment by Kamachanda — January 4, 2006 @ 3:51 pm
The other 40% is pre-born crap. The kind that is high up in your colon, watery with partially digested food.It stinks even worse than the normal crap, which of course is the other 60% of O’Reilly’s words of wisdom.
Comment by Becky — January 4, 2006 @ 5:42 pm
Did anyone go to media matters? They have similiar clip addressing the part of the interview on christmas and some innacuracy by O’liely on “Silent Night”.
What I found interesting is comparing the clip offered at C&L and M/M. John did some creative editing by taking that “60%” line from the end of the Christmas bit with Dave and fitting it into the more serious Cindy Sheehan jabs as a followup.
In any event, I found the whole back and forth tiring and incoherant blather that made no sense. So what. O’rielly’s an obnoxious bore and Letterman’s a barely funny bore who admits he’s stupid. I agree, Dave.
Comment by edsdet — January 4, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
I watched Letterman last night and couldn’t believe anyone would want to debate that blow hard. The Christmas stuff is like a standup routine for O’Reilly. It was all worth it though to hear Letterman tell Bill he was full of crap. There was also an animal trick where a cat called 911 while he was interviewing O’Reilly.
Comment by ceres — January 4, 2006 @ 10:13 pm
I was proud of Letterman because he was so obviously out of his element. Political activism is not normally his bag: yet he’s upset enough to take on a right wing mouthpiece. I don’t usually watch Letterman, but I saw the whole conversation on download. I don’t think Letterman was really able to take Mr. Bill down (the way Stewart did, effortlessly), but I was so damn thrilled that he tried to articulate rather than soft-peddling the interview. Good for him.
Comment by Arwen — January 5, 2006 @ 9:25 am