Wednesday, January 04, 2006

David Letterman BitchSlaps Bill O'Reilly. You Go Boy!


I love David Letterman. A lot. He's funny as all hell, damned irreverent, and completely honest. The guy's heart is always firmly on his sleeve. And after watching him skewer Fox's Bill O'Reilly Tuesday night after he spewed his vomitous, untruthful rhetoric about the "attack on Christmas" and his pot shots at Cindy Sheehan, I fell head over heels all over again. His interview with the duplicitious O'Reilly proves just why he's the best there is. Kudos to Dave for doing his part to expose these losers for the total frauds they are.

So, rather than merely describe the fun, here is the full transcript:

Letterman: Our first guest is the host of Cable Television's number one news program - The O'Reilly Factor - it can be seen five nights a week on Fox News. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Bill O'Reilly. Bill come on out. Welcome back.

O'Reilly: Thank you.

Letterman: Happy New Year. Welcome back to the show. Tell me and people what you did before the O'Reilly, Factor, Fox News thing.

O'Reilly: I was running the deli downstairs with that guy they have.

Letterman: Is that a fact?

O'Reilly: So, you can build on that career he's making.

Letterman: Yea, but seriously.

O'Reilly: I did a show called Inside Edition. Then, before that, I was a correspondent for ABC News, Peter Jennings, and before that CBS News.

Letterman: So, you're a life-long news journalist?

O'Reilly: Yea.

Letterman: How were your holidays? Good?

O'Reilly: I had a nice winter solstice, yea.

Letterman: Okay.

O'Reilly: You can't say - you can't say Christmas.

Letterman: You can't say Christmas?

O'Reilly: No.

Letterman: Why is that?

O'Reilly: Because it is politically incorrect and we did a lot of reporting on this and, uh, that was the big thing we were doing leading up to that. While you were in St. Barts, we were leading up to the Christmas holidays by saying 'Hey, how come we can't say Christmas?'

Letterman: I wasn't aware that you couldn't say Christmas. When did this happen?

O'Reilly: Sears, Kmart started it, said no more Christmas. It's all happy holidays or winter solstice. I actually got a card from a friend of mine, it said 'Have a Blessed Winter.' I live in New York. You know what you can do with your blessed winter. You know what I'm talking about? Are you with me, Dave?

Letterman: I wasn't aware that this had happened.

O'Reilly: You weren't aware of the big giant controversy over Christmas?

Letterman: Well, I ignore stuff like that, it doesn't really affect me. I go ahead and do what I wanna do and you know I say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Happy Hannukah.

O'Reilly: Here's why it matters. You with me on this?

Letterman: Yea.

O'Reilly: Okay. Ridgewood Elementary School in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. The song - Silent Night. [singing] Silent Night, you know? Knocked out the words and told the little kids to sing 'cold in the night, no one in sight, winter winds whine and bite, how I wish I was happy and warm, safe with my family, out of the storm.' They replaced the words to Silent Night with that. Now, with all due respect, I even think the baby Jesus would say 'gimme a break.' You know? You want another one ?

Letterman: No, but let- I don't-

O'Reilly: Woah, Woah, Woah, when great tradition-

Letterman: But what does this prove? It proves that one community-

O'Reilly: It proves there are pinheads at the Ridgewell Elementary School in Wisconsin.

Letterman: Right.

O'Reilly: That's what it proves.

Letterman: Right.

O'Reilly: Here's another one, you want another one? Or are you bored with this?

Letterman: I'm kinda- think we should move on.

Letterman: I mean but isn't this the kind of thing uh uh once or twice every twenty years somebody gets outraged and says oh by god we gotta put diapers on horses isn't it just about, it's just so what, let it go, it'll take care of itself.

O'Reilly: No. There is a movement in this country by politically correct people to erode traditions and the Christmas tradition is the most cherished in the country. Look. How absurd is it?

Letterman: But I don't -

Letterman: I don't feel threatened.

O'Reilly: It's not matter of you feel threatened.

Letterman: I don't this is an actual threat. I think this is something that happened here and it happened there and so people like you are trying to make us think that it's a threat.

O'Reilly: Wrong.

Letterman: Because nobody said happy holidays to me and then said Merry Christmas, oh I can't say Merry Christmas.

O'Reilly: Well, here's why it gets to be more than that, because it's in court. there are lawsuits. In Plano, Texas another grammar school, umm the kids were told not to bring in Christmas colors like napkins that are red and green. That's in court; that's being litigated. Now you can say 'Oh, that's just a little thing, it doesn't affect you,' but it isn't. The erosion of the culture and the protection of tradition is important in this country.

Letterman: Yea, but are we really describing an erosion here? It's two examples one in Wisconsin and one in Texas.

O'Reilly: I got a million of them.

Letterman: Oh, you got a million of them? Okay. Fine.

O'Reilly: um, and they're funny ones. Memphis, Tennessee, Bible Belt, library. They have a little display where you can, say you are in a duck hunting club you can bring in a dead duck and put it there and advertise you duck hunting club. We kill ducks. Show up at 9 o'clock and we'll blow some ducks out of the air. Okay. There was a church that wanted to advertise a Christmas pageant so they brought in the manger scene and the library said you can the manger scene in Memphis Tennessee, but you can't have the baby Jesus, Joseph, or Mary or the wise men. We're not sure about the shepherds. That was a big debate. Now, how stupid and crazy is this?

Letterman: I don't believe you.

O'Reilly: It's true.

Letterman: I don't believe you. I don't...I don't believe you.

O'Reilly: You think I'm making this up?

Letterman: I do.

O'Reilly: Then I could write for your show. (reaching for cup on Letterman's desk) This mine?

Letterman: Yes. let's talk about your friends in the Bush administration, things seem to be darker now.

O'Reilly: They don't like me.

Letterman: Then they might ave been a year before how do things look to you?

O'Reilly: It's pretty rough, but they're not my friends in the Bush administration. They're not kicking the door down to be on my show, in fact you have an easier time getting President Bush to come on here than I have getting him to come on the Factor. But I think that the Iraq thing has been full of unintended consequences and it's a vital thing for the country and it's brutal, it's absolutely brutal. We should all take it very seriously. This simplistic stuff about hating Bush or he lied and all this stuff, does the country no good at all. We've got to win this thing. You have to win it. And even though it's a screw-up, giant, massive, all right, right now, for everybody's protection, it's best for the world to have a democracy in that country functioning and friendly to the West, is it not?

Letterman: Yes, absolutely.

O'Reilly: Okay, so let's stop with the lying and the this and the that and the undermining and let's get him. That is putting us all in danger. So our philosophy is we call it as we see it. Sometimes you agree, sometimes you don't. Robust debate is good. But we believe that the United States, particularly the military, are doing a noble thing, a noble thing. The soldiers and Marines are noble. They're not terrorists. And when people call them that, like Cindy Sheehan called the insurgents 'freedom fighters,' we don't like that. It is a vitally important time in American history. And we should all take it very seriously. Be very careful with what we say.

Letterman: Well, and you should be very careful with what you say also.

O'Reilly: Give me an example.

Letterman: How can you possibly take exception with the motivation and the position of someone like Cindy Sheehan?

O'Reilly: Because I think she's run by far-left elements in this country. I feel bad for the woman.

Letterman: Have you lost family members in armed conflict?

O'Reilly: No, I have not.

Letterman: Well, then you can hardly speak for her, can you?

O'Reilly: I'm not speaking for her. Let me ask you this question.

Letterman: [referring back to O'Reilly's phony "War on Christmas"] Let's go back to your little red and green stories.

O'Reilly: This is important, this is important. Cindy Sheehan lost a son, a professional soldier in Iraq, correct? She has a right to grieve any way she wants, she has a right to say whatever she wants. When she says to the public that the insurgents and terrorists are 'freedom fighters' how do you think, David Letterman, that makes people who lost loved ones, by these people blowing the Hell out of them, how do you think they feel, what about their feelings, sir?

Letterman: What about, why are we there in the first place? [applause] The President himself, less than a month ago said we are there because of a mistake made in intelligence. Well, whose intelligence? It was just somebody just get off a bus and handed it to him?

O'Reilly: No.

Letterman: No, it was the intelligence gathered by his administration.

O'Reilly: By the CIA.

Letterman: Yeah, so why are we there in the first place? I agree to you, with you that we have to support the troops. They are there, they are the best and the brightest of this country. [audience applause] There's no doubt about that. And I also agree that now we're in it it's going to take a long, long time. People who expect it's going to be solved and wrapped up in a couple of years, unrealistic, it's not going to happen. However, however, that does not eliminate the legitimate speculation and concern and questioning of why the hell are we there to begin with?

O'Reilly: If you want to question that, and then revamp an intelligence agency that's obviously flawed, the CIA, okay. But remember, MI-6 in Britain said the same thing. Putin's people in Russia said the same thing, and so did Mubarak's intelligence agency in Egypt.

Letterman: Well then that makes it all right?

O'Reilly: No it doesn't make it right.

Letterman: That intelligence agencies across the board makes it alright that we're there?

O'Reilly: It doesn't make it right.

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. [waits for applause to die down] 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. [audience laughter] But I don't know that for a fact.

Paul Shafer: Sixty percent.

Letterman: Sixty percent. I'm just spit-balling here.

O'Reilly: Listen, I respect your opinion. You should respect mine.

Letterman: Well, ah, I, okay. But I think you're-

O'Reilly: Our analysis is based on the best evidence we can get.

Letterman: Yeah, but I think there's something, this fair and balanced. I'm not sure that it's, I don't think that you represent an objective viewpoint.

O'Reilly: Well, you're going to have to give me an example if you're going to make those claims.

Letterman: Well I don't watch your show so that would be impossible.

O'Reilly: Then why would you come to that conclusion if you don't watch the program?

Letterman: Because of things that I've read, things that I know.

O'Reilly: Oh come on, you're going to take things that you've read. You know what say about you? Come on. Watch it for a couple, look, watch it for a half hour. You'll get addicted. You'll be a Factor fan, we'll send you a hat.

Letterman: You'll send me a hat. Well, send Cindy Sheehan a hat.

O'Reilly: I'll be happy to.

Letterman: Uh, Bill, it's always a pleasure.

O'Reilly: Thank you very much. Happy New Year.

Letterman: Same to you.

If you'd like to watch the video, here's a link:
http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/dave_tv/ls_dtv_big_show_
highlights.shtml

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I kinda wish Jon Stewart would go off on some of his more conservative guests like that. It's not like they're not deserving.

But it's really sad that it takes David Letterman to call O'Reilly on his bullshit and not the "serious" reporters.