Bill O'Reilly, Author of 'Pinheads and Patriots,' More Interested in People than in Politics

The O’Reilly Factor has been number one in the cable news ratings for eight straight years, affording host Bill O’Reilly a unique perspective on American elections. Luckily, he shared some of those insights with Imus today, which just happens to be Election Day.
 
“I don’t really have much use for party politics,” O’Reilly said, asked if he looks at elections based on how they affect his program, the country, or a particular political party. “I think they’re all pinheads.”
 
Fitting, considering his most recent book is Pinheads and Patriots. His job, as he sees it, is to tell people who is going to look out for them. “I don’t have any vested interest in the establishment,” O’Reilly said. “I have a vested interest in telling them the truth about how the establishment affects them.”
 
Accused of not answering the question, O’Reilly explained that he’s more interested in the people who seek power than he is in the politics. “The political thing for me is kinda boring,” he said. “I zero in on personality.”
 
As an example, he cited Christine O’Donnell, the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware who rose to power via the Tea Party and a Sarah Palin endorsement. “She’s a young woman, fairly attractive,” O’Reilly said of O’Donnell. “She gets thrust in, and the liberal press tries to knife her right away, which is what the liberal press does.”
 
O’Reilly invited O’Donnell on his program, but she declined. “Obviously that’s a flag,” he said. “So we covered it that way: she may not be ready for primetime.”
 
The Americans who catapulted O’Donnell and other Tea Party candidates to the forefront are angry about President Obama’s policies, but O’Reilly sees a silver lining to their rage.
 
“The real importance of today is that everybody is engaged now!” he said. “They’re really mad—that’s good! They’re not apathetic anymore.”
 
Unfortunately, O’Reilly does not foresee any scenario where Obama could work with a Republican Congress, “unless the President gets struck by lightning.” One of two things will probably happen, in his view: Obama will move to the center to try to engage people, or he’ll stay true to his liberal beliefs and “go out fighting.”
 
Either way, not much will be accomplished in the next two years. “The Republicans are certainly not going to try to help Barack Obama,” O’Reilly noted. “They hate him, and they want to get him out in ’12. So they’re going to sabotage him whenever they can.”
 
As for 2012, O’Reilly firmly believes Sarah Palin will run for President, having asked her that very question on his program last night. “She got this little grin on her face,” he said. “She’s going for it.”
 
Whether she’s ready for it is an entirely different story. “I can’t tell,” O’Reilly said of whether Palin is qualified, though he pointed out that when she left the governorship in Alaska, her approval rating was 60 percent, a high number for any governor.
 
O’Reilly warned anyone who makes her out to be a moron: “The liberal media is never going to figure that out: the more condescending they are, the more smirky they are, the more votes go on the other side.”
 
And the more material for people like Jon Stewart, whom O’Reilly admires. “I think he’s got a real strong intellect,” he said, but wondered why people like Stewart and Glenn Beck have 15 writers around all the time, when O’Reilly doesn’t have any. 
 
“You went to Harvard,” Imus told his guest. “They didn’t.”
 
-Julie Kanfer