Bill O'Reilly Talks Beck, Newt, and Why He Loves Jon Stewart

Imus congratulated Bill O’Reilly this morning for “that thing” he won, prompting his guest to fill in the blank. Instead, O’Reilly played coy. “God, I win so many things,” he mugged.
 
The “thing” to which Imus referring this time was a Suffolk University poll in which O’Reilly was named the most trusted source in news among 1,000 Americans. “That’s why Cavuto is so nasty e-mailing you, because he doesn’t get that,” O’Reilly told Imus. The two then concluded that the bitter Neil Cavuto is, in fact, lucky to be employed at all.
 
Yet Cavuto still has two shows on the air at Fox, which is exactly two more than Glenn Beck will soon have, as he prepares to depart Fox and start his own internet television venture, GBTV. Imus believes the nutty Beck is “five minutes away from announcing, like this Harold Camping guy, that the world’s going to end,” but O’Reilly gave him more credit.
 
“I could never understand…why the Left hates the guy so much,” O’Reilly, who has done speaking tours with Beck, said. “If you don’t agree with him, fine. Have a few laughs, admire his showmanship. Why do you have to get upset about that?”
 
To Imus’s point that Beck often crosses the line, like when he called the President a racist and insulted Meghan McCain, O’Reilly replied, “He’s doing four hours of commentary a day—you’re going to have some moments that aren’t good.”
 
O’Reilly has been hating on Obama less than usual lately, but has been less kind to Sarah Palin, who, if she decides to run for president, brings some pros and cons to the table.
 
“The plus is that she governed her state well, and had high approval ratings as governor there, and she did a good job shaking down the oil companies to get money for the state,” O’Reilly said of Alaska. “She kept taxes fairly low and she ran the state efficiently.”
 
Palin’s “minus,” in O’Reilly’s view, is unwillingness to be specific. “You ask her a question—specifically, as I do—and she doesn’t really want to answer that,” he said. “She wants to give a speech.”
 
Running for president in this media environment, O’Reilly noted, demands candidates show gravitas and problem-solving skills. Palin, he said, “still hasn’t really embraced that.”
 
Unlike Imus and others, O’Reilly feels bad for Newt Gingrich, who has taken a lot of heat lately for spending $500 million on his wife at Tiffany’s. “It gets to the point where you beat the hell out of people,” O’Reilly said, then blamed Imus’s “buddy” Bob Schieffer for grilling Gingrich last Sunday on Face the Nation. “This was as upset as Schieffer had been since Watergate!”
 
Like Imus, O’Reilly is a fan of Jon Stewart’s ability to frame issues in a way that is both informative and entertaining. He was less complimentary toward Stephen Colbert, because Colbert refuses to “stand up” the way Stewart does, and appear on The O’Reilly Factor.
 
Speaking of appearances, Imus confessed he brags to other people that O’Reilly will appear on his program, presumably because he’s got mad love for the I-Man.
 
“It’s ’cause you’re on the Fox Business Network,” O’Reilly clarified. “And also because you have Dagen McDowell on the program.”
 
That too.
 
-Julie Kanfer