Bill O'Reilly on Elvis, Beck, Perry, Obama, and 'The View'

Thirty-four years ago today Elvis Presley died, and both Imus and his guest Bill O’Reilly remembered exactly where they were when the news broke: O’Reilly, host of Fox News Channel’s O’Reilly Factor, was in Lake Tahoe; Imus was sitting on his motorcycle in Greenwich, CT, “probably drunk.”
 
Imus wondered why most people from his generation remember this event so vividly, and O’Reilly supposed it has to do with the way Elvis transformed the culture of their youth “from Perry Como into rock-and-roll.”
 
Elvis put on some unforgettable performances during the course of his groundbreaking career, and O’Reilly is hoping to mirror that success as he and Dennis Miller kick of their Bolder Fresher 2011 tour this weekend on Long Island. It’s the same tour O’Reilly undertook last year with Glenn Beck, who O’Reilly guessed had fallen off the face of the earth since leaving Fox News earlier this year.
 
Turns out Imus heard from Beck just the other day. “I think he’s in Texas,” Imus said. “Because I told him I had to go to Texas about once a month, beginning in September, and could I stay at his house.”
 
We’ll assume the answer was no, and move on to other news emanating from Texas this week: three-term Republican Gov. Rick Perry announced he’ll run for president in 2012, and O’Reilly assured Imus that the dude is for real.
 
“You know he’s for real when the New York Times attacks him, which they did 13 seconds after he announced, calling him some kind of fascist and all of that,” O’Reilly said. “So yeah, he’s certainly a viable contender.”
 
The Iowa straw poll, conducted last weekend and won by Rep. Michele Bachmann, is “just for the press,” according to O’Reilly, because they have nothing to do in August. “It’s just a bunch of people at a fair, and they go to a booth, and instead of throwing little baseballs and dunking somebody in water, they put a bean in a jar,” he said. “It’s really not much more than that.”
 
Instead, he pays attention to official polls conducted by the likes of Fox News, Gallup and Rasmussen, all of which point to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Bachmann, and Perry as top contenders.
 
“I don’t see how the others in the field get that traction,” he said. “Because if they don’t have it by now, where does it come from?”
 
O’Reilly never endorses a candidate, he told Imus, because he is a journalist, and his job is to be tough on everybody. Since Imus is anything but a journalist, he jumped on the Romney bandwagon, which is probably a lot less depressing these days than the Obama bus tour, which kicked off yesterday in Iowa.
 
“Why is President Obama on a bus, trying to convince people he’s doing a good job?” O’Reilly wondered. “I don’t know. I think he probably should be in Washington, doing the good job, so then people could say, ‘Well, we don’t need him on the bus.’”
 
O’Reilly doesn’t do many media appearances, and Imus feels lucky that he agrees to appear on this program every so often. That does not mean, however, that Imus has any inclination or obligation to read O’Reilly’s forthcoming book about Abraham Lincoln.
 
“Make me read it,” he challenged his guest, who will probably show up on The View to promote “Killing Lincoln,” despite Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walking off the set the last time he was there.
 
“I’m hoping they all walk out on me this time, not just two,” O’Reilly said. “So I get the whole hour.”
 
-Julie Kanfer

Comments

[Doug P]

Dear Imus:

I know your hurting so will try to be nice...BUT
One week O'Reilly is a scumbag that doesn't help the Fallen Hero Fund
and tries to pawn off his lame book on troops fighting for their lives
Heard one unit used the books to "up armour" Humveees

Next thing...your treating his interview like Jesus has just walked on water..

PLEASE...make up yur mind

Canada Doug