Last week, Bill O’Reilly was smearing conservative talk-radio show host Rush Limbaugh and others calling them “cool aid drinking idiots” for arguing against the Wall Street bailout bill. He insinuated that Rush was so rich he was out of touch with common folks. He mentioned the cigar smoking and private jet that Rush is known for. The jealousy and hatred O’Reilly exhibited toward Rush prompted Mark to remind us that Bill O’Reilly payed an enormous amount of money to settle the following sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him in 2004.
Some people spend their money on fine cigars and private jets. Others spend it on hushing up embarrassing lawsuits. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones! Put that in your no-spin zone, Bill!
Poor Rush,Can't even enjoy the dam superbowl this year.And it took two government motor's to beat one Ford Fusion... 
.jpg)
Got to hand it to you MLF. You are a deadly SOB! I don’t know if I would have done this but then again I can’t say I wouldn’t have either. I know how you feel. Got anything like this on Weiner? That is especially strange because these allegations are clearly not in character with someone who repetitiously states that what you do privately may end up on You-tube.
Live your life as though what you do in private may be viewed in public and this could never happen. To whatever extent the allegations were true, or not, they were embarrassing to read.
Thanks for the reminder, MLF. I remember the lawsuit, but I never knew what happened. I’m surprised Fox keeps paying this guy given that he could cost them millions if he continues philandering with the staff.
We don’t know if O’Reilly is guilty of that, Anna, but we do know he paid big time to settle the lawsuit. If he was innocent of the charges, he shouldn’t have settled. According to this CBS article, the settlement was for millions!
Sometimes you settle these things so that you don’t drag your family through the mud. O’Reilly has enemies out there that are far worse than we are. Parts of these allegations don’t make sense. We will never know the truth. The money that surrounds him is a double edged sword. He is a target and can return a hard hit but that is exactly what the MSM loves so when you have a family that may also become victims the best thing might be to shut it down.
Come on, you guys…
You are being way too mean to Bill O’Reilly. Do you want to know what would have happened if he had fought that ridiculous lawsuit? John Kerry would’ve won the election. Do you think it was just a coincidence that the accusations came out during October in an election year? I don’t.
Every true conservative knows that “sexual harassment” lawsuits are generally bogus, anyway. It’s just a usual tactic of the liberal, feminist psychopaths.
O’Reilly is clearly wrong about the bailout bill. His accusations against the oil companies are also silly. But O’Reilly doesn’t pretend to be a true conservative. And despite his occasional liberal outbursts, he still has an interesting tv show.
And whereas I definitely like Mark and usually find his personal attacks to be humorous, bringing up this arguably frivolous lawsuit is a little over the line.
Mean to Bill O’Reilly? Pleeeeze! There is one way and one way only to clear your name from a lawsuit and that is to fight it and win. Most people don’t have the means to do that, but Bill certainly did! Sweeping it under the table is not the way to clear your name. You are assuming Bill was innocent. I think that is a poor assumption.
So Drew, do you really think O’Reilly settled so Bush could win the election? LOL!
Drew,
We’re just having a little fun with O’Reilly and I don’t think many of us disagree with you. I will say that I don’t think that O’Reilly is important enough to constitute an October surprise resulting in a Kerry Presidency nor do I think he settled the lawsuit to give GW the best shot. That said I know you have to agree that he has a very troubling economic view both as a conservative and even as a pragmatist with his back against the wall. Finally, look at the above post by ML and tell me that O’Reilly cannot be just as provocative as Nancy Pelosi. He could provoke the floor and when you do something like that watch your achilles tendon.
Yeah, I heard Mark read that clip from the Radio Factor on the air, and I agree that O’Reilly deserved an on-air beatdown for it.
And I also agree that the Radio Factor is kinda boring.
Drew: Every true conservative knows that “sexual harassment†lawsuits are generally bogus, anyway. It’s just a usual tactic of the liberal, feminist psychopaths.
Anna: Are you kidding me?!?!? Have you EVER been a female in a predominantly male run industry? Sorry, but I totally side with the woman on this because I’ve seen this sort of thing happen. Guys have danced very close to the line with me at previous jobs.
Women often don’t know who to go to, and in the case of this lady, she may have been worried about going to HR because she didn’t know who O’Reilly had alliances with.
By the way, I did get HR involved when I noticed this type of harassment happening to co-workers at one job. These were mature, LIBERAL woman, and utterly frightened of going to HR on their own. The guy who was harassing them got bounced and they thanked me for stepping in.
Do you honestly think it is easy for a woman to sue someone for sexual harassment? Do you realize that this woman knew she was willing to risk her career by filing a complaint? It is not a choice anyone takes lightly.
And why are you attacking liberal women? Women are women – regardless of political beliefs. And sexual harassment of any woman, or any man, is wrong.
One other thing. O’Reilly is not a true conservative because “he is fair and balancedâ€Â.
O’Reilly plays the part of a conservative but professes to be an Independent. From time to time, he takes conservative positions within liberal issues. The Fox News O’Reilly Factor audience, which is huge, watches him because, most of the time, his cause is just and seemingly conservative. He is a “tough guy” taking on bad people. However, the real O’Reilly was revealed to us all on the Radio Factor. Clearly, this man has a deep-seated envy “thing” about Rush Limbaugh. And labeling Rush, Sean, and TGO as “Kool-Aid Drinking Idiots” when these three gentlemen represent solid mainstream conservatism, makes Bill a left-leaning lunatic. O’Reilly should be judged on his statements on the Radio Factor. The original subject here is O’Reilly attacking conservative talk radio hosts. The sexual harassment suit of 2004 and his recent unhinged rant are seemingly unrelated. However, since O’Reilly has placed himself on high moral ground defending children, writing books for children, and defending American Culture, he has a responsibility to his audience to live up to a corresponding high level of integrity and personal behavior. The lawsuit as well as the radio rant chip away at the perceived stature of Bill O-Reilly and reduces him to the level of a second-rate “Inside Edition” gossip reporter.
Come on, you guyths…
You are being way too mean to Bill O’Reilly. Do you want to know what would have happened if he had fought that ridiculouths lawthoot? John Kerry would’ve won the election!! Do you think it wath just a cointhidenth that the accuthationth came out during October in an election year? I don’t.
Every true conthervative knowth that “theckthual harathment†lawthoots are generally bogths, anyway. It’th jutht a uthual tactic of the liberal, feminitht thychopath.
O’Reilly ith clearly wrong about the bailout bill. Hith accuthathuns against the oil companeeth are altho thilly. But O’Reilly doethn’t pretend to be a true conthervative. And dethpite hith occathional liberal outburthts, he thtill hath an interethting tv show.
And whereath I definitely like Mark and uthually find hith perthonal attackth to be humorouth, bringing up thith arguably frivolouth lawthoot is a little over the line.
heheeehhheeeheheheeeAHAHHAHAHAAAAHAAAAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!
O’Reilly owes his viewership to the fact that he is the closet thing to a conservative that people can find in the video world, not because he is fair and balanced. That is the whole general idea behind Fox News as opposed to NBC and MSNBC that is outright liberal. He should be happy that nobody listens to his Radio Factor because after they get a dose of that bi-polar schizophrenic outburst they will never be deceived about his fair and balanced viewpoint again.
Cable TV is ripe for a real conservative commentator and we need more stations. Many people listen to talk radio and view Fox because this is the only place that they can find rational reporting. If we want to win elections without all this work we need more TV outlets and a few more newspapers and we have to get control of the minds of our youth. In other words we have to take a page from “Rules for Radicals†and adopt the same techniques, obviously not the ideas but the techniques. Conservatism sells itself but many people do not hunt down Fox News, they just turn on the TV, so the day that you will accidentally hit a conservative bias broadcast, as opposed to a liberal bias, is the day that you stop worrying about election outcomes.
If we really had fair and balanced reporting this election would not be close for one very obvious reason…the economy. We do not have to speculate on what an Obama Presidency will be like because we already know that his philosophy is that of ACORN’s which is the crux behind the socialistic, easy credit, heavily defaulted sub prime meltdown. The template of an Obama Administration is already available for anyone to look at. How much work is involved in reporting this? The only work they do is to bury it. Ask the man on the street what he knows about politics and all he will say is that Bush caused a bad economy and Obama will create a good one. He is almost responding like a Pavlovian dog from the constant drumbeat of MSM sound bites that do the same to his brain that any NFL commercial does. This is where elections can be won or lost. This is not 1860 where live debates and newspaper reporting were the only basis for choosing a candidate. Marx had written his Manifesto only twelve years before and we were a long way from having the constitutional firewalls breached. Today we have hordes of immigrants, who vote, that lack American traditional values, let alone understand concepts of liberty and tyranny. Add to that gobs of students who have not a dime invested in real property nor a clue of where liberty stops and tyranny begins. In 1860 the thought of tyranny and the loss of liberty were not even on the election map unless you were a slave. Today the very concept of slavery has been turned on its head and sanitized to re-emerge as economic egalitarianism.
Wow, finally a place that knows what O’Reilly is. I am so sick of the BO pair. O’Reilly is a joke. His Obama Chronicles segments were totally gaga for “The One”.
As bad of an egomaniac as O’Reilly is, (to be fair and balanced) tonight he featured a segment on the Obama kids song, a segment on Gwen Ifill (or is it Eyefill, Eyefull, or IFool?), and a call for Barney Frank to resign his committee leadership position. At least for this show, he was in lock step with my conservative values. Where else could I find a television show that called for Gwen Ifill to step down from moderating the VP debate? Again, O’Reilly is probably a Lib at heart, but he knows what his conservative audience wants to hear and most of the time he delivers it. Take O’Reilly with a grain of salt and be suspicious of his motives.
Nah, O’Reilly’s not a lib at heart. He’s a “traditionalist” at heart, which means that he tends to believe in conservatism, but doesn’t always have enough education to truly understand conservative issues. In general, he completely misses the boat on economic matters because he doesn’t understand basic economics.
As an econ major in undergrad, I feel like a lot of our positions are essentially common-sense. We need to do a better job of spreading our message to the masses.
I definitely think it’s absurd that so many people are supporting this bailout nonsense on the basis that credit might become difficult to obtain. HELLO?! — The majority of the country is in DEBT up to their eyeballs! We don’t need more credit!
Arg. I’m getting really frustrated about this stupid election. It looks like it’s going to be the New Deal all over again.
The reason I like O’Reilly is because he crusades for moral causes, and he’s often right. You guys are quite correct that he’s wrong about the bailout, but I still contend that the “sexual harrasment” lawsuit was b.s.
You guys know good and well that there’s no way he could’ve gotten a fair jury trial in New York.
Drew,
You are right in that O’Reilly is not a lib. Neither is Bush or McCain but sometimes they might as well be because of their support for the wrong side of an issue in a way that only a liberal would. His love for ratings can be embarrassing when he pushes too hard for high profile lib interviews and he can never be as hard as he needs to be because they will not come back. He wants that reputation of fairness and balance. Limbaugh, Levin and Hannnity are balanced because the rest of the media is liberal and unbalanced. Conservatism fundamentally espouses liberty and freedom and not group rights; it’s foundational core philosophy is all about individual rights. When O’Reilly says that if people want socialism, they can vote for it, he doesn’t get the plain and very simple concept that you cannot vote away the deed to your neighbor’s property nor can you commit a person’s labor to involuntary servitude because of a majority vote. That is where you say that he doesn’t have enough education. He is very educated but just doesn’t get it; many libs are educated; some are brainwashed and others are true hard-core believers. Most conservatives are not elitists and I am amazed at people, from every variety of life, who have minimal formal education that can articulate conservatism. I understood conservatism when I was in High School.
O’Reilly is a pragmatic populist and sometimes he gets it very right and sometimes he gets it very wrong.
Interesting position about a jury trial in NY and I can’t deny that he would need attorneys that just specialize in vetting jurors. When you are that high profile, and not exactly loved, justice can be difficult to find. He didn’t settle this so much because he was guilty but because exoneration may not be possible. It could go either way. Look at Scooter Libby and the OJ and ask why justice was AWOL. Oprah managed in her jury trial, with the beef industry, but that was not about her reputation, and she is loved; in O’Reilly’s case he makes his living based upon his reputation. Had he lost, his career would be over; if he were a true lib his career would be enhanced.
We are all frustrated about this election including the other side and I, and you, and others, would like to keep them that way.
One more thing for the record. Who is to say if an insurance company did not pay part, or all, of the settlement. Most people have umbrella policies as a rider to their homeowners and I suspect Fox has something more significant.