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Bill O'Reilly (commentator)

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Bill O'Reilly in 2010

William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. (born September 10, 1949, in Westbury, New York) is an American broadcast journalist and author. He came to national prominence hosting Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. He hosted the American cable television news analysis program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel from 1997 to 2017. He was terminated by Fox in early 2017 after a New York Times article disclosed several multi-million dollar settlements alleging sexual misconduct. O'Reilly subsequently founded the No-Spin Zone media franchise. He has written or co-written over 20 non-fiction books on politics and history, along with several novels.

Quotes

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  • All this is beyond me. I had trouble with Lincoln Logs. Remember Lincoln Logs? I mean, that was it for me.
  • Winston Churchill said that democracy was the worst possible form of government, except for all the others. Maybe we can say the same about capitalism. For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few... Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy.
  • I want to quote this— "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and to my country and obey Scout law", on and on and on and on. I mean, God's in the first 10 words. So – why did you have to tell them you were an atheist if you didn't have any trouble reading the oath? Why didn't you just shut up?
  • I wouldn't read the book, and I'll tell you why. I wouldna read Mein Kampf either. If I were going to UNC in 1941, and you, professor, said read Mein Kampf, I woulda said, "Hey, professor, with all due respect, shove it. I ain't reading it."
  • Paula Evan, Winston-Salem North Carolina: "Bill, if you are so concerned about public figures being bad role models for children please stop rudely interrupting your guest and telling them to shut up!" Well, the 'shut up' line has happened only once in six years, Miss Evans.
  • Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there's no question that it will.
  • [to guest saying the war is "going to go on for months"] There's no way. There's absolutely no way. They may bomb for a matter of weeks, try to soften them up as they did in Afghanistan. But once the United States and Britain unleash, it's maybe hours. They're going to fold like that.
  • Once the war against Saddam Hussein begins, we expect every American to support our military, and if you can't do that, just shut up. Americans, and indeed our foreign allies, who actively work against our military once the war is underway, will be considered enemies of the state by me. Just fair warning to you, Barbara Streisand and others who see the world as you do. I don't want to demonize anyone, but anyone who hurts this country in a time like this, well — let's just say you will be spotlighted.
  • Think about this — some of us actively fighting to remove Saddam Hussein don't agree with the cause themselves, but they're doing their duty. And it is our duty as loyal Americans to shut up once the fighting begins, unless — unless facts prove the operation wrong, as was the case in Vietnam.
  • I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this… What do you want me to do, go over and kiss the camera?
    • Good Morning America (ABC), 10 February 2004 
    • in response to a request to make good on his 2003-03-18 promise to publicly apologize if weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq
  • I go on Good Morning America yesterday and say that I'm personally sorry my analysis on WMDs before the war was wrong and I'm angry about the CIA mistake. I mean, any honest commentator would say that, but the left-wing press sees my admission as some kind of liberal policy vindication and is using my words to hammer the president. Well, that's dishonest. I still believe removing Saddam was the right thing to do and that history will prove it. And there's also the possibility that WMDs will be found, so I might have to apologize for my apology. I don't mind. I still hope they find WMDs.
  • Like a brain surgeon who drinks a martini when he's not on call, the successful kids in your school may smoke pot on occasion, but they are not stoners.
    • The O'Reilly Factor for Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Families. HarperCollins. 2004-09-28. p. 67. ISBN 9780060544249. 
  • And guys, if you exploit a girl, it will come back to get you. That's called "karma."
    • The O'Reilly Factor for Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Families. HarperCollins. 2004-09-28. p. 75. ISBN 9780060544249. 
  • There is no question that Whoopi Goldberg's foolish comments at a John Kerry fundraiser hurt Kerry — who had no idea how to handle the situation. Chevy Chase should have learned from that. Even he has to know that calling the president of the United States an "F" is not going to be accepted by most Americans. Now you don't see this kind of thing on the right. You don't see prominent conservatives cursing out Democratic members of Congress, for example. Now I know talk radio can get rough but nothing like what these Hollywood nitwits are throwing out there.
  • I'll tell you what. I've been in combat. I've seen it, I've been close to it... and if my unit is in danger, and I've got a captured guy, and the guy knows where the enemy is, and I'm looking him in the eye, the guy better tell me. That's all I'm gonna tell you. The guy better tell me. If it's life or death, he's going first.
  • Roger from Portland
    You just said you've been in combat, but you've never been in the military, have you?
    Bill O'Reilly
    No, I have not.
    Roger from Portland
    Then why do you say you've been in combat?
    Bill O'Reilly
    Why do I say that, Roger? Because I was in the middle of a couple of firefights in South and Central America.
    Roger from Portland
    But you were a media guy.
    Bill O'Reilly
    Yeah. A media guy with a pen, not a gun. And people were shooting at me, Roger.
  • Most people showed up, and I think there were, like, 1,300 of them, to hear what the woman had to say. These far-left Nazis— and that's what they are, OK?— came in, not only insulted Ms. Coulter but violated the rights of the people who came to hear what she had to say. This is unacceptable on every level. And it's unacceptable to do what they do on their websites: to defame, to lie, to do whatever, you know, sleazy thing they can think of to people with whom they disagree.
  • David Letterman
    How can you possibly take exception with the motivation and the position of someone like Cindy Sheehan?
    Bill O'Reilly
    Because I think she's run by far-left elements in this country. I feel bad for the woman.
    David Letterman
    Have you lost family members in armed conflict?
    Bill O'Reilly
    No, I have not.
    David Letterman
    Well, then you can hardly speak for her, can you?
  • I'm not buying this. If, if you're eleven years old, or twelve years old, thirteen, and you have a strong bond with your family, OK. Even if the guy [kidnapper] threatens you - this and that. … If you can get away, you get away.
  • Bill O'Reilly
    I'm effete. I'm not a tough guy. This is all an act.
    Stephen Colbert
    You're breaking my heart, Bill.
    Bill O'Reilly
    I'm sensitive, y'know, I'm a—
    Stephen Colbert
    If you're an act, then what am I?
  • The Soros-Lewis mob despises Fox News because we have their number and report on them accurately. They use the MoveOn website to smear this network and others with whom they disagree. These people use propaganda techniques perfected by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of information. They lie, distort, defame all the time.
  • America today is a confused society, caught up in a terror war, a culture war, and a media war, where honesty and professional standards have vanished.
  • Bill O'Reilly
    I think it takes more faith to be like you, an atheist, than like me, a believer, and it's because of nature. You know, I just don't think we could've lucked out to have the tides come in, the tides go out, sun go up, sun go down. Don't think it could've happened.
    Richard Dawkins
    We have a very full understanding of why the tides go in, the tides go out, of why the continents drift about, of why life is there. Science is ever more piling on the evidence, piling on the understanding.
    Bill O'Reilly
    But it had to get there, I understand that you, you know, the uh, physiology of it if you will, but it had to come from somewhere.
  • The hate websites on both the left and the right— I object to. You know I object to. Now, you're a little bit more a libertarian about this in our previous conversations. But I say this. There's no difference between the KKK and the Nazis, who have websites, than the Daily Kos. Because the Daily Kos is basically saying, "We're allowing this kind of thing to come on." It's good that Tony Snow has a recurrence of cancer; we hope he dies. We're sorry the assassination attempt against Dick Cheney failed; let them try again. And on and on and on and on.
  • This is the worst stuff on the Internet. There isn't anything worse than this.
  • CNN has gone to the dark side.
    • The O'Reilly Factor (Fox News), 25 September 2007 
    • in response to CNN's playing a tape of his surprise at Sylvia's Restaurant being like "any other restaurant in New York"
  • You know, look, if I could strangle these people and not go to hell and get executed, I would, but I can't.
  • Many parents are worried in America about the gay agenda and indoctrination of their children to see homosexuality in a certain way.
    • 2007-10-26
    • see Mackris lawsuit quote below, expressing contrary attitude on homosexuality indoctrination
  • It's all coming from the haters on the far left. Just throw it in the garbage. But the regular folks who really enjoy this program, what we want you to ask, Laurie, is why do we do things? Why do we do them?
    • Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC), 12 November 2007 
    • explaining to his ombudsman, Laurie Dhue, what to do about mail complaining about the low quality of Fox News Channel material; November 2007
  • Bill O'Reilly
    You know, what's the difference between the Ku Klux Klan and Arianna Huffington? What's the difference?
    Mary Katherine Ham
    Well, I think there's a difference. Well, she actually— I think things have actually improved because people like you and like myself speak out about these things and say that, hey this is a—
    Bill O'Reilly
    I don't see any difference between Huffington and the Nazis.
    Mary Katherine Ham
    She actually—
    Bill O'Reilly
    What's the difference?
  • Mary Katherine Ham
    I still don't think she's a Nazi.
    Bill O'Reilly
    I didn't say she was a Nazi.
    Mary Katherine Ham
    [laughing] Alright.
    Bill O'Reilly
    I only said there's no difference between what the two do. I want everybody to know that.
  • Meantime, the anti-liberal Fox News Channel and The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page is conservative, are both doing very well.
  • Well, you know, if Mr. Hawking wants to come on and tell us how the earth got here or why the sun comes up and goes down without interruption, why the tide goes in and goes out — no miscommunications ever, you know, if he wants to explain how all that happened, we're ready to receive him, but of course he can't.
  • If they wanna be nonbelievers, I don't care, that's up to them, but it's just as much of a stretch to be an atheist as it is to believe in God, because there's no explanation for how the planet got here, and Hawkings [sic] doesn't have it.
    • "O'Reilly on Hawking", YouTube, 13 October 2010, retrieved on 2011-02-22 
    • responding to question to BillOReilly.com by Eric of Los Angeles, "What are your thoughts on Stephen Hawking's assertion that science can explain everything without the need for a deity?"
  • Every fair-minded person should support government safety nets for people who need assistance through no fault of their own. But guys like McDermott don't make distinctions like that. For them, the baby Jesus wants us to "provide," no matter what the circumstance. But being a Christian, I know that while Jesus promoted charity at the highest level, he was not self-destructive.
    • "Keep Christ in Unemployment", BillOReilly.com, 9 December 2010, retrieved on 2011-06-07 
    • referring to Jim McDermott saying "This is Christmas time. We talk about good Samaritans, the poor, the little baby Jesus in the cradle and all this stuff. And then we say to the unemployed, we won't give you a check to feed your family. That's simply wrong."
  • It's not a traditional America anymore. And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. They want things, and who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it, and he ran on it. And whereby 20 years ago, President Obama would have be roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney. The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that this economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff.
    • Election coverage, Fox News, 6 November 2012 
  • Bill O'Reilly: What religion is involved with Christmas? What religion?
    David Silverman: Christianity.
    O'Reilly: That's not a religion. That's a philosophy.
  • O'Reilly: Mr. Silverman, it is a fact that Christianity is not a religion, it is a philosophy. If the government were saying that the Methodist religion, all right, deserves a special place in the public square, I will be on your side.
    Silverman: So you are going to actually tell me on live television that Christianity is not a religion?
    O'Reilly: Correct. It is a phil-o-so-phy.
  • John Stossel: That nun has something to complain about, but your "war on Christianity", you're just a 10-foot-tall crybaby.
    Bill O'Reilly: I'm crying.
    John Stossel: It's not so bad. I mean, no, Christians aren't being killed.
    Bill O'Reilly: No, not yet.
    John Stossel: And not in America, and they're not going to be.
    Bill O'Reilly: They're verbally being killed.
  • History will record that the two biggest deficits of the Obama administration were the failure to create a robust economy and the president's retreat from the terrorist battlefield. For years, Talking Points has been telling you the Obama administration has no strategy to defeat the ISIS threat. But President Obama somehow does not seem to understand that the civilized world is losing the fight against ISIS. Just hours before the Paris attack the president said 'we have contained' ISIS. Obviously that is not true. They are a threat worldwide, they continue to kill people with impunity. Nevertheless, the president is unrepentant and unwilling to admit that his strategy has failed. At a press conference today in Turkey he said, 'The strategy we're pursing is the right one.' The Republican Party is taking note. Senator Ted Cruz says 'Barack Obama does not wish to defend the country,' and Senator Lindsey Graham warns, 'There's a 9/11 coming, and it's coming from Syria if we don't disrupt their operations inside of Syria.' It is long past time that we the people demand ISIS be defeated, not contained.
  • Bill O'Reilly: 13,000 dead now in the USA. Many people who are dying, both here and around the world, were on their last legs anyway, and I don't want to sound callous about that.

    Sean Hannity: You're gonna get — hold on, you're going to get hammered for that.

    O'Reilly: Well, I don't care. I mean, a simple man tells the truth.


Disputed

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  • … it's one of those mitts, those loofa mitts you know, so I got my hands in it... So anyway I'd be rubbing your big boobs and getting your nipples really hard, kinda' kissing your neck from behind...and then I would take the other hand with the falafel [sic] thing and I'd just put it on your wet, juicy, pussy but you'd have to do it really light, just kind of a tease business or else I'd get very horny....
    • alleged in Mackris v. O'Reilly complaint, 2004-10-13, [Item 78]
    • From sexual harassment lawsuit by his former producer Andrea Mackris.
  • If you cross Fox News Channel, it's not just me, it's Roger Ailes who will go after you... The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he's going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.

Quotes about O'Reilly

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  • Petty malice is now the major premise of American life. This meanness has become so common that it even dominates our leisure time, with Americans worshipping mega-millionaire assholes like Bill O'Reilly and Donald Trump. It's an utterly masochistic addiction- and no wonder, since Middle America has taken so much shit over the past 30 years, we've grown not only used to the meanness, but we can even get a rush off it. America is now Zed Nation: addicted to the pain that our masters so lovingly deliver to us, rewarding them not only with greater incomes, but with our admiration, our leisure time, and our souls.
    • Mark Ames, Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005), p. 205
  • The picture of this grieving mother demanding answers from a war president was too much for Bill O'Reilly of Fox News. He and Rush Limbaugh launched a relentless right-wing smear campaign against her. O'Reilly called her actions "treasonous."
    • Amy Goodman and David Goodman, Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back (2006)
  • O'Reilly is the ultimate spinmeister, the consummate propagandist. And as they teach in Propaganda 101, the first argument of the successful propagandist is to claim that what you are doing is telling the straight truth, while everyone with whom you disagree is doctoring their story to cover up their flaws. In O'Reilly's case, the "no-spin" zone is a place where most Republicans get treated with kid gloves, while their adversaries are raked over the coals.
    • Robert W. McChesney, in Hart, Peter (2003). "Foreward: The Golden Age of Irony". The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly. Seven Stories Press. pp. p. 7. ISBN 158322601X. 
  • Sean Hannity ain't never going to let white supremacy go, and he genuinely believes what he's doing. Bill O'Reilly and others are just trying to get ratings, but Hannity really believes that whites got special white rights. He's not just being anti-black; it's anti-anything other than white. He won't let that issue die.
  • He’s a character I’ve known since I was a kid. He makes me laugh more than anything else, because he’s this faux character, a character he plays in a series called The O’Reilly Factor—the braggadocio Irish guy who plays as if he’s smarter than you, but in fact he doesn’t know very much and can’t really back up what he says. Everybody from my neighborhood knows that character and thinks that character is a joke. You know, the tough-guy part of it is the biggest fraud of all. Bill’s from Long Island. Sorry, that’s not tough-guy territory.
  • When, when did conservatives steal rock and roll from us? When did that happen? All the AM stations, nothing but racist fascist douchebags, all their break music is this blasty-ass, gut-bucket rock and roll. Bill O'Reilly will play the White Stripes, for God's sakes! Then you turn it over to NPR and their break music is a sad, lonely saxophone echoing through a sewer pipe somewhere. When did that happen?
  • Bill O'Reilly is a demon-possessed messenger of Satan. O'Reilly regularly slanders Westboro Baptist Church on his program, and he only has guests who join him in slandering Westboro Baptist Church, and refuses to allow Westboro Baptist Church to respond! Thus, Bill O'Reilly is a blaspheming hell-bound hypocrite claiming to be fair and balanced and running a no-spin zone. Hah! O'Reilly is of his father the Devil.
  • Wollstonecraft was an Enlightenment philosopher who argued for the rule of reason and the education of women, and against monarchy and slavery. Her "radical" views earned her the epithet "a hyena in petticoats," most likely from an ancestor of Bill O'Reilly.
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