Mark Your Calenders: Tonight Ted Turner clashes with Bill O'Reilly on The Factor. Last time the CNN mogul was on Fox, Bilbo asked Turner, "Why do you hate America?" with America's least favorite sweetheart Laura Ingraham waiting in the wings in case the guy that owns Montana managed to actually get a pithy retort out before being yelled over and having his mic cut off. So you can just imagine how fun tonight's bash is going to be.
Well here's something you don't see every day: a famed conservative host giving up his lucrative radio show for more television air time. Bill O'Reilly has "run out of hours in the week" to host his nationally syndicated radio show The Radio Factor, which at an estimated at 3.5 million listeners, puts him in the top 10 biggest AM/FM shows in the country.
Even though it seems like a no-brainer (wouldn't Rush and Newt want to be on TV, if only they weren't so goddamn fat?), the TV medium is actually way less lucrative than a radio deal: consider Glenn Beck's $50 million radio deal at Clear Channel, compared to the seven figures he'll be pulling over at FNC once his show airs.
So why would Bilbo give up all that cold hard scratch to spend more time ranting and raving on our television screens?
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It's the Lil O'Reilly kid, not being as funny as usual because his punchlines were obviously written by some College Humor rejects for this Talkshow format. Lame.
For better Lil O'Reilly content, here's the boy in his heyday.
Let's take a look at this: Bill O'Reilly is applauding New York Time's TV critic Alessandra Stanley, a woman not known for her ability to fact check, for her comments about Fox News and MSNBC. Even though it's doubtful she even watches television, since she got wrong the fact that it's CNN that calls their anchors "the best political team on television," not MSNBC. (And somewhere out there, there's a built-in counter for how many days it's been since Stanley got the dates of the Iraq War wrong.)
But Stanley is spelled L-E-Y, not, as it's written on the Factor, E-L-Y. So is this thumbs up actually a subtle smirk at the error-riddled NYT? Or just more proof that even those who would call themselves infallible are, in fact, human after all. Or at least their writers are.
Bill O'Reilly is so mad. So mad that that your were given one of those shoddy subprime mortgage loan and now you can't pay for your house. He is so mad that bank CEOs are skipping away scott free (besides an occasional punch on the nose).
Bill O'Reilly is so mad you guys. He is not going to let "them" get away with it. If it takes everything he's got, he will spend his life tracking down the bastards who did this to you. Or at least until the ratings go down.
First up in O'Reilly Dark Knight for justice? Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal:
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Awesome. This kid did such a good Bill O'Reilly impression that he was asked back for a sequel. He is the next angry Haley Joel Osmont. "I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO YELL AT YOU! GAY GAY GAY GAY!"
To compare with the original Barney Frank yell-off, you can find it here.
Bill O'Reilly appeared on his old Harvard professor Marvin Kalb's show, The Kalb Report, this past weekend, proving that at one time O'Reilly was accountable to someone, if only for a G.P.A. bump. Kalb and O'Reilly spoke congenially for the most part, and then Bill got personal:
"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not acting. I couldn't act for 13 years straight, I'd have to be Laurence Olivier. If I was acting all this time I'd make Marlon Brando look like Luke Perry."
Then of course, O'Reilly accused his old professor of being an elitist, despite the fact that Bill only knew Kalb from Harvard University, the tallest of the ivory towers. Pinhead spotted.
But the best part of the interview is what Billbo wants written on his tombstone:
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Strange times are indeed upon us when David Broder is defending objectivity in journalism, and Bill O'Reilly rails out against talk radio for being "conservative-dominated ideologues, Kool-Aid drinking idiots."
While it's common knowledge that Bilbo had a short fuse (in fact, there is a compiled list of his funniest blow-hard tactics CONTINUED »
Lots of speculation yesterday on whether or not Bill O'Reilly was going to make Barack Obama cry when he finally got him into the No Spin Zone. Seeing that O'Reilly went easy on Hillary Clinton once he got face time with her was a mark in the "pro" column; that Obama agreed to be on a show that was basically a ratings lead-in to John McCain's nomination speech was a mark in the "con" column.
So how did the deathmatch between Nas-hating O'Reilly and Lil Wayne-loving Obama turn out? So good:
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CONTROLLING THE MESSAGE Just as Barack Obama takes to the television cameras to denounce the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Hillary Clinton's plans to visit The O'Reilly Factor, for the first time ever, leak on Drudge.
