The most worthwhile takeaway from today’s O’Reilly/News Corp. vs Olbermann/GE feud story isn’t the whiny phone calls from Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch to Jeff Zucker and Jeff Immelt complaining about Keith’s attacks on Fox News, or the whiny phone calls from Steve Capus to Ailes complaining about O’Reilly’s attacks on NBC News correspondent Richard Engel.

It’s that News Corp. wanted an lefty blog’s Bill O’Reilly “ambush video” to be off limits for Olbermann, even though O’Reilly’s own use of ambush video cameras drive some of the show’s highest ratings and YouTube views.

Murdoch’s call to Zucker, which was polite in tone, involved a request that Olbermann not air video from a Daily Kos blogger [who writes independently on the site, but is not part of DailyKos' editorial staff] who had made a scene at O’Reilly’s Long Island home. That, Murdoch said, should be off limits.

Activist Mike Stark had confronted O’Reilly when he was retrieving his newspaper, planted derogatory signs on his street and distributed derogatory material to neighbors. Olbermann says the only time he ever talked to Stark was to interview him about a stunt in which he called O’Reilly’s radio show and mentioned Olbermann’s name.

Olbermann says that NBC Senior Vice President Phil Griffin called to ask him to exercise restraint but that he had already decided to criticize Stark for going to O’Reilly’s home. He told viewers, “with great regret,” that Stark’s behavior was “not acceptable.” [WaPo]

Huh. But targeting Rosie O’Donnell at a book signing is totally fair game then?

Or maybe the sensitive issue is that O’Reilly was at home, and should be afforded some level of privacy then? Huh. Because he didn’t have those same restrictions when he accosted Scott McClellan at his home.

Perhaps that’s why O’Reilly ends up in situations like this.

And for what it’s worth, O’Reilly has pulled the ambush on none other than GE chief Immelt.