HOST UNHINGED AFTER SALES FIGURES REVEALED; CALLS DRUDGE 'THREAT TO DEMOCRACY'

(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2003 ^ | THU DEC 18, 2003 09:25:08 ET | Drudge

[.cnI redruM]

TalkerAuthor Bill O'Reilly lashed out against this space during his popular FOXNEWS O'REILLY FACTOR Wednesday night -- just hours after closely guarded book sales figures were splashed over the internet.

Sales figures show how, contrary to his claims, O'Reilly lags far behind rivals Al Franken and Sen. Hillary Clinton for nonfiction props!

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Responding to an exclusive yearender DRUDGE dispatch, which presented NIELSEN's Top 20 BOOKSCAN list of 2003 sales, O'Reilly called the DRUDGE REPORT a "threat to democracy."

"I mean you can't believe a word Matt Drudge says," O'Reilly told the cameras. "Now you've got the Matt Drudges of the world and these other people, Michael Moore and all of these crazies, all right, no responsibility... that is a threat to democracy, I think." O'Reilly warned: "They'll just spin it and twist it and take it out of proportion every which way."

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Last year, the host of Cable TVs most-watched newscast became unbuckled and turned unstable after this space first revealed how O'Reilly was plotting a new radio program to air opposite Rush Limbaugh [who had just lost his hearing] and how WOR-AM in New York would receive cash compensation from VIACOM to carry the program. [The broadcast launched several months later.]

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"There is no other cure than to kill Matt Drudge," O'Reilly charged on the IMUS in the MORNING radio show.

"I just want to tell everybody that Matt Drudge is smoking crack - right now, in South Miami Beach on Washington Avenue... And the authorities should know it."

[Eris]

Well, all lesbians are right about one thing, anyway. ;)

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

LOL, they do have great taste.

[MEGoody]

This is a joke, right?

[Xenalyte]

I'll take PJ O'Rourke over either.

AMEN! P.J. is the one who about a decade ago opened my liberal eyes to why it's okay to be a Republican. Especially a Republican Party Reptile. :)

[ampat]

Drudge mostly reports the news on his website. O'Reilly doesn't report the news. He is a commentator (he calls it analysis). O'Reilly stands up for what most Americans believe. I'll admit, lately, his behavior on the air makes him seem to speak before he thinks.

[ampat]

Yeah, he said he was kidding or being facetious about the bazooka thing.

[jim35]

Starkist doesn't want lesbians with good taste, it wants lesbians that... never mind.

[RJS1950]

I saw the discussion. He has been raising holy hell over the court decision limiting pre-election ads being an infringement of free speech, but is perfectly willing to restrict one of the most free forms of expression around. He believes that if it isn't an accredited "journalist" giving out the information then it should not be allowed because "journalists" are now beginning to take these blogs and postings and using them without checking them out.

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>>>accredited "journalist

Typical professional behavior. Every profession in the world uses 'accreditation' to get rid of competition.

[.cnI redruM]

Sorry Charlie! I'm not touching that tuna fish!

[rface]

I like OReily, but DRUDGE uses a code of ethics that should be used by "journalists" but is rare to find among journalists.

DRUDGE is a few notches above O'Reily in several catagories (let me opine here)

[.cnI redruM]

It wasn't on the Onion.

[boomop1]

PJ'S "Age and Guile Beat Youth Innocence and a Bad Haircut" is a classic, I ROTFLMAO every time I read Uncle Mike's dynamite.

[SolutionsOnly]

I too would like to opine that O'Reilly is losing it. His attack on Drudge isn't a whole lot different from the left's attack on O'Reilly! Hypocrisy? kinda sounds like it.

He might do well to scale back his "I'm right and that's the way it is!" attitude. I'm not necessarily saying he's wrong - I often agree his general point. It's the attitude that's becoming unbearable (But still much more tolerable than Franken, Moore, or Maher, or Van deHouvel (the euro-socialist wench)

[Spook86]

Once again, O'Reilly exposes himself as a thin-skinned blowhard, but I will say one thing in his defense. Sales of Hillary's book, as well as those by Al Franken and Michael Moore, have been inflated by mass purchases by the DNC and other left-wing organizations. These purchases were apparently laundered through cooperative bookstores--the same ones that push conservative authors on the back shelves.

In a similar vein, O'Reilly has been giving away dozens of copies of his new book on his radio show, and I'm wondering if those are being included in his sales claims. Book sales have always been a form of fuzzy math, and O'Reilly is probably inflating his claims as well. I'll predict that he'll claim victory in the book wars at years end, charging that (fill in the necessary number) of Hillary and Franken's book sales were actually laundered DNC purchases, etc. And we'll probably never know just how many books were sold.....

[capt. norm]

Seems like O'Reilly's ego out-weighs his intellect and, in fact, can bypass his brain and go straight to his mouth.

[bmwcyle]

Bill is in a meltdown. He needs to humble himself before he is the ex-Fox leader.

[jackbill]

Seems like O'Reilly's ego out-weighs his intellect and, in fact, can bypass his brain and go straight to his mouth.

And don't you just love it when he calls himself "Your humble servant"? Humble my A$$.

[b4its2late]

I thought O'Reilly was screwed on tighter than that, but I guess not.