Ah, so his remarks were sarcasm! This is the first time I'm hearing that, not having watched the actual show. The thing about sarcasm is, it doesn't always come across as sarcasm, especially in print. In a TV show, it should be plainly obvious. However, O'Reilly's drollness may have masked his sarcasm, letting this whole thing occur in the first place. And the "cherry pickers" must have lunged on his remarks as soon as they came out of his mouth, thinking woo-hoo, we'll have a field day with this one. Now I get it. They deliberately took his words and left out the sarcasm in an attempt to smear him.
Or, I forgot to add, they just didn’t ‘get’ the sarcasm.