The Full Geraldo Rivera (MRC gives a quick primer on Fox's new war correspondent)

Geraldo Rivera did double duty on Thursday, appearing on both CNBC and FNC. Though he maintains he’s a "changed man" by the September 11 terrorist attacks, Thursday night on FNC’s O’Reilly Factor, he defended his view that the pursuit of Bill Clinton was illegitimate by suggesting it’s culpable for the terrorist attacks:
"I would bet you that I can find you 4,000, 5,000 FBI agents who wish to God they weren’t assigned to Whitewater, Monicagate, Bill Clinton -- that instead they were on the trail of Osama bin Laden and the people who were plotting mass murder against us."

Earlier in the day, a bit before 4pm EST, Rivera appeared with David Asman. Brit Hume called in to welcome him to FNC. Later he showed up in a taped interview with Bill O’Reilly before doing his 9pm EST CNBC show for the next to last night. In both FNC appearances, his on-screen identifier read: "War Correspondent."

O’Reilly told Rivera "there’s a residual anger" against him from FNC viewers over his defense of Bill Clinton. Rivera defended his defense: "It was a huge national distraction, going after a guy who lied about getting oral sex from a woman he wasn’t married to and I think I know a million guys who get oral sex from a woman they weren’t married to and to impeach the President over that just didn’t see appropriate."

Rivera later argued: "All of us have a shared guilt right now. And the shared guilt is for the last ten years we have been horribly distracted. I would bet you that I can find you 4,000, 5,000 FBI agents who wish to God they weren’t assigned to Whitewater, Monicagate, Bill Clinton -- that instead they were on the trail of Osama bin Laden and the people who were plotting mass murder against us. I think it’s time to say, now let’s move forward, let’s all be in this together, let’s back our President and let’s win this war."

The latter attitude is the new Rivera that FNC has hired to cover the war, but let’s not forget that the former is the Rivera who will probably end up with a prime time FNC show once interest in the war recedes.

Last Friday night on FNC’s 10pm EST War on Terror show Rivera made clear he does not regret defending Clinton, though Clinton himself did not show any gratitude. Rivera told Shepard Smith on the November 9 show that Clinton "never...gave me an interview, you know, after all, putting so much on the line for Bill and-"
Smith noted: "You were out there for him."
Rivera agreed: "I really was. I think if there were one journalist -- you know, and I understand your viewers' wrath if there's one journalist who really helped save Bill Clinton's behind, it was me. I don't regret it. I really, when push comes to shove, he was a liar, a perjurer, but he was basically an adulterer. I think that's, he had a character flaw. He may still. But that's basically what it was about. Had he been guilty of peddling nuclear secrets or doing something more blatant, something more profoundly affecting the well being of the republic, I would have been on the same side as the majority of my colleagues in the fourth estate."

For the occasion of Rivera’s last appearance tonight on CNBC, the MRC’s Rich Noyes reviewed the MRC archives for highlights of his most obnoxious statements as chronicled in the MRC’s Notable Quotables:

-- Geraldo Rivera discussing Bill Clinton’s "heroic re-emergence" at the opening of his new Harlem offices, on CNBC’s Rivera Live, July 30, 2001: "Now, the return of the Prodigal Son. The, you know, the man who left office disgraced, burdened down by at least three major scandals that I can think of, got a hero’s welcome today, and I couldn’t be happier....After impeachment, after Pardongate, after the fake stories about their pilfering of the White House, Bill Clinton’s appearance today in Harlem must have been the feel good event of the season for the former President, and he soaked up the sunshine and love."

-- Rivera on Bush as an illegitimate President, Rivera Live, June 18, 2001: "Did the Supreme Court of the United States rob the American people of their duly-elected President?...Yes, says Alan Dershowitz. That history-making heist is exactly what happened when the justices issued their highly controversial Bush vs. Gore ruling last December. The 5_4 decision stopped the Florida ballot recount, as you recall, put George W. Bush in the White House and, according to Professor Dershowitz, forever tarnished the exalted reputation of this nation’s highest court. Now the professor backs up his charges in this hard-hitting and maybe his best, certainly in the non-fiction area, Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000."

-- Beginning and end of Geraldo Rivera’s interview with Vincent Bugliosi, CNBC’s Rivera Live, June 25, 2001: "Should five of our nation’s nine Supreme Court Justices be imprisoned? That’s the opinion of famed former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. He says the justices who supported George W. Bush in the election dispute are almost treasonous white-collar criminals. He’ll explain why."
"It is a scathing indictment of the high court of the United States, at least these five conservative justices. And I really, really, I urge law students especially, but anyone who’s interested in the machinations of the Court, to check this out. Vincent Bugliosi’s The Betrayal of America."

-- Rivera to Governor Jesse Ventura, April 23, 2001 Rivera Live on CNBC: "What about the rest of his [President Bush’s] performance? Aren’t you concerned that some of these moves to erode some of the legislation designed to protect our environment, this stuff about arsenic and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, etcetera? Don’t you think that some of that is excessive in terms of undoing some of the good work done by the Democrats or the other progressives over the years?"

-- Rivera denigrating his new employer, FNC, on the February 20, 2001 Rivera Live, in a segment on the controversy over Clinton’s pardons: "Now the Teamsters – one million strong – endorsed Richard Nixon after Jimmy Hoffa was pardoned by Richard Nixon. Now that, to me, smacks of a quid [pro quo] far more logical than Bill Clinton taking money for his library, for God sakes, not himself, but for his library or for the Democratic National Committee....Why is it that on Fox television you never hear the mention of the Hoffa pardon?!"

-- Clinton has told just one lie? Rivera referring to Monica Lewinsky, February 15, 2001 Rivera Live: "The only lie he told was to his wife and to us about it."

-- Geraldo Rivera after humming the theme from Rocky over footage of Clinton’s pre-speech hallway walk at the Democratic convention, August 21, 2000 Rivera Live on CNBC: "You’re going to miss that guy. Don’t tell me you’re not gonna miss that guy. This is a master. He may be a rogue, but he is an artful and pleasant rogue and done a hell of a job as President. I’m gonna miss the guy...He should’ve been the vice presidential candidate."

-- Bashing Ken Starr. CNBC’s Rivera Live, October 20, 1999: "Today’s Washington Post [editorial] says...’Mr. Starr should be remembered as a man who, hampered alike by intensely adverse conditions and by his own missteps, managed to perform a significant public service,’ end quote. Missteps? What would The Washington Post call the Lincoln assassination? Missteps?"

-- Rivera referring to Ken Starr’s prosecutors in a question to Susan McDougal, April 14, 1999 Upfront Tonight: "Do you believe that they had, at least indirectly, something to do with your ex-husband, Jim McDougal’s, ultimate demise?...Did they help speed your husband’s sickness and his ultimate death?"

-- March 8, 1999 Rivera Live: "[Susan McDougal] has been hounded for 15 years by investigators and for the last five by the investigative terrorist, Ken Starr."

-- Rivera, with "NBC News" under his name as his identifier, December 22, 1998 Today: "That was the party with the slender majority and two weeks to live that impeached the man because they could. It was a spiteful action, an action that they performed absolutely in violation of the framers’ intent. It was a legislative coup d’etat, and it has been rejected utterly by the American people, 73 percent of whom now say they approve of the President’s performance in office..."

-- Rivera singing his version of Twinkle Little Star after playing video of U.S. Representative Mike Pappas (R-NJ) on the House floor singing his version in a birthday tribute to Kenneth Starr, July 21, 1998 Rivera Live on CNBC: "Twinkle, twinkle Kenneth Starr, now we see how crude you are/Up above your jury high, like the judge up in the sky/Twinkle, twinkle little Starr, now we see how wrong you are/When you drag the agents in, when you bully moms and kin/then you kiss the treacherous Tripp, twinkle, twinkle DC drip/Twinkle, twinkle little Starr, now we see how small you are."

-- Rivera on Clinton’s plight, May 19, 1998 Rivera Live: "How much of his vital attention is being consumed by Ken Starr’s endless probe, by the Monica Lewinsky saga, by the fears that his trusted Secret Service agents will be forced to rat out the maybe gory details of his private life....And finally, and most importantly, how can our bridge to the 21st century feel about the slanderous charge amounting almost to treason, that for Johnny Chung’s bribe of 100,000 lousy dollars he sold America’s missile secrets to the Chinese, who now aim their deadly devices at America’s children?....I watch him and I wonder how he does it. I watch him and wonder how much is too much for any man."

-- Rivera as a guest expert on NBC’s Today, November 18, 1998: "I thought that Linda Tripp now takes her place in the Hall of Infamy as a betrayer of the order of Benedict Arnold in the, in the, at least in the love ‘90s...I think anybody who wrapped themselves around Linda Tripp and her tapes is now soiled. You felt the need to take a shower. What that woman did to her young friend is beyond the pale. I think it’s much worse than anything Bill Clinton did."

-- Rivera from China where he was covering Clinton’s visit, on CNBC’s Rivera Live, June 26, 1998: "They [Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg] wanted to make money on a book but once push came to shove they were perfectly willing to sacrifice the young former White House intern on the altar of greed, on the altar of hatred for Bill Clinton and his administration and I think they’re going to accomplish that at least in the short term. But if it comes to trial Linda Tripp will be facing some severe questioning by Monica Lewinsky’s very capable counsel. And my God, a first year law student hearing those tapes will be able to make her look like exactly what she is, a treacherous, back-stabbing, good-for-nothing enemy of the truth."

-- Rivera urging Clinton not to cooperate, August 6, 1998 edition of Rivera Live on CNBC: "Mr. President, we love you. I want to hug you, I want to hug you, please do the right thing. This is nothing, this is nothing. Thomas Jefferson did not have this in mind, I swear to God....I would give Ken Starr the Nobel Peace Prize were he to be man enough not to refer a sex lie to the House for impeachment."

Had he been guilty of peddling nuclear secrets or doing something more blatant, something more profoundly affecting the well being of the republic, I would have been on the same side as the majority of my colleagues in the fourth estate."

And which side is that, Geraldo?

This is a quote from Hotlinescope.com.

The hire may also be good for Fox in that the network can begin to blunt criticism that there is no liberal among their ranks except for Alan Colmes. Granted, Fox News chair Roger Ailes has long been trying to lure his friend Geraldo over to Fox ever since he left CNBC where he hired Rivera. But nevertheless, Geraldo is one more leftie Fox can proudly call its own.

Neither can I! I was willing to give Geraldo a new start but after reading all of this I must admit it will be VERY HARD! If he just keeps his STUPID comments to himself and REPORTS the FACTS. Anything else and FOX NEWS will be hearing from me. GAG!

They're just gonna send him over to Afghanistan as a sort of "corporate deportation". He shouldn't be back for a while, and the reception of satellite news feeds from that place is so poor that they can use "technical difficulties" as an excuse to keep him off the air.

What Whorealdo, and many Clintonistas, fails to understand is that the problem all began because the Bent One got into the habit of neverer met with his CIA director and, instead, spending years of his time "finishing himself" in the presence of that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.

I'd be embarassed if he fawned over Bush the way he did Clinton. But his reporting on Clinton was so dishonest that one can't take anything he reports now seriously -- including his admiration for our current prez.

Next thing you know they will hire Christiane Amanpour

THIS JUST IN: Christiane Amanpour Shaves Beard

Yeah, but O'Reilly was really kind of soft on him. He shouldn't have let him get away with that "if the CIA and FBI weren't too busy doing the bidding of Ken Starr" nonsense. Yet he let Whorealdo spout that crap without a challenge.

Geraldo was also a "changed man" after he "did" a doped-up Bette Midler in a toilet stall.

I won't bother detailing what changed, but it wasn't for the better. Geraldo's "better" days are too far behind him to see.

*YECH!*

I think it will be very entertaining to watch Geraldo in Afganistan. You know he will do some insane sh*t just to try to save face and fit in to FNC. I guarantee we'll see bullets wizz'in over his head just so he can get right up to the action. He might even start wandering into caves looking for Osama. He might even get shot. Hell, he might even get his whole camera crew and himself killed. There are no boundaries to his quest to regain credibility. I already got my six-pack cooling down for his first IN COUNTRY report.

Thank you... have it bookmarked. I will send it to FNC when ever "Jerry Rivers" comes on. Rush was saying that he thought the A$$ would get a show after the conflict ends. There is no way, a "Fair and Balanced" approach here. Rivera will change hats again, mark my word.

O'Reilly never cuts anyone any slack. One would assume that he thinks he is a God. O'Reilly's head has grown soooo enormous. Don't get me wrong, most of the time I enjoy his show. But, most of the time I would like the guest to have a chance to completely answer the questions he puts to them. He ask the question and then answers it himself.

The night is was shouting at Arnel regarding the actors not responding about the Red Cross fund, I could have slapped his face. At times he acts like a piffy putz.

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