O'Reilly: “The word 'villain' is a designation based upon provable facts,” not a personal attack

Once again denying that he engages in “personal attacks,” Bill O'Reilly defined his use of the word “villain” as “a designation based upon provable facts” rather than a personal attack; he also defended his use of the term “pinhead” as “a casual expression we use to amuse.”


In a viewer mail segment on the March 8 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly again denied that he engages in “personal attacks” and defined his use of the word “villain” as “a designation based upon provable facts” rather than a personal attack. In addition, O'Reilly defended his use of the term “pinhead” as “a casual expression we use to amuse.” O'Reilly was responding to correspondence from a viewer who challenged O'Reilly's February 23 claim that “I don't do personal attacks here,” which, as Media Matters for America noted at the time, is contradicted by O'Reilly's long track record of engaging in just such behavior.

O'Reilly added that "[n]utty ideological websites are run by villains." O'Reilly has previously equated Media Matters with the Ku Klux Klan, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. O'Reilly has also described Media Matters as “these creeps -- and they really are the most vile, despicable human beings in the country -- who listen to every word of the program [O'Reilly's radio show]. And then they try to feed stuff out to the mainstream media to discredit me.”

From the March 8 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: Kris Lee, Piqua, Ohio: "O'Reilly, you told [actor and activist] Mike Farrell you don't engage in personal attacks, yet time and time again you call people pinheads and villains."

Hanging out on those far-left websites again, are you, Kris? Of course you are. The word “villain” is a designation based upon provable facts. Nutty ideological websites are run by villains. “Pinhead” is a casual expression we use to amuse. I've called myself a pinhead. Don't you be one.