During an interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly about his new book, Culture Warrior (Broadway, September 2006) on the September 25 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, co-host Diane Sawyer allowed O'Reilly to misleadingly defend President Bush's efforts to pursue Osama bin Laden and to put forward without challenge the dubious claim that the so-called “traditionalist” cause O'Reilly champions in his book is “not a religious movement.” Moreover, Sawyer failed to challenge him on the numerous falsehoods, distortions, and misrepresentations that Media Matters for America identified in an examination of the book.

Sawyer first asked O'Reilly to comment on Fox News host Chris Wallace's contentious interview with former President Bill Clinton, which aired on the September 24 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday. O'Reilly remarked that he understood Clinton's frustration with his failure to capture bin Laden during his presidency. He went on to say:

O'REILLY: President Bush is frustrated. President Clinton is frustrated. Here you have a third-rate punk thug terrorizing this great country of ours. We can't get him because he's hiding in some kind of village in northwest Pakistan. We can't violate their sovereignty. We've got bombers blowing up babies and a divided country. We're a divided country at home. So, of course Clinton and Bush and [Defense Secretary Donald H.] Rumsfeld and [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice and [former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard A.] Clarke, they're all going to be frustrated. And that's what you saw there.

But in characterizing Bush as “frustrated” because he cannot violate Pakistan's “sovereignty” by ordering U.S. troops into Pakistan to capture bin Laden, O'Reilly put forward a defense of the White House's inaction that even Bush has appeared to abandon -- a fact that Sawyer failed to note. Indeed, at a September 15 press conference, a reporter asked Bush why he thinks “it's a bad idea to send more resources to hunt down bin Laden wherever he is.” Bush responded: “Because, first of all, Pakistan is a sovereign nation. ... In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we've got to be invited by the government of Pakistan.” But on the September 20 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, Bush contradicted this explanation, as Media Matters noted. When host Wolf Blitzer asked him if he would give the order to pursue bin Laden in Pakistan “even though the Pakistanis say that's their sovereign territory,” Bush replied: “We would take the action necessary to bring him to justice.”

O'Reilly later declared that the United States was founded on “Judeo-Christian values,” which hold “that all men are created equal.” According to O'Reilly, it is this set of “Judeo-Christian values” that "[t]raditionalists" follow, but "[s]ecular progressives" do not. He further asserted that these “Judeo-Christian values” are “not a religious movement.” Yet, despite his proclamation that the cause "[t]raditionalists" are fighting for is “not a religious movement,” O'Reilly devotes significant space in his book to the argument that “secular-progressives” (or “S-Ps” throughout O'Reilly's book) are attacking Christianity.

Most notably, Culture Warrior contains an entire chapter on “The Battle for Christmas,” in which O'Reilly writes that “Christmas traditions” are “under siege” from “a well-thought-out S-P campaign to marginalize the national holiday” (Page 76). In this chapter, O'Reilly asserts: “The tired 'separation of church and state' argument is used again and again to justify attacks on spirituality in the public square. But the 'separation argument' is one big lie, a bogus piece of propaganda cooked up by an intentional misreading of the intent of the Constitution” (p. 78).

O'Reilly also uses factual distortions and misrepresentations to bolster his claims in the book that Christmas is “under siege” by secular progressives. As Media Matters noted, O'Reilly again falsely suggests that school officials at Ridgeway Elementary School in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, “allowed a play to be put on that featured the tune of the classic German Christmas carol 'Silent Night,' ” but only “with a change in the [song's] lyrics.” In fact, as Media Matters has repeatedly noted, the changed lyrics were part of a Christmas play about a lonely tree lamenting his state to the tune of “Silent Night.”

Further, near the end of the interview, O'Reilly appeared to forget the targets of his own book. When Sawyer remarked, “You take everybody on by name in the book,” O'Reilly responded, “I name everybody and even you.” Sawyer quickly corrected him, however, saying, “No, you don't name me. I read it last night.” O'Reilly then backtracked: “No, because you don't do anything wrong,” he said. “You're actually fair.”

From the September 25 edition of ABC's Good Morning America:

SAWYER: And joining us now, the ratings tiger of Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, who, by the way, has a new book out. It is called Culture Warrior, and he means it.

O'REILLY: You bet.

SAWYER: And we'll talk about that in a minute. OK, the former president saying it's a conservative hit job.

O'REILLY: Well, look, I mean, talk about a warrior. I think Bill Clinton was angry. And I understand his frustration, absolutely. President Bush is frustrated. President Clinton is frustrated. Here you have a third-rate punk thug terrorizing this great country of ours. We can't get him because he's hiding in some kind of village in northwest Pakistan. We can't violate their sovereignty. We've got bombers blowing up babies and a divided country. We're a divided country at home. So, of course Clinton and Bush and Rumsfeld and Rice and Clarke, they're all going to be frustrated, and that's what you saw there.

SAWYER: But here's a no-spin test for you, OK? Is he kind of a whipping boy on Fox News?

O'REILLY: Not at all, not anymore. I mean he got worked over on the Lewinsky matter, but not now. And look, if you watch my program, I'm very tough on President Bush. And actually, on 20/20 on Friday night, I said Bill Clinton had a successful presidency. Did you not hear that?

SAWYER: You did, I heard it. I saw it. I heard you say it.

O'REILLY: With Barbara Walters. So this is just frustration on Clinton's part.

SAWYER: Is he right on the substance, though, that -- well, I'm going to play another clip where he is basically saying that he wouldn't have just 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, he'd be going full bore.

CLINTON [video clip]: Now, I've never criticized President Bush, and I don't think this is useful. But you know, we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq.

SAWYER: We just had this new National Intelligence Estimate which said that terrorism, in fact, has been fueled by the war in Iraq. Too few resources in Afghanistan?

O'REILLY: Well, I'm not there. I don't have the information to make that determination. All I can say is, even if you had 300,000 troops in Afghanistan, what do you do? Do you invade Pakistan? Is that what he's saying? Do you even do that, and if you invade Pakistan, the fundamentalists rise up and throw out [Pakistani President Pervez] Musharraf and get control of the atomic weapons they have -- the nuclear weapons they have? Is that what you do? Come on. This man, Bill Clinton, is frustrated, and that's what happens. He lashed out at Wallace. Chris Wallace isn't an ideologue. He's not! I mean, of all the people at Fox News, he would be the least -- he worked for you for how many years? Twenty years. Was he an ideologue?

SAWYER: Yeah, that's right.

O'REILLY: What, did he turn into a werewolf as soon as he got to Fox? Come on. This is frustration, I understand it, we give this guy a fair shot.

SAWYER: All right. In Culture Warrior, the new book, you talk about the war going on, which is no longer you say between liberals and conservatives. It's between the secular progressives, emphasis on secular --

O'REILLY: Right.

SAWYER: -- and the tradition warriors.

O'REILLY: The traditionalists like me.

SAWYER: Like you.

O'REILLY: Right.

SAWYER: Like you. And one of the things you say about them is that the secular progressives keep bashing America but don't have solutions for Iraq?

O'REILLY: Correct. Let me just define it. Traditionalists like me feel their country is noble, flawed, makes mistakes but a good country, founded on Judeo-Christian philosophy and gives opportunity to hundreds of millions of people. Secular progressives think it's a very, very bad country, America. We need huge change, in every area. In fact, we even brought terrorism upon ourselves because we're greedy in our foreign policy. We exploit oil, we lie to the world. This is the secular progressive movement which stands at about 20 percent, by the way. Not a lot. But they control the media, and they control the ACLU, and they've got millions, tens of millions of dollars to pour into this propaganda. That's the war.

SAWYER: Quick question about these Judeo-Christian values --

O'REILLY: Philosophy.

SAWYER: Philosophy. Because you say you don't have to believe in God?

O'REILLY: Not at all.

SAWYER: You don't have to attend an organized church?

O'REILLY: It's not a religious movement.

SAWYER: It's about what kind ofprinciples, then?

O'REILLY: The country was founded on the Judeo-Christian philosophy -- that is, that all men are created equal -- it's in the Declaration of Independence -- and that you look out for your neighbor. OK? And that you give a fair play.

SAWYER: So Muslims who believe in the philosophy, it's not to exclude Muslims in this country?

O'REILLY: There's No ex -- this country embraces all religions and creeds.

SAWYER: OK, let me ask you about the vagaries of this kind of thing. Because as you know, Jerry Falwell, minister Jerry Falwell had something to say about Hillary Clinton over the weekend. And I want to play what he said about her energizing his constituents I guess as much as Lucifer. Here.

FALWELL [audio clip]: I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate, because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't.

SAWYER: We should say that Hillary Clinton's staff said, “Working for someone who believes in the golden rule, we're not going to engage in such vitriolic discourse. It seems that a new low has been reached in demonizing political opponents.” Is Jerry Falwell a T-warrior? Who's right on this?

O'REILLY: He's a traditionalist. But he's coming at it from a theological point of view, and that separates him from the mainstream traditionalists who say you can be a liberal and be a traditionalist -- John F. Kennedy was a liberal -- was a liberal and a traditionalist. Martin Luther King was a traditionalist.

SAWYER: But who's right in that exchange?

O'REILLY: Who's right? Nobody's right. I mean, Hillary Clinton will mobilize a base against her, and Jerry Falwell using the word “Satan” in the same sentence as Hillary Clinton is ridiculous. OK, so they're -- look, this is a game, don't you know the game? The game is to get attention. This is why Jerry Falwell does it. So, it doesn't matter. What matters is, we have to come together as a country to defeat this terrible enemy that wants to kill us. And the culture war is dividing us. So I say, my side, the traditional side is going to win. And I say it in my book. And you've got The New York Times ad there, right in your hand. This is a shot across the bow of the newspaper that's the most secular-progressive in the country.

SAWYER: You take everybody on by name in the book. It's called Culture Warrior.

O'REILLY: I name everybody and even you.

SAWYER: No, you don't name me. I read it last night.

O'REILLY: No, because you don't do anything wrong. You're actually fair.

SAYWER: Thank you, Bill. Thank you very much. Thank you.

O'REILLY: You're actually fair. You are. And that's why the people in the book that I name, aren't fair.

SAWYER: I looked up the index, too. Thanks to Bill O'Reilly.

O'REILLY: OK. Always.

SAWYER: Good to have you here.