Moments after decrying U.S. failure to “blow the hell out of” Fallujah, O'Reilly denounced “macho” approaches to the war, and said, “I'm an intellectual”

Written by Kurt Donaldson

Published

Bill O'Reilly declared that "[t]he reason we're not winning in Iraq" is that the U.S. is “not tough enough” to take actions like “level[ing] Fallujah ... and blow[ing] the hell out of it.” Minutes later, with the song “Macho Man” by the Village People playing in the background, O'Reilly announced, “I'm not a macho man. ... I'm an intellectual,” adding: “You're not gonna win the war being macho. You're gonna win the war being smart.”

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On the July 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O'Reilly declared that "[t]he reason we're not winning in Iraq" is that the United States is “not tough enough” to take actions like “level[ing] Fallujah ... and blow[ing] the hell out of it." Minutes later, with the song "Macho Man" by the Village People playing in the background, O'Reilly announced, “I'm not a macho man. ... I'm an intellectual,” adding: “You're not gonna win the war being macho. You're gonna win the war being smart.”

O'Reilly has previously said that Fallujah should have been destroyed; as Media Matters for America noted, O'Reilly stated in December 2005: “Fallujah should not exist. It should have been leveled a long time ago. Just leveled. That town should have been made an example of years ago.” Additionally, on the June 19 edition of his radio program, O'Reilly declared that if he were the president of Iraq, he would run the country “just like Saddam [Hussein] ran it,” by establishing curfews and shooting violators “right between the eyes,” as Media Matters noted.

From the July 26 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: The reason we're not winning in Iraq, in my opinion, is because we didn't level Fallujah when we should have leveled it. Level it! Give every civilian 24 hours to get out and blow the hell out of it. [Muqtada al-] Sadr, this little thug cleric, he should've had a bullet right between his eyes the first year. That's why we're not winning it. We're not tough enough.

[Caller], Orlando, Florida, go.

[...]

[Music: “Macho Man” by the Village People]

O'REILLY: I'm not a macho man.

LIS WIEHL [Fox News legal analyst and Radio Factor co-host]: Macho guy.

O'REILLY: No, not me.

WIEHL: No?

O'REILLY: I'm an intellectual. I mean, macho doesn't get you anywhere in this world. It really doesn't. You swagger around being a macho guy and you're not gonna get anywhere.

WIEHL: You can be macho and swagger and still be smart.

O'REILLY: No. You're not gonna win the war being macho. You're gonna win the war being smart. That's how you're gonna win the war.

L.A. -- [Caller], what say you, [caller]?