Referring to callers he called “nuts,” Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said on the October 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show that “we should go to their house[s].” He was prompted by a caller who, in a discussion about outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, told O'Reilly, “If you want true, no-spin facts about this case, you can't do better than mediamatters.com [sic]." O'Reilly then replied, “We got another nut on the air,” complaining: “That's the worst part of doing this.” He then added, “I can get their addresses when they call in. We can trace them back, and we should all go over and surprise them.”
During a recent O'Reilly Factor segment on “political smear sites” (specifically naming Media Matters for America), O'Reilly himself expressed fear of being tracked down by critics, claiming that “I've got to have bodyguards. ... And it's because of them [political smear sites].” O'Reilly made similar comments during a Newsday interview, in which he hinted at a possible retirement.
From the October 28 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
CALLER: Bill, this is the time of war. She [Plame] was a WMD analyst. She wasn't monitoring troop movements in India or something like that. She was working on this country's most pressing concern. This is an important issue, and I got one point about the media. If you want true, no-spin facts about this case, you can't do better than mediamatters.com.
O'REILLY: Ah! All right. Anyway, we get another nut on the air. That's the worst part of doing this. Ninety percent of the callers are good, and then you get nuts. Now, we should go to their house. We should all go because I can get their addresses when they call in. We can trace them back, and we should all go over and surprise them.