O'Reilly was Olbermann's “Worst Person” runner-up for “talk show nuts” comment
Written by Andrew Ironside
Published
On the May 22 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News host Bill O'Reilly the “runner-up” in his nightly “Worst Person in the World” segment for, as Media Matters for America documented, “comparing extremists on the immigration debate to the, quote, 'talk show nuts who are telling you that they're gonna nuke Tehran,' ” despite having made similar assertions. Olbermann noted: “Last December 5th, Bill-O said, '[W]e may have to' 'level cities like Tehran, kill hundreds of thousands of people. A year ago, January, Bill-O said, '[I]t's a matter of time before the United States of America and Great Britain will have to bomb the country of Iran.' ”
As Media Matters has documented (here, here, and here), O'Reilly is a frequent “Worst Person” honoree. He was recently crowned “Worst Person” for suggesting that philanthropist George Soros funded an Indiana University study, which found that O'Reilly engaged in name-calling once every 6.8 seconds during the “Talking Points Memo” segment of his show.
From the May 22 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:
OLBERMANN: Runner-up: Bill-O, comparing extremists on the immigration debate to the, quote, “talk show nuts who are telling you that they're gonna nuke Tehran.” Last December 5th, Bill-O said, "[W]e may have to" “level cities like Tehran, kill hundreds of thousands of people.” A year ago, January, Bill-O said, "[I]t's a matter of time before the United States of America and Great Britain will have to bomb the country of Iran." Hmm, “talk show nuts who are telling you that they're gonna nuke Tehran” -- first time I've ever agreed with you, Billy.