O'Reilly: "[I]f I could strangle these people and not go to hell and get executed ... I would -- but I can't."
Written by Andrew Ironside & Kathleen Henehan
Published
On the September 27 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, while discussing media coverage of his recent controversial comments about race, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly asserted: “These people aren't getting away with this. I'm going to go right where they live. Every corrupt media person in this country is on notice, right now. I'm coming after you.” He went on to warn: “You smear somebody and you can't back it up, you're gonna get it. ... You go after somebody's family, you go after them and smear them with defamation that you can't back up, I'm coming to your house. I'm coming to your house. You'll have a camera up your nose. OK?” Later during the program, O'Reilly stated that newspapers such as The New York Times and the New York Daily News, “ran up to Harlem and they fed black Americans bogus quotes from Media Matters.” Continuing, he said, “Now, the black Americans up there, they didn't listen to The Radio Factor. They didn't know this was coming from Media Matters. ... So, the reporter ... feeds them the quote, and of course they say bad things about me.” O'Reilly called these newspapers' actions “the height of racism.” Apparently referring to the media who he said “ran up to Harlem and ... fed black Americans bogus quotes from Media Matters,” O'Reilly added, "[I]f I could strangle these people and not go to hell and get executed ... I would -- but I can't. ... All I can do is expose them. And I will."
After warning “corrupt media” figures that they are “on notice,” O'Reilly stated: “I'm coming after you. And I don't care if it's Bill O'Reilly, [Sen.] Hillary Clinton, [Republican presidential candidates] Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, [Sen.] Barack Obama. Anybody smeared by any media from now on, I'm holding them accountable. I'm going to hunt you down. Got that?” He went on to tell listeners, "[M]y campaign to hold the corrupt media responsible is going to help your life. Because no longer will these smear merchants be allowed to get away with it, as long as I'm in the chair. As long as I'm here, I'm hunting them down. And that means everybody."
Immediately after saying, “I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it anymore,” O'Reilly transitioned to the “No-Spin” news segment of the show, and discussing the murder trial of music producer Phil Spector, asserted that the two jurors who had decided to acquit him are “idiots and they should be put in jail for letting this guy get off.”
From the September 27 edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: Now, I'm on the air with the morning team at WOR, our flagship station here in New York City, and Joe Bartlett -- a very skilled interviewer, been around a long time -- and I are talking about the controversy that was drummed up by the far-left media, and Joe says to me, “Well, aren't you worried about, you know, people thinking you are, you know, X, Y, and Z, and a racist and all of this?” and I said, “No, I'm not worried about that at all. What I'm worried about is we live in a country now where you have a media that's flat-out dishonest, distorting things and lying to you every day.” That's what I'm worried about.
If somebody wants to think I'm a racist, go ahead. There's no evidence of that. That's ridiculous. That's like, you know, “You beat your wife.” “Well, I'm not married. I don't have a wife. I'm eight years old. How could I beat my wife?” You see what I'm talking about? Now, people are gonna think what they want to think, and ignorant people are all over the place and they can think -- and I'm not gonna pander to them.
However, there is a huge problem in this country and I'm going to attack that problem. I'm going to attack it. These people aren't getting away with this. I'm going to go right where they live. Every corrupt media person in this country is on notice, right now. I'm coming after you. And I don't care if it's Bill O'Reilly, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama. Anybody smeared by any media from now on, I'm holding them accountable. I'm going to hunt you down. Got that, Lis?
LIS WIEHL (co-host): I think I got that.
O'REILLY: So, you better be careful.
WIEHL: I'm feeling it here.
O'REILLY: You better be careful.
WIEHL: I better be careful!
O'REILLY: And I mean it. Smear stops here. Over. End of this. You're all on notice out there. I'm coming for you. First victim, tonight on the Factor, in addition to Jesse Jackson: The Washington Post. I'm going to play a tape tonight that'll blow you out of the water -- blow you out of the water. Coming, that's number one.
Had enough. It's going to stop and I am going to be the cop that stops it.
Now, a lot of my advisors are saying, “Oh, you know, let the story die. Don't keep talking about it.” Now, look, I don't care. I don't care what uninformed people think about me. I do not, because, I believe, down to my toes, that the American public is essentially honest. And I will point to you an aol.com poll, in motion right now, where 60 percent of the public thinks this is the biggest fraud in the world -- says I didn't do anything at all wrong. Sixty percent -- even though the setup on it is anti-O'Reilly.
Now, this is -- has nothing to do with Fox, nothing to do with -- these are just folk, more than 100,000 of them voted on this thing, all right. The folks know what's going on. It doesn't matter if you're conservative or liberal. Most Americans are essentially honest people. And what else can they do? You got the radio program unedited on BillOReilly.com. You want to listen to it? There it is.
Now, I'm going to do a quick “No-Spin” news and then we'll get back to it -- and I'm sorry if I'm boring some of you. I know you'd rather talk about, you know, other items, but I can't get across to you how important this is and how my campaign to hold the corrupt media responsible is going to help your life. Because no longer will these smear merchants be allowed to get away with it, as long as I'm in the chair. As long as I'm here, I'm hunting them down. And that means everybody.
You smear somebody and you can't back it up, you're gonna get it. Now, I don't care about issues. You want to go somebody after issues, you go right ahead. Go right ahead. You want to criticize me, disagree with me? I like that; that's why I do this radio program. You go after somebody's family, you go after them and smear them with defamation that you can't back up, I'm coming to your house.
I'm coming to your house. You'll have a camera up your nose. OK? Everybody got it out there? I hope everybody's got it, because I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it anymore -- to quote [late playwright and screenwriter] Paddy Chayefsky. What movie is that from?
WIEHL: Network.
O'REILLY: OK, excellent. All right, “No-Spin” news real fast: Spector, hung jury. Ten people understood that he did kill that poor woman. Two people understood nothing, and they're idiots and they should be put in jail for letting this guy get off. They're going to retry it but this is L.A. You've got two nuts and there you go. O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, now Phil Spector. If we catch Osama bin Laden, he sent a message that he wants to be tried in L.A.
[...]
O'REILLY: You know, look, I have to make decisions about what I cover, why I cover it, and what the worthiness is. And again, if you -- if we have new listeners out there, my mandate is to keep an eye on the powerful in America, and that means all the politicians, all the people that have power over you. And the press certainly does that, because the press can put things out there. And, you know, again, you are the informed people listening to talk radio, taking an interest in your country, thinking about issues, but most Americans are not informed.
You know, this is the height of racism. The New York Times, The Washington Post, other newspapers ran up to Harlem and -- not The Washington Post, they didn't. The New York Times, Daily News, all right -- and they ran up to Harlem and they fed black Americans bogus quotes from Media Matters.
Now, the black Americans up there, they didn't listen to The Radio Factor. They didn't know this was coming from Media Matters. They didn't know any anything -- they don't know what Media Matters is. They don't know who Bill O'Reilly is, many of them. So, the reporter feed them -- feeds them the quote, and of course they say bad things about me, of course they do.
If you heard a quote -- you were a black American -- that Bill O'Reilly was shocked, surprised that people were well-dressed, blacks were well-dressed at the Anita Baker concert, you'd go, “That's outrageous.” Wouldn't you?
WIEHL: Absolutely, of course.
O'REILLY: OK, so that's how they reacted and then they printed it. You know, look, if I could strangle these people and not go to hell and get executed --
WIEHL: You're not going to do that.
O'REILLY: I would -- but I can't.
WIEHL: No, no, no.
O'REILLY: All I can do is expose them. And I will.
Let's go to James in Michigan City, Ohio. What's going on James?