Bill O'Reilly: "No Spin"

This segment originally aired on Sept. 26, 2004.

Who is Bill O'Reilly? Is he a patriot? A blowhard? A braggart? A bully?

Well, it turns out, there's a lot more to him than any of that. Since Mike Wallace sat down with him in 2004, he has maintained his domination of cable news, competitors have tried to copy him, and four nights a week, perhaps the ultimate flattery, Steven Colbert parodies him on Comedy Central. But Wallace found the man, talking about himself, full of surprises, and he began with one.

"What are you talking about?" asks Wallace.

"When I was growing up, I didn't care about the news at all. I had no interest in the news. But my father liked you," says O'Reilly. "And I said, 'That guy, he's pretty interesting because he's giving people a hard time.' Which is what you did. So then, when I got older, there were three guys that I watched: you, Howard Cosell … and Tom Snyder, because Snyder knew how to work that camera. You were the three. So you're responsible."

Wallace called O'Reilly on his constant finger pointing. "I can't stop," says O'Reilly, who does a lot of pointing on his nightly Fox News Channel program, "The O'Reilly Factor."

Does O'Reilly enjoy the arguing? Does he enjoy taking on people on his show?

"Sure. It's a battle of wits, who's the quicker draw intellectually," says O'Reilly. "I enjoy the joust. And I think people enjoy watching the joust – one of the reasons we're real successful."

"The O'Reilly Factor" is the highest-rated hours on any cable news channel. O'Reilly told Wallace that over 20 million people a week watch the show. But there are millions more who hear him on radio stations.

He's also a syndicated columnist and a best-selling author – all of it made possible by the enormous success of his cable show.

The concept was simple enough: bring the Op-Ed page to television. "The O'Reilly Factor" is all about opinions: O'Reilly's opinions.

And the Factor Formula works. It's made him incredibly popular and incredibly unpopular, too.

"When I tell people I'm gonna do a profile of O'Reilly, 'Oh, wonderful, wonderful. Don't let 'em off the hook. Go get 'em. Bring 'em down. You're the guy who can do it,'" says Wallace on reaction to his interview with O'Reilly.

So why do they want to bring O'Reilly down? "I don't know who you hang around with," says O'Reilly. "I suspect they're 'pinheads,' but I don't know for sure."

People dislike O'Reilly because of statements like these:

"I'm more angry about it than you are!"

"What about George Bush? He had nothing to do with it."

"Why did you have to tell them you were an atheist if you didn't have any trouble reading the oath? Why didn't you just shut up?"

"That's not an interview," Wallace remarks. "That's a lecture."

"Oh, I lecture, where I'm a commentator. We went back and did research on the last six years of 'The Factor.' Do you know how many times I told people to shut up? Six. Three times in anger and three times just, 'Ahhh, he didn't want to shut up about things,'" says O'Reilly.

"My program, my house. You're disrespectful in my house, you're putting things out there that are defamatory in my house, you're gonna get taken to the cleaners."
And outside his house is no different. On Tim Russert's cable show, O'Reilly was paired with The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

O'Reilly: You are in with the most vile form of defamation in the country. … You are pandering to it, and I resent it, sir.

Krugman: Well, we resent you, too.

But his most notorious encounter developed at a book fair, when he took on humorist Al Franken about a book Franken had written that said O'Reilly had lied publicly on a number of occasions. Franken also used a splotchy picture of O'Reilly on the cover.

O'Reilly: He writes in his book, he tries to make me out as a liar...

Franken: "No, no, no, no, no, no that's..."

O'Reilly: Hey, shut up! … You had your 35 minutes! Shut up!

Franken: This isn't your show, Bill.

Their very public battle was about a number of things, one of which was that O'Reilly had said he was an Independent; Franken showed that he had actually registered Republican.

O'Reilly: This is what he does. He is a vicious, and that is with a capital 'V,' person.

What upset him more – that Franken called him a liar, or that he proved it?

"Proves it, bull," says O'Reilly. "He's a character assassin. Why lower yourself to that kind of a discourse?"

Asked why it gets him so upset, O'Reilly tells Wallace, "Because it's dishonest, it's parasitical. And it's character assassination. Why wouldn't I get upset?"

And right or wrong, O'Reilly likes to get upset. He was raised Irish-Catholic in Long Island, N.Y. This son of a middle-class accountant says his dad was an underachiever who came to blows with him as a teenager. But his dad made him scrappy, which has served him well in his career.

He worked his way through college painting houses. His first job in TV was in a small market, Scranton, Pa.

"Not like Maria Shriver, with all due respect to her. Nice woman who started in Los Angeles. Why? Because her name is Maria Shriver," says O'Reilly. "O'Reilly starts in Scranton, Pa., with the coal miners. I loved it. My folks."

"Give me a break," Wallace remarks. "Why are you comparing yourself all of the sudden with Maria Shriver?"

"Because I'm telling you that this road I took had to be taken," says O'Reilly. "There was no other way to do it."

For the record, Shriver started in Philadelphia as a low-level assistant. As for O'Reilly, his career took off in 1996, when the fledgling Fox News Channel bought his idea for a high-energy Op-Ed TV show. By 1998, it was a bonafide hit, must-see TV for the conservative right.

At the 2004 Republican National Convention, the "old boys club" – including Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich – welcomed him with open arms.

Some folks would expect this reception for O'Reilly, a favorite of conservatives. But what you don't expect are his views, which sound more like they're coming from a Democrat.

O'Reilly says he's pro gun control, against the death penalty, and supports civil unions, not just for homosexuals, but "for everybody."

He says he's for gay adoptions, as a last resort: "I'd rather have nice, responsible gay home than the system for kids. What else?"

And about the environment? "Government's gotta be proactive on environment," says O'Reilly. "Global warming is here. All these idiots that run around and say it isn't here. That's ridiculous."

And there's more. He supported President Bush on the war in Iraq, but declared that he would never trust the Bush administration again if no weapons of mass destruction were found.
Iraq is why the O'Reilly finger has often pointed at the Bush White House.

"A huge mistake was made in underestimating the aftermath of Saddam," says O'Reilly.

Asked who made that mistake, O'Reilly tells Wallace, "I think Rumsfeld has to take the responsibility there, because he's the defense secretary and it looks like he didn't have a clue that this was gonna happen. But, just like a baseball manager, I think he should take one for the team."

Last December Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld did resign. As for O'Reilly, back in 2004, just weeks before the presidential election, he said he still had not made up his mind.

"You're going to vote for George W. Bush," Wallace asked.

"Oh, yeah," O'Reilly replied.

"You think he's a great president, right?" Wallace asked.

"Wrong," O'Reilly said. "I'm one of those Independent, man. I'm open to be persuaded right away. I've known Kerry for 25 years. … He's a patriot. I'm listening to what he has to say."

What did he think about the men from the swift boats who were bad-mouthing Kerry during the campaign?

"Awful. It's terrible," O'Reilly said. "It makes me sad that this happens."

And one more surprise. He doesn't consider himself part of what he calls "right-wing radio."

What does he think of talk show host Rush Limbaugh?

"I respect Limbaugh for basically making a success out of himself and putting on an entertaining program. But he's not a primary source of information, or shouldn't be," says O'Reilly. "He's an entertainer. … I'm a journalist who provides a program that is entertaining."

And, he says, he's just a regular guy from Long Island, despite the fact that he makes an estimated $10 million each year from TV, radio and print.

"You're addicted. You are addicted to the power. You are addicted to the money," Wallace remarks. "You are addicted to the fact that 'I am Bill O'Reilly, and everybody knows it.'"

O'Reilly's response?

"Dr. Phil is back. How did he get in the room? You're crazy," says O'Reilly. "I couldn't care less about Bill O'Reilly being known in Iowa. Doesn't matter to me. I don't throw my weight around. I'm not partying with Puff Daddy. I'm not cuttin' a line. I'm not drivin' a Mercedes Benz."

Again, for the record, his wife has a Mercedes, but he says he won't get in it. Bottom line though, he is one of the most provocative news figures in America. And for him, that's enough.

"I'll never win any awards for stuff I'm doing now," says O'Reilly. "Because the intelligentsia who distributes the awards thinks that I'm misguided. I'm a barbarian. I am a Hun."

Does it bother him?

"No, I love it," says O'Reilly. "I love to be the outsider."
Produced By John Hamlin