Bill O’Reilly has dismissed the mounting reports casting doubt on his tales of covering wars and riots — but the Fox News host appeared to hold different standards when then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) was called out on a tall tale in 2008.
“Uh-oh, it looks like the senator’s Bosnia story did not happen,” O’Reilly said at the top of the hour on the March 25, 2008 edition of “The O’Reilly Factor,” according to a transcript.
Clinton faced a scandal during her 2008 campaign for President after reporters questioned her claim to have run through sniper fire when landing in Bosnia during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Clinton later said she “did misspeak.”
During a debate on the “Factor” between Fox contributor Col. David Hunt and former counsel to Bill Clinton Lanny Davis, the latter insisted that calling Clinton’s Bosnia tale a “lie” was inappropriate.
O’Reilly jumped in.
“Let me debrief Lanny now,” the Fox host said. “Now look, Lanny, if a woman goes into a war zone or a man, and they’re shot, they remember it, because I’ve been shot at.”
“You remember it because your adrenaline rises. It’s something that is very traumatic,” O’Reilly continued. “So it strains credulity to say that this was just a simple misstatement.”
O’Reilly said he understood how Clinton could have made the mistake once in a speech, but said that it was Clinton’s repeated assertions after being called out by journalists that made her seem guilty.
“I’m giving you the first time in the speech, because I give speeches. You guys give speeches,” O’Reilly said. “Sometimes we embellish. Sometimes we — it doesn’t come out the way we want. So I’m cutting you that slack.”
“But the follow-up, that’s where I think there’s a legitimate question, Lanny,” O’Reilly concluded.
It’s unclear exactly what O’Reilly was referring to when he said he’d been shot at.
In recent weeks, the Fox host has faced questions on his statements and reporting on the Falklands War, the civil war in El Salvador, the suicide of a figure in the investigation of the JFK assassination, and the Los Angeles riots. He has denounced all of the reports as smears by left-wingers.
“Is this stuff important?” O’Reilly said during the 2008 broadcast. “Only you can make that call. But the story is getting a lot of attention.”
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