As part of an ongoing feud over Bill O’Reilly’s latest book, “Killing Reagan,” the Fox News host told conservative commentator George Will that he is scrutinizing O’Reilly’s book because he is “jealous.”
Will, a Fox News contributor, wrote two columns in the Washington Post questioning O’Reilly’s theory that the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan caused the former president’s mental decline and his Alzheimer’s disease. The first Washington Post column prompted O’Reilly to accuse Will of libel.
Will came back with a second column on Tuesday noting that O’Reilly’s hypothesis relied on a memo that the Fox host has never reviewed. Will wrote that “O’Reilly’s vast carelessness pollutes history and debases the historian’s craft.”
On his show Tuesday night, O’Reilly complained that the Washington Post would not publish a rebuttal to Will’s column before launching into an attack on Will.
“It’s so fallacious, I don’t even think the man has read the book. But you know what, George? I’m bored with it, I’m bored with it. So this is my last reply to you. Everything in ‘Killing Reagan’ is true. Everything is documented. You, George, are jealous,” O’Reilly said.
“You’re jealous of our success on television and in publishing,” he continued. “Your last book was a huge bomb, George. A catastrophe in the sales department — only 28,000 copies sold.”
O’Reilly said that Will’s “elitist” attitude has contributed to the columnist’s “current jihad against us.”
Watch the clip via Media Matters:
I’ve seen angry, hormonal middle schoolers comport themselves with more maturity and grace. Funny, because this is exactly the kind of thing middle school age kids say to one another.
Funny, I remember him saying something similar when he sexually harassed his intern, shortly after he settled with her in court.
My thoughts exactly.
If looking down on loudmouth fakes who write slipshod, ill-researched books purporting to be nonfiction is elitist then please direct me to the table where I sign up to be an elitist.