David Letterman asks Bill O'Reilly what the difference is between his lies and those told by Brian Williams.

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

Comparing O’Reilly’s alleged mischaracterizations of past reporting to Brian Williams‘ exaggerations about his time spent in Iraq, Letterman asked, “Is there a difference?” 

“Only if I did something that wasn’t true,” O’Reilly replied, maintaining his innocence. “What I said was accurate,” he insisted, despite evidence to the contrary put forward by organizations like Mother Jones and Media Matters, among others. “It worked out OK for me,” he said, noting that he got “even more viewers” out of the whole thing, a 20% increase. 

“20% up when people thought you were making stuff up?” Letterman asked, incredulously.

O'Reilly goes on to say that people did not think he was making stuff up because he went on the attack. He also claimed that he never knowingly "fibbed" on the air, and went on to say that his ratings prove that his viewers trust him.

He never fibbed on the air?

I think a visit to Politifact quickly demonstrates the falsehood of that claim.

The fact is that Brain Williams was suspended because NBC News considers itself a legitimate news source, and Bill O'Reilly was not because Fox News knows it is not.

Newly revealed footage, of Bill O'Reilly's actual news report from Buenos Aires, proves that he fabricated his experiences during the anti-government protests after the fact.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:  

To justify his claim that he was in a "war zone" and a "combat situation" in Buenos Aires, O'Reilly has pointed to his coverage of a violent protest that erupted after the Argentines surrendered. He has said that a bloodbath occurred, with Argentine troops firing live ammunition into the crowd, mowing down demonstrators, and killing "many." He also has claimed that during the protest a soldier pointed an M-16 at him, and that he heroically rescued his cameraman as O'Reilly and his crew were being chased by soldiers. 

His own real-time coverage of the protest makes no mention of a massacre or threats to him and his crew. 

What's notable about O'Reilly's report is what's not in it. He does not refer to Argentine soldiers gunning down civilians or mention any deaths. He says nothing about soldiers chasing him and his crew. And there's no reference to a CBS cameraman being injured. (A reporter who witnesses soldiers shooting protesters and killing many civilians would presumably be compelled to report on those horrors.) His report depicts exactly what other journalists and eyewitnesses have said took place: a violent demonstration in which tear gas and rubber bullets were deployed. In this 1982 report, O'Reilly called the demonstration a "disturbance." But in later years—on his Fox News show, in his writings, and at speaking engagements—he has claimed that the event was a bloody melee that amounted to "combat" in a "war zone." 

Discussing his coverage of the protest for CBS on Fox News last week, O'Reilly declared, "In my reporting, I told it exactly the way it was." He appears to be correct regarding his real-time reporting of that event. And that's his problem. His own report from 1982 shows his later—much more intense—descriptions of the event were exaggerated. With this footage, O'Reilly the reporter proves O'Reilly the pundit wrong.

Hang on, I'm making a mental note to tune in to "The factor" later on today, because you just know Billo is going to be seething.

I have to admit that I have not had as much fun with a breaking news story since Sarah Palin's bizarre resignation speech.

Are there more Bill O'Reilly lies to uncover? Why yes there are.

"Wait, another one?"

Courtesy of the Guardian:  

Former colleagues of Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News host whose tales of past reporting exploits are facing renewed scrutiny, have disputed his account of surviving a bombardment of bricks and rocks while covering the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. 

Six people who covered the riots with O’Reilly in California for Inside Edition told the Guardian they did not recall an incident in which, as O’Reilly has claimed, “concrete was raining down on us” and “we were attacked by protesters”. 

Several members of the team suggested that O’Reilly may instead be overstating a fracas involving one disgruntled Los Angeles resident, who smashed one of their cameras with a piece of rubble.

Here is what O'Reilly's former co-workers had to report on the incident:

Inside Edition colleagues from the time who were in Los Angeles with O’Reilly – reporters Bonnie Strauss, Tony Cox and Rick Kirkham, and crew members Theresa McKeown, Bob McCall and Neil Antin – told the Guardian that they did not recall such an incident. 

Kirkham, the show’s lead reporter on the riots, was adamant that it did not take place. “It didn’t happen,” he said. “If it did, how come none of the rest of us remember it?” 

Tonya Freeman, the head of the show’s library at the time, said: “I honestly don’t recall watching or hearing about that. I believe I probably would have remembered something like that.” Another librarian from the time also said she did not recall the incident. A spokeswoman for Inside Edition declined to comment. 

Several other senior Inside Edition staffers from the time declined to comment when asked if they recalled O’Reilly’s version of events. Several members of the team, however, recalled that one afternoon in the days following the peak of the riots, which began on 29 April, the angry resident attacked a camera while O’Reilly was being filmed near the intersection of Fairfax Avenue and Pico Boulevard. “It was one person with one rock,” said McCall, the sound man. “Nobody was hit.” 

“A man came out of his home,” said Antin, who was operating the camera that was struck. “He picked up a chunk of concrete, and threw it at the camera.” Told of O’Reilly’s description of a bombardment, Antin said: “I don’t think that’s really … No, I mean no, not where we were.” 

“There was no concrete,” said McKeown. “There was a single brick”. Kirkham’s response was: “Oh my God. That is a completely fictitious story. Nothing ever rained down on us”. 

Here is my favorite part of this article:  

O’Reilly is said to have shouted at the man and asked him: “Don’t you know who I am?

Gee who does that sound like?

Okay let's see if we have this straight now.

Bill O'Reilly was NOT actually on the ground covering the Falklands War.

He never saw any nuns get shot in the back of the head in El Salvador.

He was NOT standing outside the door when George de Mohrenschildt committed suicide.

And now he did not even have concrete thrown at him while covering riots in 1992.

Is that finally enough for Fox News to be embarrassed enough by his bullshit to send him packing?

It's Wednesday so time for more Bill O'Reilly lies.

Okay you all can stop digging for lies now.

In his 2012 best-selling non-fiction book Killing Kennedy, O'Reilly writes on page 300 that as a "reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian ... that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly."

 Guess what, yep you're right, this never happened.

More courtesy of Media Matters:

George de Mohrenschildt was a Russian emigre who befriended Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and testified before the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination. On March 29, 1977, the same day he was contacted by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, he committed suicide at his daughter's home in Florida. At the time, O'Reilly was a reporter for Dallas' WFAA-TV who regularly reported on stories related to the Kennedy assassination. 

O'Reilly has bizarrely inserted himself into de Mohrenschildt's story, claiming in books and on Fox News that he was outside the house seeking to interview de Mohrenschiltd at the time of his death. O'Reilly is under heavy criticism and scrutiny for his false claims about his 1982 Falklands War reporting. 

O'Reilly's implausible tale was first flagged by Jefferson Morley in a 2013 post for his website JFKFacts.org. Morley has worked as an editor for The Washington Post, Salon.com, and Arms Control Today, and is a visiting professor at the University of California, Washington Center. 

New interviews with former O'Reilly colleagues who say he wasn't in Florida on the day of de Mohrenschildt's suicide and documents obtained by Media Matters bolster Morley's reporting.

Wait. so O'Reilly just made that entire incident up? Shocked, that's what I am, shocked!

So now, much like the Brian Williams incident, we are seeing a "journalist" who constantly puts himself into the story, in order to aggrandize himself. 

Here is more from Mediaite: 

In a series of audio tapes made by investigator Gaeton Fonzi, who Morley identified as O’Reilly’s “most reliable source on the JFK story,” O’Reilly can be heard saying he is going to travel from his office in Texas to Florida to look into the suicide after it happened. So there is no way he could have heard the “shotgun blast” with his own ears. 

“O’Reilly’s utterances prove that he was not knocking on George Mohrenschildt’s doorstep as he now melodramatically claims,” Morley wrote. “The truth is more prosaic. O’Reilly got a tip on a hot story, worked his sources to confirm it, and rushed to the scene. In making up this story for Killing Kennedy, he slighted the truth of his own professionalism.”

Media Matters has now launched a petition to "Hold Bill O'Reilly Accountable." Which I think all of us should sign.

And it is important that we continue to hold Billo's feet to the fire becasue there are a lot of people now trying to give O'Reilly a pass either because some of these incidents were in the past, or because it is well known that Bill O'Reilly is full of shit.

And that is kind of the problem.

You see the Right can go viciously attack the mainstream media whenever they get even the tiniest fact wrong, but if their side gets shit wrong, and they do that almost every single day, they simply shrug their shoulders and go "Well it's Fox News, what did you expect?"

That double standard only exists because WE let it.

So let's stop doing that shall we?

Now Bill O'Reilly is threatening reporters for covering his Falklands war exaggerations.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

When NBC News suspended Brian Williams over his various exaggerations, Bill O'Reilly was characteristically sanctimonious. "Reporting comes with a big responsibility, the Founding Fathers made that point very clearly," he said. "They said to us, 'We'll give you freedom. We'll protect you from government intrusion. But, in return, you, the press, must be honest.'" Judging from O'Reilly's actions after he was accused last week of similar fabrications concerning his reporting for CBS News during the Falklands War, he also disagrees with how Williams handled the situation. Rather than apologizing and lying low, O'Reilly has lashed out at various journalists covering the controversy, and now he's reportedly threatened a reporter from the New York Times. 

The Times reported on Monday night: 

During a phone conversation, he told a reporter for The New York Times that there would be repercussions if he felt any of the reporter’s coverage was inappropriate. “I am coming after you with everything I have,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “You can take it as a threat.” 

Emily Steel, who co-authored the story with Ravi Somaiya, confirmed on Twitter that O'Reilly was speaking to her. 

Another bullying POS.

And of course he threatens a woman, that's what all of these assholes do. Threaten the people they think will be intimidated and too afraid to fight back.

I hope the press stays on this story until he is forced to admit he lied or until he is chased off the air. 

Former CBS correspondent who was with Bill O'Reilly in Buenos Aires calls bullshit on his version of events.

This comes to us courtesy of former CBS reporter Eric Jon Engberg's Facebook page:  

I can provide some eyewitness information on this matter because I was one of the correspondents in Buenos Aires with O'Reilly and the rest of the rather large staff of CBS News people who were there "covering" the war. To begin with "covering" is an overstatement of what we were doing. Corn is correct in pointing out that the Falkland Islands, where the combat between Great Britain and Argentina took place, was a thousand miles away from Buenos Aires. We were in Buenos Aires because that's the only place the Argentine military junta would let journalists go. Our knowledge of the war was restricted to what we could glean from comically deceitful daily briefings given by the Argentine military and watching government-controlled television to try to pick up a useful clue from propaganda broadcasts. We -- meaning the American networks -- were all in the same, modern hotel and we never saw any troops, casualties or weapons. It was not a war zone or even close. It was an "expense account zone."  

("Expense account zone." That sounds substantially less dangerous than "war zone.".)

O'Reilly, freshly hired by CBS, arrived in Buenos Aires a few days before the British expeditionary force defeated the Argentine occupiers. He was, as he is today, full of brio and confidence. I remember him asking me how I liked my assignment. When I said I was tired of living in a hotel and wanted to go home he said, "Call your agent." Back in those days calling your agent to complain about the company's decision-making would have been a career-ender, but he didn't seem to understand matters of the CBS internal secret wooglies, which included the rule that you did as you were told. I should have known he was headed for trouble, but I just thought he was a rookie who would learn. Yeah, right. 

Within a couple of days of his arrival the British Army and Marines had completed their land assault on the Falklands capital and forced the Argentines to surrender. The Argentine public, who had been living under a murderous, corrupt military government for years, were driven into the streets of their capital by rage over the loss of a war they had been repeatedly told their army was winning. As night fell after the surrender statement, several thousand people gathered in the streets around the presidential palace to protest. All the members of the CBS reporting staff and all the two-person camera crews we had in Buenos Aires were sent in to the street. I believe there were four or five crews. The reporters, as I remember, were O'Reilly, Chuck Gomez, Charles Krause, Bob Schieffer and myself. Somewhere it has been reported that O'Reilly has claimed he was the only CBS News reporter who had the courage to go into the street because the rest of us were hiding in our hotel. If he said such thing it is an absolute lie. Everyone was working in the street that night, the crews exhibiting their usual courage. O'Reilly was the one person who behaved unprofessionally and without regard for the safety of the camera crew he was leading. 

(Wait. So Bill O'Reilly WASN'T the bravest, most gosh darn professional newscaster in Buenos Aires during the end of the Falkands war? Say it ain't so Billo!)

The CBS bureau chief in Buenos Aires, Larry Doyle, an ex-Marine LRRP, was something of a legend among CBSers because of his personal courage and his knowledge about how to do your job without exposing yourself to undue danger. Early that night in Buenos Aires he assembled the camera crews in our hotel newsroom and instructed them to refrain from using the lights on their cameras while around crowds. Television lights attracted potentially violent people and also made the camera-person an easier target for demonstrators throwing rocks. We all knew that the Argentine public was angry at the U.S. for supporting Britain in the war, so American journalists might become a target for mob violence. So, O'Reilly has been correct in describing the situation in Buenos Aires as somewhat dicey for reporters. If he was nervous, I can see why. 

The riot around the presidential palace was actually short-lived. It consisted mostly of chanting, fist-shaking and throwing coins at the uniformed soldiers who were assembled outside the palace. I did not see any police attacks against demonstrators. According to Doyle, O'Reilly returned to the hotel in a rage over the fact that his cameraman wouldn't turn on the lights to photograph angry crowds. Doyle defended the cameraman and chewed out O'Reilly for violating his instructions on lights. When Doyle looked at the tape shot by O'Reilly's cameraman he saw that the video included stand-ups -- on camera description by the reporter -- which O'Reilly had ordered the cameraman to shoot -- with his light on. Doyle was further upset by this tape, which clearly showed that his orders on lights had been unilaterally violated by O'Reilly. The issue here was safety. 

(What? Bill O'Reilly defied orders? Shocked, that's what I am, shocked!)

CBS was doing a late night re-cap of the Falkland's story. As always the Buenos Aires bureau had no combat video footage to offer, so our part of the special would be the demonstrations, which had been well covered by three or four camera crews, including the one working with O'Reilly. All that footage was blended into the main story, narrated by Schieffer, who had been in Buenos Aires for weeks as the anchor on the scene. When Doyle informed O'Reilly that Schieffer would be doing the report, which would not include any segment from O'Reilly, the reporter exploded. "I didn't come down here to have my footage used by that old man," he shouted. Doyle was stunned. First O'Reilly had defiantly ordered a cameraman to disregard his orders on using lights, and now he was claiming the right to do a story the producers had decided should be done by the senior correspondent on the scene, Schieffer. This confrontation led the next day to O'Reilly being ordered out of Argentina by the CBS bosses. Doyle had told them O'Reilly was a "disruptive force" who threatened his bureau's morale and cohesion. 

(So O'Reilly was ordered out of Argentina early? Interesting how that part of the story was left out in O'Reilly's imaginative retelling.)

I remember looking on a monitor at the long stand-up O'Reilly ordered his crew to shoot, which was never used on the air. He shot this description in the middle of a clearly angry, chanting crowd. As a reporter I wondered why he would think he needed video of himself standing in the middle of the crowd when his own crew and others had taken plenty of good crowd pictures that didn't have O'Reilly standing in the middle of the frame blocking the action. You don't shoot a long stand-up when you have plenty of good pictures of the event you are covering. What O'Reilly was doing was in the realm of local news. I didn't know at the time that he had also violated the bureau chief's order on use of lights, but I wondered why would any correspondent would imperil his colleagues by turning on lights during a riot. 

O'Reilly has said he was in a situation in Argentina where "my photographer got run down and hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete and the army was chasing us." The only place where such an injury could have occurred was the relatively tame riot I have described above. Neither Doyle, who would have been immediately informed of injury to any CBS personnel, nor anyone else who was working the story remembers a cameraman being injured that night. No one who reported back to our hotel newsroom after the disturbance was injured; if a cameraman had been "bleeding from the ear" he would have immediately reported that to his superiors at the hotel. This part of O'Reilly's Argentina story is not credible without further confirmation, and O'Reilly should identify the cameraman by name so he can be questioned about the alleged injury. 

(Any body want to lay odds on whether or not O'Reilly will volunteer this cameraman's name?)

The gunfire reported by O'Reilly is equally suspicious. One of our camera crews reported that they believed the Argentine police or army had fired a few rubber bullets at the crowd. That was the only report we received of weapons being fired that night. The crowd had been confined to a relatively small area around the president's palace. It wasn't like there were protests going on all over the city. I did see soldiers armed with rifles on guard around the presidential palace. But they did not take aim at the crowd and I heard no gunfire. No one I talked to as the crowd was breaking up told me they heard gunfire. O'Reilly's claim that the army fired weapons into the crowd is not supported by anyone's recollection. Had that happened, I believe, the riot would have escalated into an uncontrollable attack on government buildings all over the capital. Nothing like that happened. Actually, the military chiefs, yielding to the public outcry over the war's outcome, were willing to give up their offices, which they did the next day.

Engberg goes on to say that O'Reilly  is purposefully misrepresenting what happened in Buenos Aires to "burnish his credentials as war correspondent, but that virtually nothing he reported was backed up by the facts.

O'Reilly phoned into Fox's Mediabuzz program today to bitch about Engberg's statements and to essentially call him a liar. 

That means that this story is going to get even further media scrutiny and that can only mean bad news for Billo and good news for the rest of us.

Gee, does anybody else REALLY miss Stephen Colbert right about now?

Veteran's group accuses Bill O'Reilly of "stealing valor" and calling for him to be taken off the air. Also David Corn responds to Billo's rant against his Mother Jones article.

Courtesy of Media Matters:

VoteVets, a leading progressive veterans advocacy group, is calling on Fox News to take Bill O'Reilly off the air following revelations from Mother Jones that the Fox News host may have repeatedly misrepresented his experiences reporting on the 1982 Falklands War. 

"NBC acted completely appropriately in taking Brian Williams off the air and looking into claims he's made over the years. Fox News has to do the same thing," Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org, a 400,000-member organization that advocates for vets and military families, said in a statement. "The issue, for me, isn't that Fox has been caught off guard, and didn't realize O'Reilly was telling possibly false tales. That I can accept. It's what do they do about it now? That will tell us a lot about how seriously they take their news organization." 

 "Men and women have fought, died, been wounded, and scarred by war. There are many journalists who actually were in the crossfire, who died, trying to bring the story to the American people," Soltz added. "What Bill O'Reilly has done is steal their valor, and it is wrong." 

Soltz, a combat veteran of the Iraq War, said O'Reilly's misleading efforts are also an insult to veteran war correspondents.

"It makes it seem like anyone can head on over to a war zone," he said via email. "But honestly it is more insulting to the war reporters who never bragged about their war experience, but just kept their head down and did their job. Some of them died doing that job. In my mind, those reporters were heroes."

Nicely put.

However since VoteVets is a progressive group they are undoubtedly classified as not REAL veterans, much like non-Fox News viewers are classified as not REAL Americans.

Still you have to know that this will get under O'Reilly's paper thin skin and drive him out of his little tiny pea sized mind.

Speaking of getting under his skin, yesterday David Corn responded point by point (Much like I did yesterday.) to O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo rant last night:

O'Reilly responded to the story by launching a slew of personal invective. He did not respond to the details of the story. Instead, he called me a "liar," a "left-wing assassin," and a "despicable guttersnipe." He said that I deserve "to be in the kill zone." (You can read one of my responses here.) And in his show-opening "Talking Points memo" monologue on Friday evening, he continued the name-calling. 

In a way, it's impossible to win a debate with O'Reilly because he is not bound by reality. In response to the article, he told Fox News' media reporter, Howard Kurtz, "Nobody was on the Falklands and I never said I was on the island, ever." Yet our article included video of O'Reilly saying in 2013, "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us." Note the words "war zone" and "in the Falklands." 

If you read the article, and I suggest that you do, you will see that Corn addresses virtually all of O'Reilly's claims that the Mother Jones article was a hit piece, and once again points out the many discrepancies with O'Reilly's version of events around the Falkland war reporting, and the actual news reports that emerged from there during that time.

I have to admit that I kind of thought this story would really only be interesting for one or two days, but with O'Reilly's over the top attacks against Corn and his obvious inability to let anything go, this might actually become as big of a story as the Brian Williams Iraq exaggerations.

Here let me get the popcorn started.

Here is Bill O'Reilly's entire "Talking Points Memo" for tonight. Dedicated exclusively to denying the Mother Jones article about his Falkland war exaggerations and attacking liberals. Update!

Courtesy of Fox Nation:

Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly ... thanks for watching us tonight ... more proof the American media is corrupt. 

That is the subject of this evening's Talking Points memo. 

This man ... 56-year-old David Corn ... who works for the far left magazine ... Mother Jones ... smeared me, your humble correspondent, yesterday ... saying I had fabricated some war reporting. 

(Humble?)

Mother Jones ... which has low circulation ... considered by many the bottom rung of journalism in America. 

however ... in this Internet age ... the defamation they put forth ... gets exposure. 

and so I have to deal with this garbage tonight. I’m sorry. 

basically David Corn ... a liar ... says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War ... and Salvadoran War. 

Here's the truth ... everything I’ve said about my reportorial career ... everything ... is true. 

33-years ago in June ... Argentina surrendered to Great Britain ... ending the Falklands War. 

I was covering the conflict from Argentina and Uruguay for CBS News. 

After learning of the surrender ... angry mobs in Buenos Aires ... stormed the presidential palace ... the Casa Rosada ... trying to overthrow the government of General Leopoldo Galtieri. 

I was there on the street ... with my camera crews. 

The violence was horrific. ... as Argentine soldiers ... fired into the crowd ... who were responding with violent acts of their own. 

My video of the combat ... led the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather that evening. 

(Dan Rather? Wasn't that the nightly news guy whose career Right Wing blogs and Fox News helped to destroy back in 2004? Anybody noticing a pattern?)

and later on ... I filed a report ... that ran nationwide. 

That's what happened. 

I never said I was on the Falkland Islands ... as Corn purports ... I said I covered the Falklands War ... which I did. 

(I beg to differ: In a 2004 column about US soldiers fighting in Iraq, O'Reilly noted, "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Sounds like he is describing being caught in a fire fight to me.)

Now ... in what I consider to be a miracle ... I found this CBS internal memo from 33 years ago ... praising my coverage that day. 

The cable was sent to the CBS bureau chief in Buenos Aires ... by the news desk here in New York City: 

"Doyle, O'Reilly didn't have the time last night but would like to say many thanks for the riot piece last night. WCBS-TV and WCAU-TV both took the entire piece, instead of stripping it for pix. They called to say thanks for a fine piece.” 

"Thanks again. Your piece made the late feed, a winner last night." 

Want more? ... here it is: 

Shortly after my crew and I ... escaped grave danger on the streets of Buenos Aires ... I wrote to CBS News boss Ed Joyce ... praising the crew’s bravery. 

I have the letter: "The crews were great … the riot had been very bad, we were gassed, shot at, and I had the best vantage point in which to report the story." 

(So a memo that he himself, sent to his bosses, is proof of that he is not lying about an incident that no other news crew reported ever happened?  Here is how the Mother Jones described that discrepancy: O'Reilly's account of the protest in Buenos Aires is at odds with news reports from the time—including the report from his own bureau. The CBS Evening News that night aired about a minute of video of the protest, apparently including some of the footage that O'Reilly and his camera team had obtained. It showed angry Argentines yelling and denouncing the junta that had lost the war. The only act of violence in the spot was a man throwing a punch against the car of a Canadian news crew. On the segment, Schieffer reported, "There were arrests throughout the day. The police threatened to use tear gas at one point. Several North American television crews were jostled…An ABC camera team's car was stoned before the crew escaped." The CBS report said nothing about people being killed. It does not match O'Reilly's dramatic characterization of the event in his book; the video on the broadcast did not depict "major violence up close and personal.")

So we have rock solid proof ... that David Corn ... smeared me ... and some websites that picked up his defamation ... did as well. 

(No, no we don't have proof of anything of the sort.)

Now ... I had to spend hours last night ... on the phone with various reporters ... and crawling around my basement covered with dust to find documents from 33 years ago. Again, it was a miracle I found them. 

(Again does ANYBODY believe that O'Reilly is the one who did the crawling? I think he has people for that.)

all because an irresponsible ... guttersnipe ... a far left zealot ... who has attacked Fox News many times before ... spit this stuff out on the net. 

and you know what? ... nothing is going to happen to David Corn. 

Mother Jones and the far left websites ...couldn't care less about the truth. 

They are in business to injure. This is a political hit job. 

At this point ... TV coverage has been scant, but CNN tried to exploit the situation because a guy over there named Brian Stelter ... is another far left zealot ... masquerading as a journalist. CNN can do a lot better than this guy. 

(So to be clear EVERY journalist who reported on this is a "far left zealot." Now that is some fair and balanced reporting.)

Real journalists ... knew this story was B-S from the jump. 

They knew Corn was trying to take the Brian Williams situation ... and wrap it around my neck ... for ideological reasons ... because he has a history of attacking Fox News. 

(Every responsible journalist SHOULD have a history of attacking Fox News in my opinion.)

In addition ... Corn actually wrote that I hammered Brian Williams ... when everyone knows ... I went out of my way on Kimmel and the Factor ... to be compassionate to the man. 

Corn must think the folks ... are as dumb ... as he is. 

The whole scandal ... reminds me of another guy who got completely away with it. 

That man is Al Franken ... who years ago ... accused me of faking my working class upbringing. 

(What is the hell does Al Franken have to do with this story?)

He actually said in public many times ... I was not raised in Levittown ... he ran around telling that to the media ... who gleefully printed his words. 

The despicable Franken ... perhaps the biggest liar I have ever known ... wouldn't even retract it when I produced this: 

The deed to my parent's house ... it says Levittown, Al 

... but you, a dishonest smear merchant ... wouldn't retract your false story. 

And I'm sure Corn won't either. 

and what happened to Al Franken? 

He was elected a senator from Minnesota. 

And that's the memo ...

So to sum things up we are asked whether we believe Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, or David Corn and Senator Al Franken. 

Boy that's a tough one. 

It should be noted that Fox News tried to sue Franken for using their "Fair and Balanced" trademark, and lost. And tried to stop the publication of the book, and lost.

Update: I just now watched O'Reilly deliver the diatribe that I wrote about above.

Afterward he had Bernie Goldberg and Geraldo Rivera on to back him up.

At one point he mentioned that he was extremely lucky to have a cable news show where he could talk about this publicly, unlike many other people who have to suffer attacks from the media without the opportunity to refute them or tell their side of the story.

Oddly I found myself agreeing with him on that.

In fact back in 2009 when HE went after me personally on his show and accused me of being a "nutcase" and of making things up about the Palin divorce, and then took old blog posts out of context in order to misrepresent me, I would have loved to have had a more public platform to defend myself.

Point in fact is that this is the kind of thing that O'Reilly, and the rest of Fox News have been doing for years.

Only unlike David Corn, who used O'Reilly's own words against him, THEY simply make things up out of whole cloth in order to destroy anybody who dares speak out against them or a public figure who they support.

But when the tables are turned, who Nelly, do they get upset.

It appears that Bill O'Reilly has his own Brian Williams problem.

You can read the entire story here at Mother Jones.

Here is a taste:  

Here are instances when O'Reilly touted his time as a war correspondent during the Falklands conflict: 

• In his 2001 book, The No Spin Zone: Confrontations With the Powerful and Famous in America, O'Reilly stated, "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." 
• Conservative journalist Tucker Carlson, in a 2003 book, described how O'Reilly answered a question during a Washington panel discussion about media coverage of the Afghanistan war: "Rather than simply answer the question, O'Reilly began by trying to establish his own bona fides as a war correspondent. 'I've covered wars, okay? I've been there. The Falklands, Northern Ireland, the Middle East. I've almost been killed three times, okay.'" 
• In a 2004 column about US soldiers fighting in Iraq, O'Reilly noted, "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." 
• In 2008, he took a shot at journalist Bill Moyers, saying, "I missed Moyers in the war zones of [the] Falkland conflict in Argentina, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland. I looked for Bill, but I didn't see him." 
• In April 2013, while discussing the Boston Marathon bombing, O'Reilly shared a heroic tale of his exploits in the Falklands war: 

I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I'm looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important.

Yeah none of that happened.

It does appear that O'Reilly was present in Buenos Aires during a protest, which O'Reilly described like this:  

"A major riot ensued and many were killed. I was right in the middle of it and nearly died of a heart attack when a soldier, standing about ten feet away, pointed his automatic weapon directly at my head." A television cameraman was trampled, journalists were banged up, and O'Reilly and others were teargassed. "After a couple of hours of this pandemonium," he recalls, "I managed to make it back to the Sheraton with the best news footage I have ever seen. This was major violence up close and personal, and it was an important international story."

Only problem was that the news agencies present at the riot, including CBS News who O'Reilly was working for at the time, did not report any fatalities nor use of tear gas.

Now I know what you're thinking. "Well surely, much like Brian Williams, a trusted newsman like Bill O'Reilly will take a leave of absence and offer an apology for lying to his viewers all of these years."

Only problem with that is suggesting that Fox is a trusted news source or that Bill O'Reilly has an ounce of integrity.

And both assumptions are incorrect.

No he will continue to do his same bullshit job, at the same bullshit cable news station, catering to the same bullshit loving demographic. Nothing changes when your job is nothing more than shoveling excrement for a living.

P.S. It turns out that O'Reilly got wind of this Mother Jones piece and he is none too happy:  

Bill O'Reilly says a new Mother Jones report alleging that the Fox News host made false claims about his Falklands War experience is "a piece of garbage" and that its principal author, David Corn, is "a liar." 

In a telephone interview with the On Media blog, O'Reilly called Corn a "despicable guttersnipe" who has been trying to take him down "for years." 

"It's a hit piece," O'Reilly said. "Everything I said about what I reported in South and Central America is true. Everything."

P.P.S. David Corn, the "despicable guttersnipe," caught wind of O'Reilly catching wind and he stands by his reporting:

"He said he was in the war zone during the Falkland Island conflicts -- the conflict was in the Falkland Islands, it was not in Buenos Aires," Corn said. "He covered a protest after the war was over in Buenos Aires. I don't think that's a reasonable definiton of a combat situation. If you look up 'combat situation' in the dictionary, it's not 'an ugly protest'."

He's got a point.  However I stand by my earlier statement that this will have virtually NO impact on O'Reilly who is after all an entertainer, and NOT a journalist.