Over the years, there have been several issues highlighted in American political commentator Bill O'Reilly's print and broadcast work. He has drawn criticism from several individuals and groups, including Al Franken, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Media Matters for America, David Letterman, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, usually in response to criticism by him or disputes of factual accuracy.

Indiana University study

In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report in the academic journal Journalism Studies that analyzed the Talking Points Memo segment that opens most O'Reilly Factor broadcasts. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the researchers compared O'Reilly's comments and style to a 1939 study of Father Charles Coughlin. Among the conclusions, the study found that O'Reilly used propaganda far more often than Coughlin and that he was three times more likely to be a "name caller". The report also found "a consistent pattern of O'Reilly casting non-Americans in a negative light. Both illegal aliens and foreigners were constructed as physical threats to the public and never featured in the role of victim or hero."^[1][2]

O'Reilly criticized the study. He asserted that "the terms 'conservative,' 'liberal,' 'left,' 'right,' 'progressive,' 'traditional' or 'centrist' were treated as name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors responded that O'Reilly was incorrect and that, as the study itself said, "We did not count 'liberal, conservative, centrist' as name-calling unless they were linked to a derogatory qualifier. O'Reilly's reference to "Kool-Aid left" is an example of what we counted as name-calling. Or is the reference to folks of a particular political persuasion as a cult on a suicide mission fair and balanced reporting?"^[3] O'Reilly also said that Indiana University has received millions of dollars from George Soros' Open Society Institute.^[4] The authors responded that they had received no funding at all, including from Soros, for the study.^[3]

Fox News producer Ron Mitchell also wrote an op-ed criticizing the study. He echoed O'Reilly's charge that too many terms were counted as name-calling and pointed to "buried headline" as an example. He also accused the authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that O'Reilly propagandized.^[5] He also pointed to a section in which the authors describe making changes to their "coding instrument" because the first attempts generated "unacceptably low scores." The authors responded that their study had been extensively vetted through two rounds of anonymous peer review prior to publication. They also pointed out that the methodology that Mitchell criticized was accepted scientific practice that is put in place to prevent bias, not to create it.^[3] Specifically, a Media Matters response piece said that Mitchell misunderstood what a "coding instrument" is. The methodology called for individual researchers ("coders") to analyze broadcasts and code their findings into a database. The mention of "unacceptably low scores" did not mean that initial methods found too few instances of O'Reilly calling names; instead, it referred to "unacceptably low" consistency between coders analyzing the same data.^[6]

Critics and rivals

O'Reilly has been involved in numerous controversies and rivalries with various people and organizations. Some of the more notable are Media Matters for America, Al Franken, and Keith Olbermann.

Media Matters for America

Media Matters for America describes itself as a politically progressive, web-based, non-profit organization that reports and criticizes what it describes as "conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."^[7] O'Reilly is often the subject of Media Matters' online reports. Among its complaints, Media Matters has alleged that O'Reilly has made many homophobic or anti-gay remarks. To support its claim, Media Matters has documented numerous comments made by O'Reilly or his guests which it believes ridicule or incite fear of the lesbian and gay community. ^[8]

O'Reilly has referred to Media Matters as "smear merchants," and "the most vile, despicable human beings on the planet," and has expressed distaste for the site because he claims that it is funded by George Soros.^[9] Media Matters maintains that it has never received funding from Soros "either directly or through another organization."^[10] Media Matters founder David Brock says that he has repeatedly requested that O'Reilly debate him on O'Reilly's program and that O'Reilly has refused. Media Matters also says that O’Reilly has not been able to specifically challenge the accuracy of Media Matters’s reporting.^[11]

Barbara Boxer Comments

In January 2005, O'Reilly criticized Barbara Boxer for allegedly attacking Condoleezza Rice as unpatriotic. Boxer had said, "I personally believe that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth." Media Matters criticized O'Reilly for misquoting her several times as referring to Rice's "respect for the troops".^[12] When several callers attempted to correct the error on O'Reilly's show, he rebuked them.^[13]

FAIR's Peter Hart

Peter Hart (a media analyst for the progressive Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) is the co-author of "The Oh Really Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly."^[14] In the 2004 documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, Hart states that The O'Reilly Factor is a "perfect example" of what is wrong with Fox News Channel, alleging that the Republican Party gets favored treatment over the Democratic Party. ^[15]

Feuds with other media personalities

Al Franken

Franken book controversy

Al Franken's 2003 book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look At the Right included a picture of O'Reilly on the cover and a chapter devoted to him inside. In his book, Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting facts both to serve conservative politics and to improve his public image. The two men participated in a panel discussion at the 2003 BookExpoAmerica (which was televised on C-SPAN). Franken described O'Reilly's denial of erroneous statements regarding receiving two Peabody Awards. After Franken spoke, the two men argued.

Following the Book TV argument, Fox News sued Franken for trademark infringement over the use of the phrase "fair and balanced" in the book's title. O'Reilly has generally said that he was not involved in the lawsuit. In an interview with Time, O'Reilly was asked if he "regrets pushing the lawsuit against Al Franken", to which he replied, "Not at all."^[16] When the case reached court, the presiding judge denied Fox's request for injunctive relief and described the case as "wholly without merit". Fox then dropped the suit. O'Reilly later said he had considered personally suing Franken for defamation but was told that, as a public person, the standard of proof would be too high to sustain a lawsuit.

Selective Editing

In an Air America broadcast on the Sundance Channel, Franken criticized O'Reilly for selectively and misleadingly editing a June 5, 2005 interview of Senator Joseph Biden by George Stephanopoulos. In the interview Biden proposed the submission of legislation for an independent commission to look into wrongdoing in the U.S. Army's prison system at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.^[17] When O'Reilly analyzed the same interview on The Factor, the broadcast edited out all references Biden made to appointing an independent commission and only presented Biden's call to shut down Guantanamo Bay. O'Reilly accused Biden of misusing the prison abuse story and then presented the missing part of Biden's remarks as his own opinion: "The Bush administration should set up an independent commission to investigate American detainee policy across the board. The president must take the offensive on this, or else the country's image will continue to suffer and the jihadists and their enablers will win another victory." Franken criticized this as a misrepresentation by O'Reilly.^[18]

Peabody Award

O'Reilly incorrectly claimed at a February 10, 2001 speech at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, that Inside Edition, a show he had previously anchored, had won a Peabody Award. After watching subsequent broadcast of the speech on C-SPAN, Franken performed a search on LexisNexis and found three previous occasions dating back to August 30, 1999 where O'Reilly had repeated the incorrect claim. On at least one occasion, O'Reilly used the first-person pronoun "we" and said the show won (plural) "Peabody Awards".^[19][20] Franken called O'Reilly for a statement and O'Reilly admitted he had made an error, correcting himself and stating that the show had won a George Polk Award and not a Peabody.^[21][22] Further research that Franken documented in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them reveals that the Polk award was given one year after O'Reilly's tenure at Inside Edition and for work O'Reilly had not been involved with.^[21]

Franken called Lloyd Grove, a reporter for The Washington Post, who called O'Reilly and asked him about his statements. O'Reilly said, "So I got mixed up between a Peabody Award and a Polk Award". Grove published the story on March 1, 2001 in his column "The Reliable Source".^[23]

Robert Reno of Newsday wrote an opinion piece that used this example to argue that O'Reilly cares more about self-aggrandizement than journalism. O'Reilly criticized Reno's article as an example of "attack journalism" and said that "you can't find a transcript where I said [I won a Peabody]". He has rejected the characterization that he was lying and maintained that he never said that he personally won any such award. Franken and other critics have pointed to O'Reilly's use of "we" to rebut O'Reilly's contention.

Keith Olbermann

Olbermann's show Countdown on MSNBC, which airs opposite The O'Reilly Factor, is highly critical of O'Reilly. Olbermann frequently targets O'Reilly in the "Worst Persons in the World" segment of the program. On Countdown, Olbermann had also previously initiated an unsuccessful campaign to "Save the Tapes", referring to the rumor that there exist tapes of O'Reilly making lurid phone sex calls to Andrea Mackris, a former producer of his show. Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment and the suit was settled out of court. O'Reilly also sued Mackris for attempted extortion, but dropped the case when her suit was settled.

Disputes of factual accuracy

The Malmedy massacre controversy

On October 3, 2005, retired four-star general Wesley Clark was a guest on The O'Reilly Factor. A topic of debate on the program was a ruling regarding the potential release of more photos from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. According to Olbermann, "Clark defended the release of the additional Abu Ghraib photos saying we needed to know what happened." While debating with Clark, O'Reilly apparently misunderstood a historical fact of World War II when he said "General, you need to look at the Malmedy massacre in World War II and the 82nd Airborne that did it." This statement suggests that O'Reilly erroneously believed that American troops were responsible for a massacre of German troops in the town of Malmedy, Belgium during World War II. In reality, German troops were responsible for the massacre of 84 American soldiers in Malmedy. His inaccuracy did not go unnoticed or unchecked, but was largely considered a mistake.^{[citation needed]}

On May 30, 2006, Clark again appeared on the show. While discussing "the apparent murder of Iraqi civilians in Haditha", O'Reilly once again incorrectly referred to the Malmedy massacre, stating "In Malmedy, as you know, US forces captured SS forces, who had their hands in the air and they were unarmed and they shot them down. You know that. That's on the record; [it's] been documented."^{[citation needed]}

The next day, on May 31, 2006, O'Reilly addressed a viewer email regarding the inaccuracy. As reported on The O'Reilly Factor, the email came from a Fort Worth Texas viewer named Donn Caldwell and stated: "Bill, you mentioned Malmedy as the site of an American massacre during Word War II. It was the other way around, the SS shot down U.S. prisoners." O'Reilly responded to this by saying: "In the heat of the debate with General Clark my statement wasn't clear enough Mr. Caldwell. After Malmedy, some German captives were executed by American troops."^{[citation needed]}

According to Olbermann, "Fox washed its transcript of O'Reilly's remarks Tuesday" referring to the line "In Normandy, as you know, US forces captured SS forces" when the video clearly shows that O'Reilly said "Malmedy" rather than "Normandy."^{[citation needed]}

This second instance of O'Reilly misstating the facts of the massacre, combined with his denial of doing so and the apparent cover up in the transcript by Fox News prompted a harsh response on the June 01, 2006 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.^[24] Countdown showed video clips of O'Reilly making these incorrect statements from the October 3rd and May 30th editions of The O'Reilly Factor and showed the clip of O'Reilly addressing the viewer email the following day. Olbermann lambasted O'Reilly for refusing to accept responsibility and distorting the truth, calling him a "false patriot who would rather be loud than right." He also compared the editing of the transcript to George Orwell's 1984.

After the airing, Fox News corrected the afore-mentioned transcript on June 2, which was noted in a follow up report on Countdown with Keith Olbermann the following Monday^[25]. The Media Matters for America website^[26] also posted a report detailing the correction of the transcript that same day.

Boycott of French goods

In March 2003, O'Reilly called for a boycott of French products and services sold in the United States, due to President Jacques Chirac's stance on the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[27] In April 27 2004; O'Reilly said, “They’ve lost billions of dollars in France” as a direct result of his boycott, referring to "The Paris Business Review" as his source, a publication that does not exist. O'Reilly then said about two months later that the boycott caused France to lose $138 million in business compared to the previous year.^[28][29]

The CBC and Media Matters for America have said that French exports to the US increased during the period of O'Reilly's boycott, citing U.S. Census Bureau figures.^[30][31][32]

In May 2007 O'Reilly announced he was ending the boycott upon the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as French President.^[33]

Controversy about O'Reilly's childhood home and upbringing

O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans, or what he calls "the folks", are his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in lower-middle-class Levittown, New York as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury,^[34] which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, Al Franken, Michael Kinsley, and others have accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image.

O'Reilly has countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother,^[35] and he said his mother still lives in his childhood home, which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage, which shows a Levittown postal address, on his website. Levittown was redrawn into a squarish shape^[36] to conform with the 11756 ZIP code, which was introduced in 1963. After this time the O'Reilly home was located in Westbury. On a 2005 episode of The Al Franken Show, Franken invited a Long Island historian onto the show, and she said that O'Reilly's statement about having lived in "the Westbury section of Levittown" was generally accurate and that the house could fairly be described as being in either town. She also said that O'Reilly's neighborhood was not the "hardscrabble" environment he suggested it was.^[37]

O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale"^[38] and that his father "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life." Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has calculated that adjusted for inflation, $35,000 in 1978 would be worth over $90,000 in 2001 dollars.^[19] O'Reilly has retorted that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career, at which point O'Reilly would have been long independent of his parents. ^[39]

Disputed claims involving the "War on Christmas"

Media Matters for America has criticized what O'Reilly calls the "War on Christmas." Media Matters posted several reports on their website with links to news articles from Michigan’s WNEM, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,^[40] and the Washington Post,^[41] as well as one retraction by O’Reilly himself^[42] noting that several of O'Reilly’s allegations to support his theory were either false or inaccurate.^[43][44]

Incorrect reporting on "lesbian gangs"

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GLAAD) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have each separately criticized O'Reilly for featuring a story about a "national epidemic" of teenage lesbian gangs who carry pink pistols and try to indoctrinate young girls into lesbianism. GLAAD and the SPLC outlined ways in which the sourcing for the story was flimsy, false, or omitted pertinent facts.^[45][46] Rashad Robinson, GLAAD's Senior Director of Media Programs, said, "This type of inaccurate tabloid journalism perpetuates dangerous stereotypes about lesbians and feeds a climate of homophobia, anti-gay discrimination and violence."^[47] O’Reilly acknowledged that the story was overhyped, but said, "It’s a valid story." "Is it out of control? No." He continued, "I’m not in fear of the lesbians beating me up tonight." Robinson called O'Reilly's response a "non-apology apology" and added that "the story is a complete and total fabrication, and he still has failed to offer one shred of evidence as to why it’s legitimate news."^[48]

Controversial topics discussed by O'Reilly

Jeremy Glick

On his televised program on February 4, 2003, O'Reilly interviewed Jeremy Glick, an author whose father had been killed in the September 11 attacks. Glick had signed an anti-war ad that made comments relating the attacks to atrocities in Baghdad, Panama City and Vietnam. After Glick accused O'Reilly of evoking "9/11 to rationalize everything from domestic plunder to imperialistic aggression worldwide", and also of evoking "sympathy with the 9/11 families" to do the same, O'Reilly became visibly angered with Glick and said, "That's a bunch of crap. I've done more for the 9/11 families by their own admission — I've done more for them than you will ever hope to do". At one point in the interview, O'Reilly told Glick to "shut up" and said, "I don't really care what you think." The short and heated segment ended with O'Reilly giving the command to his staff to cut Glick's microphone.^[49][50]

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Glick said that O’Reilly said to him after the interview, “Get out of my studio before I tear you to fucking pieces.” Glick also says that he insulted O’Reilly’s show off-camera.^[51] O'Reilly aired the segment, which was recorded "live to tape"^[52], then said to his audience, "If I knew that guy Jeremy Glick was gonna be like that I never would have brought him in here. I feel bad for his family, I really do." Afterward, O'Reilly apologized for Glick's appearance on the show and then accused Glick of touting 9/11 conspiracy theories. O'Reilly then wrongly asserted that Glick said the Bush administration planned the 9/11 attacks, a misinterpretation of Glick's statement on the show.^[53]

Military recruitment in San Francisco schools

On November 8 2005, the voters of San Francisco approved Proposition I/College Not Combat, a ballot measure that declared the city's opposition to "the federal government's use of public schools to recruit students for service in the military."^[54] In response, O'Reilly stated on his radio show, "You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right in to Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it....We're going to say, "Look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."^[55] San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly responded, calling for O'Reilly to be fired from Fox.^[56] O'Reilly refused to apologize, saying his comments were "obviously satirical."^[57] The proposition's author, Todd Chretien, appeared on The O'Reilly Factor in response and stated that to the people of San Francisco, the proposition itself was "no laughing matter."

Shawn Hornbeck

Shawn Hornbeck (a former missing child) was found living with 41 year old Michael J. Devlin on January 12, 2007. Hornbeck had been kidnapped by Devlin in 2002 at the age of 11. After being discovered, it was revealed that at some point in that four years Devlin had given Hornbeck the freedom to get on the internet, ride his bike, and have friends over. Many members of the media speculated that Hornbeck apparently did not try to escape because of Stockholm syndrome. On January 16, 2007's edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly called this analysis into question. He said that he doesn't believe in the Stockholm Syndrome, and that the boy probably preferred not going to school and playing video games to living with his parents. O'Reilly said: "The situation here, for this kid, looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn't have to go to school, he could run around and do whatever he wanted…there was an element here that this kid liked about this circumstance." He then went on to say that Hornbeck was probably maladjusted before being abducted. He supported his comments with the fact that Hornbeck had piercings and that O'Reilly himself had once taught high school. Following his comments, the Naples, Florida Chapter of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children announced that O'Reilly's appearance at a fundraiser where he was to give the keynote address was cancelled. He was replaced by John Walsh.^[58]

Marvin Kitman and his O'Reilly biography

In January 2007, St. Martin's Press released a biography The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly, written by longtime Newsday TV critic Marvin Kitman. O'Reilly initially cooperated with the author by giving him 29 interviews. According to Kitman, O'Reilly was going to help promote and publicize the book until, just prior to publication, they had a disagreement over the inclusion of a chapter covering Andrea Mackris' 2004 sexual harassment lawsuit against O'Reilly.^[59] After the book came out with the chapter included, Kitman asserts that O'Reilly, instead of promoting the book, attempted to bury it by "intimidating" and "terrorizing" Fox News reporters to keep them from giving Kitman interviews.^[60]

In an interview with Keith Olbermann, Kitman criticized O'Reilly as "kind of a hypocrite" by pointing out O'Reilly's belief that journalists should not attempt to flatter or indulge the people they cover. "Throughout all my interviews," Kitman said, "[O'Reilly] was telling me that nobody could ever tell him what question to ask, or what to say." However, when the subject was O'Reilly himself, Kitman said that "it turned out that he‘s not so much in favor of telling it like it is, but like it isn‘t".^[60] Kitman also said he found it strange that O'Reilly sought to suppress the book when it cast him in a generally positive light. When speaking to Olbermann, Kitman said, "This is the only book that‘s ever said anything positive about Bill, except for the six he wrote about himself."^[60] Several critics agree that the book's portrayal is fair.^[61][62]

Harlem restaurant comments

On the September 19, 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, prior to having a discussion about racial stereotypes with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams,^[63] O'Reilly mentioned a lunch he had with Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem. Before Williams joined the discussion, he said that he "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." Later on the show, while discussing how white America feels that gangsta rappers dominate black culture, Williams stated, "Oh, and it’s just so awful. It’s just so awful because, I mean, it’s literally the sewer come to the surface, and now people take it that the sewer is the whole story", to which O'Reilly responded, "That’s right. That’s right. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea".^[64][65][66]

O'Reilly also said, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'"^[67] Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". He suggested that O'Reilly's view was "based upon a stereotype" and called on O'Reilly and others who think like him to "wake up".^[68]

Karl Frisch, spokesman for Media Matters, said O'Reilly's comments were "ignorant and racially charged." O'Reilly responded in his Talking Points Memo that he believed that Media Matters took him out of context. He defended his comments by saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference black, white, we’re all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true."^[69] O'Reilly said, "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism."^[70]

In an interview with Keith Olbermann, Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post said that O'Reilly's initial remarks were "casually racist" and that O'Reilly's attempts to cast himself as the victim of a smear campaign were disingenuous.^[71] On Morning Joe, Willie Geist said that, contrary to O'Reilly's position, "The more context you hear, the worse it gets." Geist also said that O'Reilly might not understand the nature of his comments or why they would spark controversy.^[72]

On the Huffington Post blog, author Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote that the comments "looked and sounded dumb and racist", but O'Reilly "didn't say anything that was earth shatteringly offensive" or anything that others might not say in private.^[73] Also on the Huffington Post, Eric Deggans, chairman of the Black Journalists Media Monitoring Committee, said that O'Reilly's history of using racially charged rhetoric suggests that he stereotyped black people as "either vocal protesters like Sharpton and Jesse Jackson or straight-up thugs like N.W.A." Deggans said that he found it unfortunate that it "took a lunch with Al Sharpton" for O'Reilly to realize otherwise.^[74]

Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was “rank dishonesty” and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN."^[75] Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.^[76]

On the Today show, host Matt Lauer said, "I thought Bill O'Reilly was saying that we should not be surprised." He said O'Reilly's point is that "the small group of people" who think that certain rappers represent all African Americans "need to get out and live life a little bit". Lauer later speculated that O'Reilly would want to get "a do-over" and phrase his comments differently.^[77]

Following the controversy, Jesse Jackson made his first appearance on the O'Reilly Factor.^[78] Jackson asked O'Reilly what he had intended by his comments and said that "to underestimate the civility of black people was offensive" but that the controversy over O'Reilly's remarks had obscured other, more important issues.^[79]

"Lynching Party" comment

During the February 19, 2008 edition of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly devoted his program to the sound-byte of Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, who had said at a campaign rally,"For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.” O'Reilly questioned whether Mrs. Obama loved her country and, in response to a caller's response that she did not, said "I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence." ^{[80][81][82][83]} Columnist Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post criticized O'Reilly for his remarks. "There's certainly nothing at all funny or remotely appropriate about the use of a lynching reference to talk about Michelle Obama," he said. "It's -- I'm almost speechless."^[84] On his February 21 broadcast of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly said, "I'm sorry if my statement offended anybody."^[85]

References

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