You can bet Bill O’Reilly will respond in the near future, but David Corn and Eric Engberg have spent the afternoon responding to the Fox News host’s Sunday appearance on “MediaBuzz.”
Corn’s latest retaliation piece against Bill O’Reilly accuses the Fox News host of responding to the Mother Jones story questioning his wartime reporting experience with “insult, denial, threatening rhetoric, and bombast.” Corn also claims O’Reilly omitted details of the New York Times article he read on air.
But here’s the tell: As O’Reilly read from the Times story, when he reached the line about a cop “firing five shots,” he omitted the rest of the sentence: “over the heads of the fleeing demonstrators.” He jumped straight to the next sentence, hoodwinking the audience, for with this selective quotation, he had conveyed the impression that at least one cop had been firing on the protesters. He had adulterated his supposed proof.
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Meanwhile, less than 24 hours after being called “Room Service Eric” by O’Reilly, former CBS News correspondent Eric Engberg went on “HuffPost Live” to defend himself.
“He says I was hiding in my hotel room, which is another one of those classic O’Reilly responses to any kind of criticism of him. It’s always to fire back some personal slur at whoever made the criticism, rather than respond to the criticism. So I was ready for it and I’m laughing at it,” Engberg said.
During the “MediaBuzz” segment, O’Reilly mentioned reaching out to Dan Rather and former CBS brass about obtaining the footage the he and his crew shot in Buenos Aires. He’s hoping to have the video in time for Monday’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” but it’s unclear if CBS has cooperated. Either way, the “Factor” should be interesting tonight.
UPDATE: CBS News has posted the video.