BILL O'REILLY:
Dave: "So how was your holiday?"
Bill: "I had a nice winter solstice."
After a beat, Bill explains, "We can't say ‘Christmas' anymore." Dave was unaware of this turn of events. Bill says it started with Sears and K-Mart where their employees are not allowed to say the word "Christmas" and it is spreading out from there. Bill exclaims that he received a card this season which read, "Have a Blessed Winter." Dave laughs at the silliness of it all, saying how it doesn't affect him and adding he does and says what he wants. Bill gives an example of just how bad it is getting. A school in Wisconsin put on a play and changed the words to "Silent Night." Does that make any sense?
Dave brushes off the outrage and likens it to the type of thing that comes around every 20 years or so where someone wants to put horses in diapers. "Won't this too just go away? Isn't this just nothing?"
Bill says it isn't nothing. It's going to the courts. In Plano, Texas, school children were told not to bring in napkins with Christmas colors. No red or green napkins. Again, Dave says that these are just two minor examples. Bill pipes that he's got millions more he can share. A church wanted to advertise at the local library their Christmas pageant by using the nativity scene. The library agreed, but stipulated they couldn't use the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, or the Three Wise Men. An urgent Bill O'Reilly exclaims, "Do you think I'm making this up?" Dave says, "Yes, I think you're making this up."
The conversation turned to Bush and Iraq. Bill says beating up Bush on every turn is not helping in our struggle in Iraq. Democracy in the Mid-East is good for the West. Bill lauds our noble soldiers for what they have been ordered to do on this world stage and adds that for Cindy Sheehan to call the insurgents as "freedom fighters" was awful and we should be careful with what we say. Dave jumps in and says, "Well, you should be careful with what you say also." When asked to expand, Dave says "How can you possible take exception with the motivation and the position of someone like Cindy Sheehan?" Bill says although he feels bad for the woman, he believe she's being led by far-left elements in the country. Dave counters with, "Have you lost family members in armed conflict?" Bill says he hasn't. "Well, then you can hardly speak for her, can you?" Dave follows.
Dave asks about Bush admitting that we went into Iraq because of a mistakes made in intelligence. Whose intelligence? O'Reilly says the intelligence came from the CIA. "So why are we there in the first place?" Dave continues. O'Reilly agrees the intelligence from the CIA was obviously flawed and their information gathering may have to be revamped, but we received the same intelligence from Britain, from Russia, and from Egypt. And so that made it right to go into Iraq, even if our intelligence from more than one source was wrong? "No, it doesn't make it right," says Bill.
Dave concludes his side of this topic with, "I'm very concerned about people like yourself who don't have nothing but endless sympathy for a woman like Cindy Sheehan."
Bill counters that there is no way a terrorist who blows up women and children is going to be called a ‘freedom fighter' on his program.
Dave: "I am not smart enough to debate you point by point on this, but I have a feeling about 60% of what you say is crap. . . . but I don't know that for a fact." Dave says to Paul Shaffer, "Yeah, 60%. I'm just spit-balling here."
To finish up, Dave says about Bill and his "O'Reilly Factor" program, "I don't think you represent an objective viewpoint."
Bill wants to know specifics. Examples.
Dave: "Well, I don't watch your show so that would be impossible." Then adds happily and extending a hand, "Always a pleasure."
Well, that was something. Very interesting, very entertaining, edge of your seat fun.
Back from commercial, Dave asks Paul, "How do you think that went?" Paul called it "good TV."
Dave says, "I'm told that during that last segment, the kitty called 9-1-1." |
