Bill O'Reilly Kicks Off I'm-Not-Losing-to-Glenn-Beck-or-a-Stalker P.R. Tour
Bill O'Reilly is on a media tour this week—he was on The View this morning, gave two interviews published today, and is scheduled to appear on Late Night With David Letterman tomorrow. Take that, Beck!
Glenn Beck had a front-page story in the New York Times today, which is the kind of attention that O'Reilly will not tolerate in a rival at his own network. So he headed over to The View this morning, ostensibly to celebrate the completely arbitrary and invented 100th-month anniversary as the top 8 p.m. cable-news anchor but really because BILL O'REILLY RUNS FOX AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT YOU FAT CRYBABY AND IF YOU KEEP THIS UP HE'LL HAVE DENNIS MILLER MAKE YOU CRY AGAIN. O'Reilly also gave interviews to Broadcasting & Cable and The Hollywood Reporter.
Nothing of consequence was said in these interviews, because O'Reilly is capable of effortlessly adopting human emotional cues when circumstances require him to appear not to be repugnant and simian.
Aside from blunting Beck's rise, O'Reilly also probably wants to get out ahead of the growing, and entirely accurate, perception that he is a deluded bully who derives sexual satisfaction from sending frat-boy producers to stalk very small young women because they repeat on the internet the things he's said about rape victims. Which is probably why he lied to Broadcasting & Cable and told them that he had invited Think Progress blogger Amanda Terkel on his show before dispatching producer Jesse Watters to follow her with a camera as she went on a weekend getaway. And an appearance on The View, where no one asked him about his stalking fixation, probably helped him seem like a perfectly charming, non-threatening-to-women kind of guy even though he threatens women with loofahs all the time.
Letterman, on the other hand, is gallant and old-school and kisses ladies' hands, so it's highly unlikely that he'll pass up an opportunity to call out O'Reilly's caddish behavior. Here's what happened last time the two got together: