Last night on The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly displayed a sensitive side. Nominally, O'Reilly had fellow Fox Host Gretchen Carlson and Republican strategist Margaret Hoover on to discuss why Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) have "avoided" the media since the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 18 others in Tucson last Saturday. But it quickly became clear that O'Reilly was really only interested in talking about why the two women haven't been on his show.
"Why not come on and kick it around?" O'Reilly said, after noting that Palin was slated to appear on Sean Hannity's show on Monday. O'Reilly said he'd defended both women from those who would tie their rhetoric to the tragedy in Tucson. And he seemed peeved that they weren't giving him any credit.
"Monday night, I launched a devastating attack on the people that did this to Congresswoman Bachmann and Governor Palin," O'Reilly said."It wasn't a personal attack, there were no personal deals at all. It was just the facts: bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. I assumed that both ladies would say, 'you know what? O'Reilly's got it nailed, I'm going to come on and say how this has affected me personally.' Thereby not only engendering sympathy. As I said to Bernie and Laura: a lot of hearts of minds have been changed this week. A lot of liberal people are going, 'you know what, it's gone too far.' And that's why I think they should have come on."
Even Hoover, O'Reilly's guest, couldn't get past it.
"It sounded to me like you ran a segment on Monday to curry favor in order to get them to come on your show," Hoover said, laughing.
"I don't curry favor with anybody, Hoover, you should know that by now," O'Reilly said.
Watch:
(h/t Ben Smith)
