Last night on his Fox News show, Bill O’Reilly called the New York Times’s damaging story on Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) unethical relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman a “hit piece.”
During a discussion about the piece with former White House Press Secretary — and now permanent Radio Factor fill-in host — Tony Snow, O’Reilly responded by saying that he could “just as easily” expose a “longstanding rumor” about an unnamed “powerful Democratic person in this country.” “I could do it tomorrow,” he warned.
Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/02/oreillysmwear.320.240.flv]
Presumably, O’Reilly’s high ethical journalistic standards are the only thing preventing him from peddling such unfounded rumors.
Transcript:
O’REILLY: There has been a longstanding rumor, and you know it, about a Democratic, powerful Democratic person in this country, longstanding, been around, people have looked at it, never reported by anyone, never mentioned by anyone. Easily done in the same way The New York Times did it. I could do it. I could do it. I could do it tomorrow, anonymous sources told me this individual in America, again, a prominent Democrat…
SNOW: Right.
O’REILLY: …was doing this, all right. And everybody in the business, the journalism business, knows that story’s in play. No one will report it. So I — it’s a hit piece on McCain. It’s a hit piece.