On Monday night, after Helen Thomas asked a question at President Obama’s news conference, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly mocked her by comparing her to “the Wicked Witch of the East.” During his show last night, O’Reilly responded to the outrage over his comments, saying that he’s “a nice guy” because he could have called her “a pinhead.” Later in the show, right-wing media critic Bernard Goldberg chimed in, claiming that “a man needs a humorless feminist like a fish needs a bicycle.” Watch it:
Transcript:
O’REILLY: The play is about 30 yards from me. We’ve invited Will Ferrell. We don’t expect to see him, but he is invited.
Now, Helen Thomas. You know, Bernie, I know I’m a mean guy, and — but what do you think?
GOLDBERG: Let me first say a man needs a humorless feminist like a fish needs a bicycle, OK? So that’s No. 1.
But it’s interesting to me that these left-wingers, who — who didn’t say a word when their fellow left-wingers called George Bush a moron, when they called Dick Cheney a fascist, when they called Sarah Palin a racist, and when they threw Oreo cookies at Michael Steele because he had the nerve to be a conservative black man. They didn’t say a word about all of that.
So here’s my political analysis, and feel free to bleep this. Screw them. Screw them. They are unimportant people. They are on important people who shouldn’t be taken seriously.
When you made a good-natured joke, I very seriously said that Helen Thomas’ 15 minutes were up during the Lincoln administration. And you know what? If they want to take shots at me, and if they want to take shots at you, they need to know one thing: they’re throwing spitballs at battleships.
O’REILLY: But they never — they never learn. They do it, and then we get a segment at the top and two other segments out of it. Everybody sees it. Everybody knows how absurd it is. I should send Media Matters a little — I said Helen Thomas flowers already, because I have nothing against Helen. I want to send them a cake, but I want something to be inside the cake, and I might get…
GOLDBERG: You should send them flowers: black, dead roses.
O’REILLY: But they never learn, Bernie. They’re still doing this crap, and the poor lady who came in, who is a very courageous woman, she buys into this nonsense. She doesn’t know it’s a George Soros generated, you know…
GOLDBERG: They’re humorless. They’re humorless.
O’REILLY: Right.
GOLDBERG: Bill, they’re humorless, and they’re unimportant, and they’re un-serious.
O’REILLY: All right, we’d love to talk to Tina Fey about satire sometime, but I don’t expect to see her.