Bill O'Reilly joined Fox News' Media Buzz with host Howard Kurtz and refuted former CBS reporter Eric Engberg's account of the Falkland Islands/war zone controversy that has landed BillO in hot water.
As is his style, BillO took over the interview from an intimidated Howard Kurtz and cried that Engberg refused to go on his show and then started with in with the insults. "He's suspicious of the NY Times, not me!"
Kurtz: You have said your photographer was rundown, hit in the head, he was bleeding, the army was chasing you guys, Engberg says, I never heard any injury to the photographer.
O'Reilly: I don't think he was there. I don't think he knows what happened and I'll tell you why If he were in the Plaza Del Mayo, where was the video, why did I have to run it up to the feed point and send it to new York? I’d like everyone to ask him, ‘Were you there?’ because his reputation, his nickname was ‘Room Service Eric,’ because he never left the hotel.
BillO then blasted CBS's Bob Schieffer for "big footing" his story which happens all the time in the news business.
If you write an article and send it in and another reporter put there name on the article, what's that called? it begins with a "p."
Howie refused to respond to O'Reilly's accusations of plagiarism, laughed and called it what it actually was.
Kurtz: I've always called it "big footing" and you're not happy if that happens.
O'Reilly: What is it called in print? it begins with a "p."
Kurtz: I'll let you tell me.
O'Reilly: Plagiarism.
Kurtz: Oh, if it's your colleague and you're working together
O'Reilly:I wasn't working together with these guys.
BillO complained of being smeared and then smeared Engberg because his name came up in Bernie Goldberg's fair and balanced book about bias at CBS news.
Kurtz was bullied by O'Reilly the entire segment and Howie wasn't the one who challenged Bill's own words about being in a "war zone." When Kurtz asked him if he should have worded it differently, he said "No."
BIllO then attacked David Corn's credibility.
O'Reilly: Does he have any credibility anywhere, if you lie in his article about something that demonstrable, why would anybody, CNN or anybody else take anything he says seriously? Why?
Corn has been a Washington reporter for a long time and some people respect his work.
O'Reilly: Who, name one, you can't?
He is a hatchet man, you know he is. He's an apparatchik from the far left and all of this is driven, Stelter at CNN, you don't get more far left than this guy.
UPDATE: David Corn responded to Kurtz and O'Reilly on Twitter today.
