{"id":1234,"date":"2009-04-01T11:57:38","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T18:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2009-04-01T15:15:45","modified_gmt":"2009-04-01T22:15:45","slug":"david-letterman-and-the-goon-bill-oreilly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1234","title":{"rendered":"David Letterman And The Goon: Bill O&#8217;Reilly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><object width=\"320\" height=\"240\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"5\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/l-KX8vY6LpU&#038;border=1&#038;color1=0x5d1719&#038;color2=0xcd311b&#038;hl=en&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;fs=1\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n<p>The latest installment of the ongoing episodic series, Letterman and the Goon, aired last night, and the madcap misadventures of this odd couple didn&#8217;t fail to entertain. The program began with David Letterman revealing how the show got it&#8217;s name when he told Bill O&#8217;Reilly that&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve always thought of you as a goon&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From there it segued into an endearing scene that demonstrated the touching bond between the two men, with Letterman obviously lying as he told O&#8217;Reilly that&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">&#8220;You&#8217;re too smart to believe what you say.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That compassionate attempt to spare the feelings of O&#8217;Reilly certainly drew a few tears from viewers (or at least Glenn Beck). Everyone knows, of course, that O&#8217;Reilly isn&#8217;t that smart at all, and likely believes everything he says, no matter how dishonest. But Letterman took the high road on behalf of his friend, just as he did when O&#8217;Reilly hilariously declared himself to be a journalist:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>O&#8217;Reilly<\/strong>: <span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">&#8220;Glenn Beck is a talk show host. Rush Limbaugh is a talk show host.&#8221;<\/span><br \/>\n<strong>Letterman<\/strong>: <span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">&#8220;What are you?&#8221;<\/span><br \/>\n<strong>O&#8217;Reilly<\/strong>: <span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">&#8220;I&#8217;m a journalist.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And how do we know that O&#8217;Reilly is a journalist? Because he <em>&#8220;got a degree&#8221;<\/em> that he <em>&#8220;paid a lot of money for.&#8221;<\/em> Well, that settles it then.<\/p>\n<p>The pair did endure a bit of drama when Letterman raised the specter of Al Franken. O&#8217;Reilly tried to dodge the issue, saying&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">&#8220;I&#8217;m gonna recuse myself because I don&#8217;t like Al Franken and it&#8217;s not fair to me to go on and say bad things about him and I don&#8217;t want to do that.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Letterman challenged that position, pointing out that O&#8217;Reilly says bad things about people he doesn&#8217;t like all the time. O&#8217;Reilly insisted that it happens <em>&#8220;very rarely.&#8221;<\/em> By very rarely, he must have meant just about every night. Not only does O&#8217;Reilly frequently bash his perceived enemies (just ask Sean Penn, Helen Thomas, Jeffrey Immelt, the Dixie Chicks, and any of the hundreds he has labeled <em>&#8220;Pinheads&#8221;<\/em>), he has been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1167\" target=\"_blank\">particularly hard on Franken<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;You don&#8217;t get any lower than that man, Franken.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;That&#8217;s the worst thing I&#8217;ve ever seen in American politics &#8211; is this man maybe becoming a senator.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;It&#8217;s personal with me. He&#8217;s lied about me. He&#8217;s slandered me.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The fact that he was even competitive [&#8230;] depresses me about America.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those are all just love notes from a man who now says that it would <em>&#8220;not fair to me to go on and say bad things about him.&#8221;<\/em> No wonder Letterman closed the episode by saying&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see you in about six months for a cleaning.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Precisely. A visit with Bill O&#8217;Reilly was pretty much the same as a visit to the dentist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest installment of the ongoing episodic series, Letterman and the Goon, aired last night, and the madcap misadventures of this odd couple didn&#8217;t fail to entertain. The program began with David Letterman revealing how the show got it&#8217;s name when he told Bill O&#8217;Reilly that&#8230; &#8220;I&#8217;ve always thought of you as a goon&#8221; From [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,15,16],"tags":[179,26,531],"class_list":["post-1234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-press","category-humor","category-wankery","tag-al-franken","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-david-letterman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-jU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12220,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=12220","url_meta":{"origin":1234,"position":0},"title":"Stephen Colbert To Replace David Letterman: Stay Tuned For Right-Wing Freakout","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/10\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"CBS announced this morning that Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, will succeed David Letterman as the host of The Late Show. Note: Not actually endorsed by Stephen Colbert, but still... Get Fox Nation vs. Reality. Available now at Amazon. Although Letterman only announced his pending retirement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox Nation vs. Reality - Colbert","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/FNvR-Colbert.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":756,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=756","url_meta":{"origin":1234,"position":1},"title":"Favorite TV Personalities of 2007","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/15\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Harris Interactive has just released their survey of America's Favorite TV Personalities. The list was topped by Ellen DeGeneres in a surprise win over Oprah Winfrey. The remainder of list contains some characters who are familiar faces in the news media. 1Ellen DeGeneres 2Oprah Winfrey 3Jay Leno 4Hugh Laurie 5Jon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art\/Culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art\/Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28525,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=28525","url_meta":{"origin":1234,"position":2},"title":"Goodbye Dave, And Thanks For This: Top Ten Signs There&#8217;s Trouble At Fox News","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/20\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Maybe the funniest top ten list ever - and still as profound as when it aired on October 6, 2010. Letterman: The category tonight, the top ten signs there's trouble at Fox News. Yesterday Fox News reported that the city of Los Angeles spent one billion dollars on jet packs\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"David Letterman","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/letterman-foxnews-top-ten.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/letterman-foxnews-top-ten.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/letterman-foxnews-top-ten.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2603,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=2603","url_meta":{"origin":1234,"position":3},"title":"On Letterman: Donald Trump Declares War On Islam","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/3\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Joining many ignorant and intolerant right-wingers, Donald Trump has taken the position that all Muslims were responsible for the World Trade Center terrorist attack. Appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman, Trump responded to a question about the non-mosque that is not at ground zero: Letterman: Does this suggest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2916,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=2916","url_meta":{"origin":1234,"position":4},"title":"Letterman: Top Ten Signs There&#8217;s Trouble At FOX News","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/7\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is just for fun..... And tune in tonight to see Stephen Colbert.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":732,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=732","url_meta":{"origin":1234,"position":5},"title":"The News Corpse 7 For 2007","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/1\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"While I am not particularly a fan of \"Best of...\" lists, I happened to be going over the just past year of News Corpse columns and it became a nostalgic journey through many rants and raves that had slipped from my conscious recollections. So I compiled a short list of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ailes Newsroom","src":"\/Pix\/ailes_newsroom.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}