Sparks flew on “The O’Reilly Factor” Friday as host Bill O’Reilly and columnist George Will squared off over disputed facts in the former’s new book, “Killing Reagan.”
In a recent Washington Post op ed entitled “Bill O’Reilly slanders Ronald Reagan,” Will writes the book “is a tissue of unsubstantiated assertions” and it “will distort public understanding of Ronald Reagan’s presidency more than hostile but conscientious scholars could.”
“After reading the column I can say with certainty George Will libels Bill O’Reilly,” O’Reilly kicks off the interview with on “Fox News.” Both Will and O’Reilly are employed by the news channel.
Among the highlights, O’Reilly quips that Will is “actively misleading the American people,” to which Will responds, “You’re something of an expert on actively misleading people.”
“You are lying,” O’Reilly responds.
Will later says O’Reilly “is doing the work of the Left, which is that in order to discredit conservatism it must destroy Reagan’s reputation as president and your book does the work of the American Left with its extreme recklessness.”
O’Reilly ends the interview by saying, “All of what we write in ‘Killing Reagan‘ is true. You’re a hack. You’re in with the cabal of Reagan loyalists who don’t want the truth to be told. ‘Killing Reagan’ is a laudatory book.”
Will also wrote in his column: “The book’s perfunctory pieties about Reagan’s greatness are inundated by its flood of regurgitated slanders about his supposed lassitude and manipulability. This book is nonsensical history and execrable citizenship, and should come with a warning: ‘Caution — you are about to enter a no-facts zone.'”
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