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If Sen. John McCain would have listened to some unsolicited advice from Bill O’Reilly, the one time Republican nominee for president might be sitting in the White House today.
“I pulled him aside in private and said, ‘You want to win? Go out there and say Rudy Giuliani is my attorney general and Mitt Romney is my secretary of treasury, and we’re going to fix the economy,’” O’Reilly recalled to New York Press Club members during his March 10th "An Evening With Bill O'Reilly" appearance.
“If he would have done that, he would have won. But his ego is so big he wouldn’t do it .... I’ve never said that publicly before.”
O'Reilly's opinionated candor was on full view just as it is on his long-running O'Reilly Factor on FOX TV. At one point a heckler at the back of the room interrupted the sometimes caustic commentator as he challenged those who believe the Guantanamo Bay prisoners were tortured.
“If you believe that then Truman was a war criminal,” O’Reilly said. “Did they torture them? No. Did we slap them around? Yeah. You would have too. Emotions were running high and we were desperate for information.”
At 59-years-old, O’Reilly’s career has spanned 40 years — from house painter in his hometown of Levittown, N.Y. to king of U.S. cable news.
The O’Reilly Factor is a ratings colossus, reaching upwards of four million viewers each night and it has been the No. 1 cable news show on television since surpassing CNN’s Larry King Live in 2001.
But O’Reilly hasn’t always been on top, sparring with newsmakers, politicians and various “liberal pinheads.” He got his start on the Marist College campus newspaper, later switching to television when he took a reporting job at WNEP in Scranton, Penn.
After spending a few years on the local news circuit — with stops including Dallas, Portland, Oregon and Boston — he landed at CBS News in New York City and was quickly dispatched to war zones in El Salvador and the Falkland Islands. But after a dispute with management over the use of a video clip, he walked away.
O’Reilly later emerged to host Inside Edition, a celebrity gossip show. He briefly put his TV career on hold to attend Harvard, and after earning a masters in public administration, Fox approached him about a show.
“My story can only happen in America, this country,” O’Reilly said. “One in a million chance — those are the odds.”
Since then O’Reilly has routinely leveled his debate opponents in his “No Spin Zone,” showering his conservative views onto his guests. And in O’Reilly’s eyes, he’s never been wrong because he preaches his values.
But as easily as O’Reilly dishes it out, he is sensitive to those who criticize him. And to keep tabs on the dissenters, O’Reilly has a packet of news clips about him placed on his desk everyday. Most of it is negative, he said.
O’Reilly especially loathes the way The New York Times writes about him.
"I’m a working class guy who has built up the biggest cable news program in history, and they hate me,” he said. “Don’t tell me you are ‘All The News That’s Fit to Print’ when everybody who works for you is to the left or the extreme left.”
Surprisingly, O’Reilly didn’t bash President Obama, explaining he would give the new president a little more time in office before sinking his teeth into the commander in chief. But he didn’t let Obama off his hook completely.
“His philosophy is not my philosophy,” he said. “I don’t believe in big government. I don’t think the government can solve all of your problems, but I think he is a good man, an honorable guy. So, how’s he doing so far? If you want to be fair about it, it’s hard to say.”
In the meantime, O’Reilly — and his ego — have already considered the Oval Office job.
“Would I run for president? No.,” he said. “Would I like the job? Yes.”
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