Bill O'Reilly Regrets Helping Al Franken, That 'Despicable Guttersnipe'

February 2nd, 2012 7:00 AM

Bill O’Reilly topped his show last night with the news that Gallup reported that only 10 states out of 50 had a majority of residents approved of Barack Obama’s job performance. His greatest support came from D.C., Maryland, and Hawaii residents. Utah and Idaho residents gave him his lowest levels of support -- below 30 percent.

Then O’Reilly turned to how Mitt Romney beat Newt Gingrich in Florida, and suggested to Dick Morris that Romney did to Newt what that “despicable guttersnipe” Al Franken did to O’Reilly in 2003:

O'REILLY: You say Romney baited Gingrich. I don't see it that way. I think that Romney said I'm not going to let what happened in South Carolina happen again, ok? So this time, I'm going to be the guy that drives the negative ads, not my opponent. I don't know if the psychology was and the reason I say that is I got baited by Al Franken. You know that despicable guy from Minnesota.

MORRIS: Yes, yes.

O'REILLY: He baited me and I fell for it and I helped him. Okay? But that was a campaign by Franken to do and I found out afterwards. They said, look, in order to sell the stupid book [Lies and the Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right], we're going to lie about O'Reilly and we're going to embarrass O'Reilly and O'Reilly will lunge at us and we'll get all of this publicity. That was well thought out. That's what happened with Al Franken. And he is a despicable guttersnipe. And I don't say that about --

MORRIS: He tried to get you all O'Reillyed up.

O'REILLY: He did, indeed. And I was so stupid that I fell for it. Okay? But in this case I don't think Romney sat down with his advisors. I could be wrong. But it's not his style and said you know, I'm going to bait him and I'm going to make him lose his composure. I think it was just a matter of tactics.

Morris disagreed, and guessed Romney planned to bait Gingrich with advisers: “I believe that they sat down and they said Newt looks bad when he's attacking and we want to get him mad at us so he attacks. And I think Gingrich fell into it and I think he's still falling into it.”

O’Reilly replied, “Okay, well, you know better than me and you might be absolutely right.”