Culture Warrior (18 page)

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

—DON CORLEONE

By now, you might have ascertained that I have a myriad of enemies. In fact, I probably have more myriads than just about anybody in America with the exception of President Bush and the Clintons. I mean, lots of people really,
really
despise me. I believe it's kind of a love-hate thing; that is, they
love
to loathe me. Some of those far-left Web sites, for example, might evaporate if they couldn't defame me on a daily basis.

As I said earlier, all of that means nothing to me unless these people try to cause harm. Then I do care. Enough to strike back fast and hard. I am definitely not Gandhi (another traditionalist, by the way).

What I am about to say might sound delusional, but I believe the genesis of the O'Reilly loathing lies in the fact that I win most of my battles in the culture war. If you've watched me on the tube over the years, you've seen me right a number of obvious wrongs, and expose more than a few bad guys. I've mentioned some of those stories in this book, but there are scores of others. From nailing the Florida judge who allowed eleven-year-old Carlie Bruscha's killer to avoid jail on a parole violation and walk the streets free to kill Carlie, to holding the Pepsi Company responsible for hiring the vile rapper Ludacris to promote its products, to encouraging CBS not to run a movie that unnecessarily demeaned Ronald and Nancy Reagan—we have accomplished much in the culture war. And that, of course, drives the S-P forces nuts.

Most of the time, the secular-progressive players avoid me. George Soros would never consent to appear on
The Factor;
nor would Bill Moyers or Peter Lewis or Walter Cronkite. They are the S-P archers. They aim their arrows toward traditionalists and let fly, all the while keeping their distance from the counterattack of debate.

But there have been exceptions, occasions when some S-P principals did get up close and personal with me. What follows are some of those situations.

         

George Clooney:
More of a far-left ideologue than an enlisted S-P culture warrior, the actor nevertheless consistently toes the secular-progressive line and is up front in doing so. Clooney is an outspoken liberal activist who likes to involve himself in current events. You may remember he was one of the organizers of a telethon designed to raise money for the families devastated by the attack on 9/11, and that situation brought him into a collision course with me.

This is old territory for some of you, but a quick recap is needed to set up what has become an ongoing “situation.” On September 21, 2001, Clooney and scores of other stars appeared in a telethon titled “America: A Tribute to Heroes.” All the publicity and the actual TV pitches made clear that the funds raised by this telethon were to be used to help the 9/11 families. The celebrities donated their time (and sometimes money), and the folks responded with enormous generosity. Reportedly, something like $266 million was raised by that one event. The money was turned over primarily to the United Way, but other charities benefited as well. On the surface, everything looked fine; a job well done.

George Clooney and I are two Irishmen who see the world differently.

But it quickly became apparent that some serious problems had developed in the aftermath of the telethon. In the area of Long Island, New York, where I live, at least thirty families lost loved ones in the 9/11 al-Qaeda attack. This wasn't “tape at eleven”; this was real life. It was just heartbreaking to see the pain and confusion of little kids who had no idea why Daddy or Mommy didn't come home. I still see these children nearly every day. 9/11 is
real
personal for me.

Thus, when some 9/11 family members in my town approached me a couple of months after the celebrity telethon saying they had heard nothing from the United Way and asking if I could get them information, of course I said yes. I quickly assigned a couple of
Factor
investigators to call the United Way, the Red Cross, and all the other charities involved in helping the families. At first we just wanted to know what was going on. What we found was utter chaos.

Most of the organizations that received donated telethon funds had no databases containing information about the 9/11 families and no way to directly answer questions from them; the charities themselves were completely on the defensive about any disbursement of the money. In fact, the Red Cross told us it wouldn't even give much of the donated funds to the families; it had, without telling the public, unilaterally decided to put aside millions of 9/11 dollars for future disasters.

After I began reporting the story, outrage grew and the Red Cross quickly reversed itself—pledging all the money would go to the families. The Red Cross board of directors also replaced its CEO. But, to my amazement, the United Way continued to stonewall. So, after carefully thinking the situation over, I made a direct appeal to the stars who had worked the telethon: Please ask the United Way to be more forthcoming.

Incredibly, out of the scores of celebrities who asked for your money on TV, only four stepped up and agreed they had a responsibility to ask the United Way to be more responsive: Clint Eastwood, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, and the singer James Brown. That was it. The rest of them went to ground. Except, that is, for George Clooney. He went on the attack.

Clooney's press agent, a guy named Stan Rosenfield, began bad-mouthing me and Fox News around Hollywood and then issued a press release in which Clooney compared me to Senator Joseph McCarthy and stated: “[O'Reilly's] accusation that the fund is being mishandled and misused is nothing short of a lie. The money is going to the right people. And to make certain of this, the United Way is taking some time [to distribute it]…”

Clooney then went on the Letterman program and said I made up the entire story—a kind of forerunner to the strategy the S-Ps used during the Christmas controversy.

We, of course, invited Clooney on
The Factor
to talk things over; I wasn't angry with him at first, I just thought he was stunningly misinformed. As I wrote in my previous book—
Who's Looking Out for You?—
all I wanted Clooney and the other celebrities to do was ask the United Way to communicate directly with the families. Apparently, that benign and reasonable request upset many stars. Guys like Tom Hanks claimed I was interested in the story solely for “ratings.” Julia Roberts also said something to that effect. But it was Clooney who was the most adamant—I was Satan!

I must say the whole thing was incredibly stupid. Did George Clooney not see all the family members we brought on
The Factor
who said they could not get any of their questions answered by the United Way? Did he not notice that the director of the Bergen County, New Jersey, branch of the United Way described the entire 9/11 donation program as chaotic? I mean, come on, transcripts are available for all my programs, the facts were readily accessible. All George Clooney and his publicist had to do was take legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel's advice and “look it up.”

But it soon became clear to me that, for George Clooney, this was not about the 9/11 families. No, this was about something else. Behind his blustery indignation, what was really in play was Clooney's ego and his intense personal dislike of me. Remember, he is a far-left guy. So even after the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences acknowledged
The Factor
's entire 9/11 reporting with a special citation, Clooney continued his bizarre stance. I chalked it up to unchecked narcissism and put Clooney's nonsense on the shelf.

About four years later, in October 2005, the George Clooney/ O'Reilly saga took a surprise turn. A major New York City publicist invited me to attend a private screening of Clooney's movie
Good Night and Good Luck.
The film, based on the life of legendary television journalist Edward R. Murrow, was to open a few weeks later, and I was eager to see it. But the invitation made me wary. Obviously, George Clooney was no friend of mine or of my brand of journalism; why would he want to give me a preview of his film?

The invitation stated that the screening was to be followed by a dinner hosted by Clooney and Walter Cronkite (surprise), but no way was I going to that. Generally, I try to avoid those kinds of things unless friends of mine are involved or money is being raised for charity. This culture warrior is not good at small talk and is also usually a tired guy by the end of the day. So the dinner was out, but I did want to see the movie.

After thinking it over, I decided to take a bodyguard,
Factor
executive producer Dave Tabacoff, and attend the screening. The small theater was packed with people like Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, and Andy Rooney, already a kind of establishment blessing for the enterprise. And the film turned out to be good; Clooney had done excellent work.

When the lights went up, I left the theater—and guess who I bumped into in the lobby? Hi, there, George, you ol' rascal.

Sensing drama, the exiting crowd hushed and stared as I walked over to the actor. He's about 5′10″, so he had to look up to all 6′4″ of me. I shook his hand and told him the film was excellent. I even invited him on
The Factor
if he wanted to publicize the movie. I said we'd drop all the other stuff and focus on the film. I suggested the past was the past. I tried to be conciliatory without being obsequious, and it wasn't difficult because, again, I have nothing personally against George Clooney.

Probably employing his acting skills, Clooney shook my hand in return and was convincingly pleasant. Meanwhile, his oily publicist, Stan Rosenfield, hovered close behind him. The entire chat took maybe forty-five seconds. I then congratulated David Strathairn, the actor who played Edward R. Murrow, and went home.

Now, I didn't really expect to hear from Clooney about my invitation, but I didn't expect anything negative either. Wrong again, dense culture warrior! The very next day, Clooney launched a series of nasty personal attacks against me in the
Washington Post,
the
New York Daily News,
and a few other places. I was surprised. I had been stupid (again).

So let's recap. Clooney looks me in the eye and cordially shakes my hand while I politely compliment his movie and invite him to promote it on my program. Then, when I'm not around, he smears me to the press. That is exactly what George Clooney did. He's quite a guy.

One footnote: Clooney's display was so over-the-top classless, it made me curious. What kind of person behaves like that? So I called a high-ranking Hollywood person I know—let's call him “Deep Box-office,” or D.B.

After I related to D.B. the exact story I just told you, D.B. laughed and said he knew all about the situation. In his view, Rosenfield and Clooney hoped that attacking me in the press would cause me to hit back on TV and a public brawl would ensue. They were using the Franken tactic: Get free publicity by goading O'Reilly into a media fight.
Good Night and Good Luck
did not have much of a publicity budget, and a national controversy flamed by a partisan media would likely gain attention and thus sell tickets.

But this time, I didn't play. However, I did allow Clooney to get close, proving that even after the Franken episode, I had not completely learned my lesson. Some of these S-P people are beyond shameless. They do not operate like regular folks. Luckily, I seethed privately about the Clooney assault but did not make it a public matter. So I am getting there. With some culture warriors, it is a long process.

         

Michael Moore:
The clown prince of the secular-progressive movement, Moore, like George Clooney, is a talented filmmaker. Also like Clooney, Moore's primary interest lies in the political area, but he does aggressively advance the S-P cause in almost all his projects. Moore is especially popular in secular-progressive Europe, where his anti-American posture is widely acclaimed. In his travels abroad, he frequently claims that most Americans are dopes and U.S. leadership is a tool of the corrupt, unfeeling big corporations.