Monday night on his show, Billo called White House correspondent Helen Thomas a "pinhead" for saying something she didn't.

Download Download

This was a complete fabrication, aided in no small part by White House spokesperson Dana Perino's twisting of Helen's words at the podium. Notice how O'Reilly purposefully began his clip not with Helen's question, but with Perino's response to it:

O'Reilly: On the pinhead front far left Washington corespondent Helen Thomas put forth that the American military is targeting civilians in Iraq, and got scolded for it.

[video clip] Dana Perino: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position bestowed upon you by your colleagues to make such statements. This is. It is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive. ...

Now check out C&L's complete video w/ transcript of the exchange (yet another reason why C&L is so much better than any Faux News channel) to see where both Billo and Perino had to put words into Helen Thomas' mouth in order to criticize her for saying something she did not. Helen never said nor implied that the military was "targeting civilians" nor "killing innocent people." What she asked was: "You mean how many more people we kill?" in response to Dana's implying that the "situation is moving" in Iraq. See for yourself.

Bill O'Reilly resorted to defaming an 87 yr old woman who was 10 times the journalist he has ever pretended to be 64 yrs ago when she started in the trade, all just so he could call her a "pinhead" in the name calling segment of his show. Even by Fox News standards this was low. At the very least Bill O'Reilly owes Helen Thomas an apology and an on air retraction to his viewers. You can email your complaints [be nice] to O'Reilly's so-called ombudman, Laurie Dhue, at DhuePoint@FOXNews.com .