O'REILLY: SCARED TO DEATH OF LIBERAL GROUP
told caller Media Matters "will never set foot, not
only in my program, but at Fox News Channel"

From Media Matters courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

After a caller agreed with O'Reilly about the bias of "smear merchants" but defended Media Matters' willingness to "defend themselves," O'Reilly immediately cut the caller off and renewed his assault on Media Matters, labeling us "paid assassins" and calling us "inherently dishonest." O'Reilly also accused us of taking "stuff out of context."

Media Matters has repeatedly requested the opportunity to respond to O'Reilly's attacks on his program, but these requests have been either denied or ignored.

O'Reilly previously has stated that "[i]f you attack someone publicly, as these men did to me, you have an obligation to face the person you are smearing. If you don't, you are a coward."

Click here for more, as well as some audio of the exchange.

What a freakin' wuss. He goes on and on about how awful Media Matters is, but never gives them a chance to respond on his show. What's he afraid of? He allowed Phil Donahue to come on and dress him down. My guess is that he knows that he can't hold his own against them on facts: Media Matters is, in my humble opinion, the best outfit out there as far as meticulous record keeping on news media is concerned; they'd simply blow the big butthole away in an avalanche of embarrassing statements he's made over the years. O'Reilly's usual tactics, chest-thumping, mike cutting, yelling, all these smoke-and-mirror debate strategies in the face of a direct Media Matters onslaught would make him look like the lunatic he is. Of course O'Reilly's afraid. He's only capable of doing what he does when nobody sees the man behind the curtain. At least the great Oz was kind of cool. O'Reilly's just a nerd pretending to be a bully.

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