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Mike Barnicle wannabe
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Date Posted: 08:21:43 08/25/05 Thu
In reply to:
Mike Barnicle wannabe
's message, ""O'Reilly Factor" whacks Union-Leader for refusing to defend its editorial stance on sex offenders on TV" on 21:30:50 08/22/05 Mon
(published in, New Hampshire Union-Leader, 8/25/05)
By CAROL ROBIDOUX
Union Leader Staff
MANCHESTER — If he had gotten a few more words in edgewise, New Hampshire Union Leader Publisher Joseph W. McQuaid would have liked to tell Fox News' Bill O'Reilly a thing or two more about the New Hampshire way during last night's "O'Reilly Factor" broadcast.
As it was, the seven-minute segment quickly dissolved into a verbal sparring match between the two in a reprisal over O'Reilly's Monday night show, during which he attacked the newspaper for an Aug. 17 editorial — and called McQuaid and the newspaper "cowards."
O'Reilly threw the first punch Monday during his radio broadcast, after fuming over the newspaper's editorial in support of Gov. Lynch's decision to have the Attorney General's Office study Florida's 80-page Jessica Lunsford Act before making a recommendation on how a new law about child sexual offenders should be framed.
After being contacted by the show's producer, the newspaper's editorial writer Drew Cline responded in writing to O'Reilly, but was not able to go on the air to debate him Monday night because of a prior commitment.
O'Reilly aired the segment anyway, but failed to read Cline's comments on air and went on to misrepresent the paper's position, said Cline, following the Monday broadcast.
Yesterday, the newspaper published an editorial cartoon and follow-up editorial, which O'Reilly last night characterized as a "nice little personal attack."
McQuaid said he agreed to go on air with O'Reilly to set the record straight. But O'Reilly got so worked up during the segment that he continued to interrupt his own tirade with more circular questioning.
McQuaid made his best point at the top of the segment, referring to the state's truth-in-sentencing Law, crafted in large part due to the newspaper's editorializing over the issue in the 1990s.
"I didn't get a chance to say that the judges in New Hampshire, in part because of the Union Leader and others keeping an eye on them, give out tough sentences," McQuaid said after the show had aired.
"I think O'Reilly is on a crusade, but he's painting New Hampshire wrong as part of that crusade. New Hampshire police and victim advocates and judges give out pretty touch sentences, and if a minimum mandatory sentence would help, then we're all for it," McQuaid said.
In the end, McQuaid called O'Reilly a "tinhorn" — someone insignificant who pretends to be important — a term O'Reilly said he was unfamiliar with — and O'Reilly apologized for "getting a little heated," at the height of the debate.
"So I'm a coward and he's a tinhorn. I guess we're even. And he invited me back on the show," McQuaid said. "I wonder if he meant it."
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McQuaid takes O'Reilly to task over remarks