Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

"Look," I said, "I want them to take about forty pounds off my ass." I thought that might
lighten the mood.'
No sale. "I don't look like that. This is what I look like." Point. Point.
"Bill, we'd love to have a picture of you from The Factor. Something of you lying.
Anything with your mouth open would work." Again, trying to lighten the mood. But I wasn't
getting through.
By then the moderator of our panel, Pat Schroeder, was summoning us to the event,
where seven hundred of America's bestour nation's booksellers-sat waiting for what promised
to be a high-minded and civilized exchange of contrasting views between two men and a
woman of letters.
Molly went first and enchanted us all with her tart Texas wit. Next up, O'Reilly. After
talking about his book for about five minutes, he began to talk about mine. Seeking to contrast
his style with my own, he said, "I don't call people names ... I don't call anybody a liar.
I'm not doing that. I'm trying to elevate the discourse ... I don't call people big, fat idiots."
Nobody missed the reference to my book Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot.
Then it was my turn. Like the other panelists, I spent the first part of my allotted time
describing my book in general terms. Then I got to O'Reilly. I felt a certain obligation to explain
why a fellow panelist's face was on the cover of a book whose title included the words,
"lies," "lying," and "liars."
So, I told a little story.
A couple of years ago, I was watching Bill O'Reilly on C-SPAN. He was being interviewed
in front of an audience about his book The No Spin Zone. The interviewer reached back a few
years into O'Reilly's career. "Now, you were the host of Inside Edition. That was kind of a
tabloid show." (I'm paraphrasing here-I don't have this one on tape.)
"Tabloid show?!" O'Reilly was indignant. "We won two Peabodys!"
"Well, still. It was a tabloid show."
"I beg your pardon, but the Peabody is only the most prestigious award in journalism,"
O'Reilly answered with great umbrage.
"But you have to admit, Inside Edition was something of a tabloid show."