This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," January 9, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Miller Time" segment tonight: He's back and ready for action. Joining us now from L.A., radio talk show star and general man about the country, Dennis Miller.
Happy new year to you. You were skiing with the swells in Idaho, I understand. You and Demi and all of those people up there, correct?
DENNIS MILLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Billy, I leave you alone for two weeks, and you manage to be the only 6'5" guy in the world who can get into a David and Goliath scenario where you play David. My congratulations.
O'REILLY: You're welcome, you're welcome. Miller is referring to the 6'8" guy that I had to gently remove from in front of "The Factor" camera. I just think he just didn't know what the proper decorum was there. I don't know.
All right. Now, you saw what happened in New Hampshire, and I'll just let you roam here for a minute. What do you think?
MILLER: Well, first off, I have to say to all the people involved in that that the rigors of running for the presidency seem so much more pronounced now, the ups and downs, the stop and go.
And I wonder if our friend the Travelocity gnome Dennis Kucinich doesn't have the proper approach here. He knocks off his 5,000 votes, marries the Tina Louise look-alike, just goes from town to town like Johnny Appleseed. He doesn't have a real dog in the fight. But I look at Barack and Hillary and John and Mitt, and I think my, that is a tough, tough gig.
Now, for a second there over the weekend I thought that Hillary and Glenn Beck were at death's door, and I was really worried about both of them. But I saw them both last night. They seem to have made complete comebacks.
I love the fact that Hillary found her voice. And I remember sitting there thinking Hillary Clinton is one of the few people in the world that I can actually watch say the words, "I found my voice," and think, "I wonder who wrote that for her."
O'REILLY: Aren't the writers on strike though? I mean, look what's happening. Stewart and Colbert, they can't even find the cameras without the writers. I was watching them last night. They were like where do I go now? No, they're talented guys.
But look, the Obama bandwagon, as we just discussed, has been jumped onto by NBC News, by Newsweek magazine, got him on the cover, and they love him. And the San Francisco Chronicle loves him. The New York Daily News loves him.
Now, he doesn't win, which surprised all of the left-wing media. Do they jump off? Do the rats, you know, jump off the ship onto her ship, in your opinion? Will that happen?
MILLER: Well, I do think that some of the media will jump off because they're hedging their bets. They want to be invited to the proper parties at inauguration time.
But I'll say this: I think the Clintons have some people angry on the left side right now. I think there's a contingent of the Democratic Party that woke up this morning and was a little sheepish, because they look at this and they're thinking, well, all we do is talk about how we want change, how we want somebody with hope, how we want somebody with optimism, and New Hampshire, quite frankly, couldn't have went more business as usual than the Clintons.
When I watched them trundle up there again I thought, when is the Democratic Party ever going to get it? Yes, Hillary Clinton might be a better candidate in the long run, but there's no flight of fancy on the Democratic side anymore.
If after one week there's a contingent of that party that's all ready to discard Barack Obama, who to me, although I'm not voting for him because I think he's a bit naive about terror, he certainly is fun to watch, a great speaker.
And it was only after one week that the machine clamped down on them. I think there are some true dreamers on the left. Now I'm thinking how did that happen? How do I have her back already in that back page of Parade magazine pantsuit? Why is she my leader? Why not this kid over here, who I at least find fascinating?
O'REILLY: Because the Clintons have paid their dues, I mean, that's why. The Democratic establishment is a lot like the Republican establishment. I mean, you have to do certain things, saying look, the whole key to this was when Bill Clinton came out, Bill Clinton, all right, and said, "You know what? Barack Obama is a fairy tale. This is a fairy tale. This isn't real. We are real. We are real." And that's what the Democratic machine responds to. That.
MILLER: Well, here's something that I noticed after he said that. It made Donna Brazile cranky. I saw another African-American spokesman today who was cranky about it.
And I think when they go down to South Carolina, I think that a huge contingent of the African-American community is going to say, "Hey, wait a second. I've been told for years that Bill Clinton is the first black president. I have been told for years that these people are going to be the ones who are going to have my best interests in mind. Things haven't changed that much for me. Why don't I go out and elect another African-American?" I think they're going to run up against that now.
O'REILLY: I agree with you. I mean, everybody is telling me that it's going to be split. Juan Williams said that earlier in the program. I agree with you. With 30 percent of the Democratic voters in South Carolina being African-American, I think Obama is going to really do well in those precincts.
Now, your guy Rudy Giuliani, he has staked his whole campaign — and it's debatable whether this is smart; some people think it is; some people think it isn't — he says, "Look, I'm not going to get bogged down in Iowa or New Hampshire. They're small. They don't have a lot of delegates. I don't do well in the conservative precincts anyway. I'm not even going to contest South Carolina or Michigan. I'm going to go down and make a stand in Florida and then rally Super Tuesday in the big California, New York, New Jersey states." Do you think that's smart?
MILLER: Well, you know, when I was a kid, I used to watch Westerns. And when the guy would say, "Hold" — Laurence Harvey in "The Alamo" — "Hold, hold, hold," and the Mexicans were getting right up there, and I used to always think, you've got to start shooting. You've got to — so I'm not a good guy on this.
It feels to me like Rudy is waiting a little too long. But you know what? If these guys all cancel each other out, if this goes Huckabee over to McCain over to Mitt Romney, back to Huckabee, and it gets to Florida where nobody has won three of them, I think Rudy might be playing to an inside straight here. And I watch enough of this World Series of Poker to see that sometimes you do hit the roll card.
O'REILLY: Well, that's what his strategy is. And he, as I said, is meeting every Floridian. He's coming in the back door. If you live in Florida, Rudy will be on your porch, because he's spending all his time there and all his money there.
Now, I want to get onto this other thing because this is interesting to me. In the summer you and I discussed this Britney Spears. Not from the exploitative "she's an idiot, she's a loon" perspective, but from the perspective that this woman could wind up dead like Marilyn Monroe.
And you were very passionate about, look, somebody has got to help this woman. She's in trouble, and if you don't help her, she's going to wind up in the ground. So who rides in to help her, but Dr. Phil, OK? And then he comes out, and he gives a press conference. And now the Spears family is furious. Roll the tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPEARS FAMILY SPOKESPERSON: What's wrong with Dr. Phil's statement is that he made a statement. The family basically extended an invitation of trust for him to come in as a resource to support them, not to go out and make public statements. Any statement publicly that he made, because he was brought in under this cloak of trust, are just inappropriate.
Here you have Britney that needs to have some security somewhere, that every single thing she does and every single person she has a relationship with doesn't become an opportunity to be exploited.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: Wow, that's pretty strong stuff. Now, McGraw, Dr. Phil, has canceled his program that he was going to do on it, but that is a devastating attack against Dr. Phil. What do you think?
MILLER: Well, I think Dr. Phil has moved into that dangerous ether where he's now an ambulance chaser who's rich enough to afford his own driver. I think he's got to watch himself here.
If he wants to come into this young girl's life and act as a therapist, you know, Dr. Phil, you can do certain things off the camera, and it would help your street cred in the long way. If I find out a year hence from now that Dr. Phil had gone in and tried to help Britney Spears and nobody ever said anything about it, I might find him an empathetic human being.
But I believe the first adherence of the Hippocratic Oath is first do no harm. He seems to have added the caveat "except during sweeps week." And something — if he went to her hospital room, that is, in the very least, bad form. And if he won't concede that that's bad form, then he's in denial and he should see Dr. Phil.
O'REILLY: I think the family OK'd it. Look, I have no problem with him contacting the family or vice versa and then him going to the hospital room with the family's permission. But there's no question that he tried to get attention drawn. Now he'll say, and he's invited on this program, by the way, if he wants to reply, he said, "I did that to help the other people who are in the same position" or whatever. But it looks like, as you pointed out, this was a stunt, a sweeps week stunt to get him television ratings.
I'll give you the last word on it.
MILLER: Phil, you're rich enough. If you want to play therapist for real, go do it and do it silently. That's the code. You don't talk about it. This girl does need your help probably. You seem like a smart man. You seem like an amiable bloke. Don't let us know about it. Just go do God's work.
O'REILLY: All right. Dennis Miller, everybody. We're glad you are back from the slopes unscathed. And we'll see you next Wednesday.
MILLER: Missed you, Billy.
O'REILLY: Thank you.
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