We had the mistress story last spring, but chose not to air it because of the pain it would bring to Elizabeth Edwards, a brave woman, and her thee children. Also, Edwards was out of politics by then. If he had held power, it would have been a different story.
What we did do was expose Edwards as a dishonest politician, a man who tried to exploit American military people to prop up his preposterous theory that the United States economy punishes the poor.
Edwards ran around telling everybody that 200,000 vets were homeless because the economy was corrupt. Nonsense. The truth is the vast majority of American homeless, including vets, are either addicted or mentally ill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH CALIFANO, AUTHOR, "HIGH SOCIETY": Our work and most of the research will show that about 90 percent of the homeless in this country have drug problems or alcohol problems or both. The real tragedy here is most of those veterans have had combat experience that are suffering from drug and alcohol problems and mental health problems, and we are not taking care of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
And that is the true story. It has nothing to do with the economy. For calling Edwards on his exploitation, we were subject to stuff like this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN: Tell me a little bit about your feud with Bill O'Reilly. Now this is a tough guy. He's been on the show a couple of times, and he's a tough guy. Tell me what's going on there? What's at the core of the feud?
JOHN EDWARDS: Well, the core of the feud is I've been talking about homeless veterans and the fact that we have a couple hundred thousand homeless veterans who have no place to sleep at night.
LETTERMAN: It's embarrassing.
EDWARDS: It's incredibly embarrassing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
What bull. Just so you know, about 10 days ago, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a report saying there are 125,000 chronically homeless in America right now. 10,000 homeless veterans. 10,000. So Edwards was simply lying.
In addition, we examined how Edwards himself fit into his "two America" scenario. We showed you his over-the-top $6 million house in North Carolina, located across the street from a mobile home park where everyday folks live. We sent our crews down to talk to some of those folks about Edwards, who often jogs by.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody here is just normal income people. You know, we just day to day, and I don't think he knows anything about us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know if he knows how to help poor people or lower-class people. He doesn't know them. He doesn't — you've got to know something about something before you can help the problem. He doesn't know anything about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
"Factor" producer Porter Berry could not find one — not one — resident who had anything good to say about Edwards. Most consider him a snob.
Then there were the $400 haircuts and his boycott of a presidential debate on FOX News, even though FNC had treated him very well over the years. All in all, "The Factor" painted a very accurate picture of Edwards without harming his family.
There's no question the liberal media loved the message Edwards was putting out there that America is a place that caters to the rich and hammers the poor. That's why the committed left press ignored the National Enquirer investigation that proved to be true.
The question now is who paid to hide the story? Millions of dollars exchanged hands. That money must be accounted for. "The Factor" will find out what happened there.
But we do not relish any of this. It is a hallmark of the vicious far left and far right to revel in the pain of others. We do not do that.
We knew Edwards was a bad guy from the jump and chose to challenge him on the issues. I think we were right to handle it that way. As always, I could be wrong.
And that's "The Memo."
Pinheads & Patriots
You may have heard that French swimmer Alain Bernard said his team would smash the Americans. Well, that did not happen.
In the 400-meter freestyle relay, the American team beat the French, but just by a fingernail. However, a win is a win.
Sorry, Alain, you came in second. The American swimmers are patriots.
On the pinhead front, the Spanish Olympic basketball team posed for a picture before arriving in Beijing. Here it is, the Spaniards making fun of Chinese eyes.
This is not good, not in the spirit of international cooperation. So we have no choice but to make the Spanish basketball team pinheads.
Pinhead in Spanish is cabeza de alfiler. Pinhead, espanol.
— You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" and "Pinheads & Patriots" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the FOX News Channel and any time on foxnews.com/oreilly. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com
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