This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," March 9, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Now for the top story tonight. FOX News analyst Bernie Goldberg is well acquainted with the far-left smear machine. He's been a target. So we asked him to name the five worst offenders in the mainstream media. Bernie's new book, "A Slobbering Love Affair," remains a big best-seller. And he joins us now from Miami.
Man, this is the greatest assignment you could ever get, all right? Payback unlimited. Now Bernie, in descending order, one is the worst, but we'll start with five. Who's that?
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BERNIE GOLDBERG, AUTHOR, "A SLOBBERING LOVE AFFAIR": Right. Well, I picked groups from different parts of our culture. So No. 5 is the Hollywood glitzocracy or ditzocracy, which includes all the brilliant political scientists in Hollywood.
But the one I like — the best representative of the whole group is Janeane Garofalo. Janeane Garofalo is — she's a good actress actually, but she hates conservatives. She thinks people who become conservatives have a human weakness, a frailty, to use her word. And when George Bush was in the White House, she said the Republican Party, their message and their politics of exclusion and the tilted playing field appeals to the dumb and the mean. There is no shortage of dumb and mean people in the culture. So therefore, the dumb and the mean find a nice home in the GOP. So she's No. 5 on the list.
O'REILLY: OK, but she has absolutely no influence at all. She failed at Air America.
GOLDBERG: She's representative of the bigger group…
O'REILLY: No, she is.
GOLDBERG: ...of the Hollywood elite.
O'REILLY: That's a good point. When you put them all together, the cacophony of nonsense, I love that, the cacophony of nonsense…
GOLDBERG: Right.
O'REILLY: ...does get the younger people, which is why a guy like Rush Limbaugh, perhaps me, under 25 don't like us because they don't watch the show. And they hear from these Hollywood nitwits. All right, No. 4.
GOLDBERG: Exactly. No. 4 is Bill Moyers because he represents the most elite wing of the most liberal elite media. Bill Moyers is a true believer who these days is posing as a journalist. He's very civil and high brow to an extent, but also despises conservatives.
During the Bush administration, he said that the right-wing wrecking crews in government, right-wing wrecking crews were deliberately, intentionally, trying to destroy the United States of America. Really, Bill? I mean, right-wing wrecking crews and the government are deliberately trying to destroy America? And he's on PBS.
O'REILLY: OK, but don't you think he destroyed what was left of his career with that interview with Reverend Wright? Remember that interview with Reverend Wright where they did the hokey pokey?
GOLDBERG: Yeah, but not for people who believe in him.
O'REILLY: No, even people, even the Kool-Aid drinkers, the few that watch Moyers — ratings are abysmal — even they were offended by the waste of time of that interview. They'd have to be.
GOLDBERG: I want to make clear that the people I'm picking are not the — I mean, I put George Soros on the list if I were just picking…
O'REILLY: Power.
GOLDBERG: ...you know, people with the most money and the most power.
O'REILLY: Right.
GOLDBERG: I'm trying to pick different groups in the culture.
O'REILLY: OK, and as you pointed out, he is the face…
GOLDBERG: After you hear my brilliant selection…
O'REILLY: Yeah, he is the face of PBS unfortunately. All right, No. 3?
GOLDBERG: Right. No. 3 is the Daily Kos, and they are very significant in this current media world in which we live. They have one of, if not the biggest, left-wing political Web sites. They are rabidly anti-conservative. Yet, its founder Markos Moulitsas has so much clout that not only does he get on the most mainstream of shows, "Meet the Press," to talk politics, but the Democrats who are running for president of the United States went there and made speeches to the Daily Kos convention.
O'REILLY: Right, well, we made a big deal out of that.
GOLDBERG: That's how afraid they are…
O'REILLY: Right.
GOLDBERG: ...of offending the Daily Kos.
O'REILLY: And it's about as hateful as you can possibly — you can't get a more hateful Web site than them.
GOLDBERG: Yeah, they started this rumor that Sarah Palin's child with Down syndrome may not have been her child but the daughter's.
O'REILLY: Right.
GOLDBERG: It's just terrible, terrible stuff.
O'REILLY: Right. All right, No. 2?
GOLDBERG: No. 2, The New York Times. There is no news organization that is more influential with the so-called mainstream media. If The New York Times went on strike tomorrow morning, the CBS Evening News wouldn't know what to put on the air tomorrow night. Everybody takes their cues from The New York Times. And under the leadership of its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and its executive editor, Bill Keller, this once great newspaper, liberal, great newspaper has just descended pretty far down the list. And…
O'REILLY: Do you think they're going to go out of business this year?
GOLDBERG: One can only hope. But the problem that I have with The New York Times is that they've adopted a view of conservatives that is prevalent on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and that is that conservatives aren't simply wrong, conservatives are morally inferior. So that if they disagree with you on, let's say immigration, Bill, you become a racist.
O'REILLY: That's right. I mean…
GOLDBERG: That's what…
O'REILLY: …they've used that tactic for years. But I think that's why they're going out of business, Bernie. And I think there's a good chance they will go bankrupt this year. OK, here it is, drum roll, please. The worst mainstream media smear machine in the United States is?
GOLDBERG: It's not because of their influence, not because of their size, because this group has no influence and very little size, is MSNBC. I have them on the list at No. 1 because they are a division of a major news organization, NBC News. And the villains are not even people on the air. They're executives who most Americans don't even know their names, but they have made a business decision to allow, and I'm going to use this word very carefully, to allow defamation of conservatives with whom they have a beef. So this qualifies them, in my book, as journalistic hookers. But I say this, Bill, with apologies to the other hookers out there, who only sell their bodies. These people have sold their journalistic souls.
O'REILLY: And they have.
GOLDBERG: That's my list.
O'REILLY: All right, Bernie.
GOLDBERG: And I'm sticking with it.
O'REILLY: I cannot argue with the list at all. I appreciate you coming on in.
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