This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," March 12, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight: Reports out of Alaska say 18-year-old Bristol Palin will not marry the father of her child. Apparently the couple has parted ways.
Now you may remember, Bristol became pregnant during the presidential campaign, and she and her mother were subject to brutal attacks by the far left. Well, nothing's changed. Led by the incredibly vicious MSNBC network and the off-the-chart hateful Web sites, garbage is flying:
• "Bristol and her beau have apparently called off their engagement, making the product of their special night of conservative 'value swapping' in the back of a Chevy — son Tripp — one helluva elephant in the GOP's cathedral of morality."
• "Reminds me again why I hate the hell out of Sarah Palin."
• "Hilarious. An unmarried teenage mom with a kid (possibly two) whose mom wants to be prez."
• "Let grandma raise the baby. She's sooo good at child-rearing."
And on and on and on. Joining us from Washington, FOX News anchor Greta Van Susteren, host of "On the Record," who knows the Palin family well.
You know, these are disturbed individuals. They're egged on by, you know, the people at MSNBC and Air America on the radio. But there's no excuse for this, is there?
Click here to watch the segment!
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST, "ON THE RECORD": Well, you know, you say that I, just as an aside, that I know them very well. The only way that I've met them is by interviewing them. So, you know, I don't socialize or spend a lot of time with them. But I do have a little bit of a sense having interviewed them multiple times.
I'll tell you what's even more stunning, I mean, we sort of expect that kind of behavior on the Internet where people type and run like cowards. I mean, that's, you know, sort of the status quo these days. But I'll tell you what's more disturbing is I've had people in the news business come up to me as though they think I'm so close to the Palin family and sort of gushing with glee that this has happened to this poor kid, you know, as though they don't have children, as though this is so particularly unique.
O'REILLY: Let me ask you about that.
VAN SUSTEREN: I'm more scandalized by them.
O'REILLY: I guess you don't want to mention their names, right?
VAN SUSTEREN: No. But I mean, they live with themselves. They live with themselves. I'm just — I am appalled because this is an 18-year-old kid.
O'REILLY: OK, wait, wait, wait, wait. OK. Let's walk through it though because you are raising a very interesting point. You know professional journalists who are happy that Bristol Palin is being humiliated once again and her mother and father are being held up to a spotlight negatively once again. They are happy about it. Do you ask them, Greta, why are you delighting in the misery of others? Why are you doing that? Do you ask them that?
VAN SUSTEREN: No, Bill, because I think it's so pathetic. And I mean, I'm sort of a little bit amused as it relates to me sort of gush up to me like they think it's funny or, you know, they laugh at her.
O'REILLY: Nobody would dare do that to me. I mean, you're much nicer than I am. But nobody would dare — because I would ask them that very question. Why are you reveling in the suffering of another person who you don't know, OK?
VAN SUSTEREN: I guess you care more about these people than I do who do that. I mean, I'm frankly very dismissive.
O'REILLY: I don't care about them, but I would hold them to account.
VAN SUSTEREN: I'm totally dismissive of them. You know what? I check them off.
O'REILLY: OK.
VAN SUSTEREN: I just check them off, gone. You know, I just treat it differently.
But you know, if you think about it, this is an 18-year-old who, when she did an interview with us, and I — the only time I've ever spent with her is what you saw on camera. There wasn't any even off-camera, I think, even a few minutes. And what she was trying to do is she was trying to get a message out there that she loves her baby, that it's very difficult, that she wished she'd waited until she was a little older, hoping to send a message out there that was one that would be instructive to other people. Instead you've got 45-, 55-, 65-, 35-year-old people, especially in journalism, who are just salivating at someone's misfortune. And that is what is so extraordinary to me.
O'REILLY: All right. But here's the crux of the matter that everybody in America needs to understand tonight. John Edwards got in a lot of trouble. I didn't cover it.
VAN SUSTEREN: He's a little older. He's a little older. He also had a wife and kids, but anyway.
O'REILLY: Listen to me. Listen to me. This is important. John Edwards got in a lot of trouble, OK? Not here. We mentioned it. We didn't dwell on it, because we knew that Mrs. Edwards was suffering greatly.
VAN SUSTEREN: Bill...
O'REILLY: We don't have any use for John Edwards, but we — wait, wait, wait, wait. So we didn't do it, OK? I didn't get a lot of conservative hate mail. I didn't get a lot of right-wing "O'Reilly, you should have gone after him." I didn't get that. I didn't get it, OK? And this network, this network didn't go after John Edwards, FOX News. We reported it, and then we covered other things, out of compassion for a woman who with cancer…
VAN SUSTEREN: Let me talk about that for a minute.
O'REILLY: But the left, the left — hold it. The left does exactly the opposite every single time. Now, I'm going to tell you right now. There are right-wing kooks. I know it. But the far left in this country — and you can see it on display every night on MSNBC — is vicious, has no class whatsoever, will do anything to harm people with whom they disagree, Greta. That is the truth. Go ahead.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Let me separate a couple things. First of all, John Edwards was a politician. He's not just a remote family member.
O'REILLY: Sarah Palin is a politician.
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, you're talking about Sarah Palin. I'm talking about — I'm talking about Bristol.
O'REILLY: They're going after Bristol to get Sarah.
VAN SUSTEREN: I'm not talking about — OK, all right. That's the first thing.
The second thing is, is the whole sort of — the aspect with John Edwards is that, you know, he was a profound disappointment to many people. And he was raising very important points about the fact that there are people who are, you know, living in poverty. And he was basically taking the moral high ground out there about his own behavior. And his own behavior was of, now has turned out to be deplorable and even using an excuse, which was even worse, which was that his wife was in remission.
O'REILLY: But we did not do exploit that situation. We did not do it.
VAN SUSTEREN: I don't know if we even covered it on "On the Record," but I will confess, I certainly read about it. It's not as though I simply put it away and we covered it. I read about it. I read it.
O'REILLY: You're getting my point here. You know what's going on.
VAN SUSTEREN: I get your point. No, look, you know what? I'd be ashamed. I'd be ashamed to be so gleeful about someone else's misfortune like that.
O'REILLY: It's horrible. It's horrible. All right. Check Greta out at 10, "On the Record."
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