This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," March 20, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: "Factor Follow-Up" segment tonight. As you may know, "The Factor" is adamantly opposed to the hate Web sites like the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos where the defamation and libel is spewed on a daily basis. In fact, the Hillary Clinton people are now boycotting them because of all the hate.
Arianna Huffington is a former Republican turned far left Web site. Her a Web site posts things like Nancy Reagan and Tony Snow should die. Unbelievable garbage. So far Ms. Huffington has largely received a pass on this. That is until "Factor" producer Porter Berry caught up with her.
• Video: Watch 'The Factor' confrontation
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PORTER BERRY, FOX NEWS: Ms. Huffington, how are you? I'm Porter Berry from "The O'Reilly Factor." I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the Web site. Some of the stuff you have on the Web site, some hate speech. One person commented talking about Tony Snow. They said quote, "His cancer will return and he will die a very painful death." Excuse me, one of your bloggers on the Huffington Post said, what comes around, goes around. Do you want to comment on that? One of them said, I am sick to death of this jackass, talking about Tony Snow.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, HUFFINGTONPOST.COM: You know what? I think you need to learn something about the Internet. The comments that appear there are taken down immediately.
PORTER BERRY, FOX NEWS: This was posted on the middle of February and was up yesterday. Here is what someone said about Nancy Reagan, "Like her evil husband, she has lived for far too long, here is hoping the hag suffers for several weeks and croaks in the tub." Ms. why you allow this kind of hate speech?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: There you go.
Joining us now from Washington Amanda Carpenter, national political report for townhall.com. Huffington put a blog today that said, quote, "I find it laughable to be lectured on hate speech by Bill O'Reilly who has done as much if not more than anyone in the media to debase the public dialogue. He spews hate as readily as he breathes. It is his life blood."
Arianna Huffington. Despicable woman, would you agree?
AMANDA CARPENTER, TOWNHALL.COM: She certainly is making some money off this kind hate speech right now. I am not surprised to see she would not take it down as readily as she might expected her to.
O'REILLY: How much money is she making?
CARPENTER: Right now "Fortune" magazine reported last November that this year in 2008, she is expected to make between $4 million and.$7.5 million through the rest of this year.
O'REILLY: That is gross on the Web site?
CARPENTER: It doesn't go directly with her. She is backed by a couple of venture capitalist firms. I have ready she has gotten up to $11 million in venture capital backing so she gets a percentage, and I am guessing is a good amount since her name is on the masthead.
O'REILLY: Can we unmask the money behind it, Amanda? Is it possible to know who is funding this hate site? Can we find that out?
CARPENTER: Most of the money they generate now is coming from ad sales. If you click a Web site, you see certain advertisements at the top of the masthead or on the side of it. The community she has is very attractive to advertisers because they know exactly what type of people that are going to be reading that site.
O'REILLY: OK, who is advertising? Who have you seen?
CARPENTER: I saw an advertisement for a Lexus hybrid.
O'REILLY: Lexus hybrid.
CARPENTER: I also saw a shoe advertisement, a shoe that's called a croc which I kind of consider the modern-day Birkenstock.
O'REILLY: You sure that wasn't a critique of the Web site? The Croc? It's a shoe.
CARPENTER: It was for the shoe.
O'REILLY: Is that all? Just Lexus hybrid and the Croc shoe?
CARPENTER: They actually have an impressive ad package. What they use is a combination of Google ads, blog ads, they have an in-house advertising team that may seek out certain advertising to place next to a certain kind of post. Like last week, Barack Obama chose the site to publish an exclusive response to the Reverend Wright situation. It is possible they may have placed an ad next to it because the advertiser may have known it would be high traffic and would want to target someone who might be sympathetic to Obama.
O'REILLY: You work for townhall.com, another Web site, correct. If someone on townhall said, I want Nancy Reagan to die, but I want her to suffer, I want Tony Snow's cancer to come back so he dies, what would your Web site do?
CARPENTER: It would be flagged as abusive. We have certain kind of flags in the comment sentence. As does Arianna Huffington's Web site and I am sure it would be taken down immediately.
O'REILLY: But it is not on Arianna Huffington's Web site as Porter Berry said, this stuff is still there. She says it is down, but it is not. She does not tell the truth.
CARPENTER: It actually would not be in her interest to have an aggressive moderation policy. But it is the very far left wing.
O'REILLY: That's what she's selling. So all and all, she is making money off of it. After her divorce, she got a lot of money from her ex- husband. She does not really need money.
CARPENTER: The oil baron husband.
O'REILLY: Arianna Huffington, you can make up your mind about her. Amanda, thanks very much, we appreciate it.
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