Far Left Now Branding Tea Party as Crazy

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," September 23, 2010. 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: a change in the Tea Party attacks. As you may know, the Tea Party was racist for about six months as the far left tried to demonize the movement. But now, things have changed. The Tea Party is simply crazy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, NBC NEWS: Do you think it would be smarter to say that the Tea Party people were somewhat deranged?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Harry Reid's opponent sounds like a mental patient.

MATTHEWS: You can't defend your screwball wing, can you?

CYNTHIA TUCKER, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: Some of the Tea Party candidates are so extreme.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: O'Donnell's comments are raising eyebrows and some concerns from the GOP establishment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 2: The queen of the wing. It's crackpot of the first order.

JOY BEHAR, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": I think it shows you how crazy the girl is, doesn't it?

ELISABETH HASSELBECK, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": Why?

BEHAR: How many crazy people do we have to have in office?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: All right. Joining us now to react and also to critique my interview last night with Jon Stewart, Fox News analyst Laura Ingraham, author of the big best-seller, "The Obama Diaries."

OK, so I guess they're not racist anymore. The Tea Party folks, they're now crazy or maybe they're crazy racists. What do you think?

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Bill, they also don't like baby seals, OK?

O'REILLY: Baby seals.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Baby seals are really bad, OK? It's a bad situation. Here's what I say to all the liberals and other cable channels that nobody watches. What's crazier: stating that you think the government is too big and needs to be dismantled, maybe a little too enthusiastically with a baseball bat, is that crazy? Or is it crazy to say that the stimulus actually created the millions of jobs that we were promised it was going to create? Or is it crazy to say that, "Hmm, cap-and-trade is going to help our economy or that Obamacare is going to bring down our insurance rates?

You see, because, Bill, for most people, what the establishment mostly on the left have promised, that stuff seems crazy to most people who are more in line with a lot of the Tea Party views than frankly, you know, they're in line with the establishment left-wingers. So, it is…

O'REILLY: OK. Well, here's what I don't get.

INGRAHAM: The critique doesn't work.

O'REILLY: After a year of the Tea Party being prominent in the political discussion, it's there. It's there. It's not going to go away.

INGRAHAM: Right.

O'REILLY: It's established itself as a force in the upcoming election. So what good does it do for all of these politicians and pundits to go on national television and insult all of these people? First, they're racist. Now, they're crazy.

INGRAHAM: Right.

O'REILLY: What good does that do? I'm not -- I'm not getting it.

INGRAHAM: I think it's, you know, spinning the plate on the -- on the stick. It's like, look at this, look at this. In that way, you don't really have to defend your own record. You don't really have to get engaged in the substantive argument about whether cap-and-trade is actually going to cripple American business globally or is it going to be some engine of economic growth in our country. So, these guys are crazy. You can't follow the crazy people. You've got to follow us. You know, we're pulling ourselves out of the ditch slowly but surely. I don't think it's going to work but as you and I talked about before, Bill, what else are they going to run on, the economy?

O'REILLY: Well, that's what Morris says, they have no message and -- you know?

INGRAHAM: Yes.

O'REILLY: Look, if you take ideology out of it and just be practical. I'll tell you that I know small business and this came out today as report today. Small business basically says, "Look, we're not going to hire anybody, because we can't pay the higher insurance rate"…

INGRAHAM: Can't do it.

O'REILLY: …for the next four years. We can't pay the premiums, so we're not going to hire anybody." So, you're sitting around, you're going, this isn't ideological.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: And Bill, what I see…

O'REILLY: It's basically business.

INGRAHAM: No, you're right.

O'REILLY: It's business…

INGRAHAM: You're right.

O'REILLY: …not personal, sonny.

INGRAHAM: I agree 100 percent. And, Bill, when you see Barack Obama hopping over backyard fences and basically inserting himself into backyard barbecues and…

O'REILLY: Come on.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: I mean, this is -- come on. This is what the president…

O'REILLY: Hopping over backyard fence.

INGRAHAM: Build the fence…

O'REILLY: Come on.

INGRAHAM: Build the fence higher. Now, I mean, it looks ridiculous. I mean, you're still arguing for Obamacare. It's like, "Excuse me, what do you have on the hibachi today?" I mean the whole thing is looking ridiculous.

O'REILLY: All right.

INGRAHAM: I'm sorry.

O'REILLY: I don't mind -- I don't mind the president going to the backyard barbecues. I wish he'd just come to mine.

INGRAHAM: Yes, exactly. Come on.

O'REILLY: Right? I have lots of good food in the fridge.

INGRAHAM: Yes. I'm sure, I'm sure.

O'REILLY: And I'm ready to share.

INGRAHAM: He doesn't like the "Pinheads and Patriots" photo, Bill. He doesn't like that.

O'REILLY: Why not? It's a great -- it's a very flattering photo.

INGRAHAM: No. He looks very gray in that photo. It's not a positive portrait.

O'REILLY: All right. Now, me -- talking about positive portraits -- Stewart and O'Reilly last night. Did you get anything out of that interview?

INGRAHAM: I did. You know what I felt after that? I was a bit saddened because Jon Stewart looked like the sad clown last night. You know, in the circus there's a happy clown and then there's a clown with a straight face and there's the sad clown. He just kind of seem sad. I mean he said, you know, Barack Obama governed as a visionary and he's like and now he's just a functionary. And he didn't even seem like he -- he didn't even get in the shots at you that I thought he'd get. He just seems demoralized and deflated. And then, O'Reilly, you have to hold up that book that weighs about 40 pounds of his.

O'REILLY: Yes.

INGRAHAM: That 12 people wrote. You went to hold that up and you just gratuitously flipped through that thing. Clearly, hadn't read it before the interview.

O'REILLY: I looked at it. It's not the kind of book that you read.

INGRAHAM: It was a sad clown moment.

O'REILLY: It's more of a picture book. There was like charts in there, graphs and…

INGRAHAM: And you brought up the "Planet of the Apes" thing. I mean, you're hitting him when he's down and I just felt…

O'REILLY: I'm not hitting him when he's down.

INGRAHAM: Sad clown.

O'REILLY: I thought he gave as good as he got.

INGRAHAM: Sad clown.

O'REILLY: I mean -- look -- look, you made the clown analogy. We're not calling Stewart a clown. I think Stewart is…

INGRAHAM: No. No. He's…

O'REILLY: I think Stewart is smarter than…

INGRAHAM: No. I mean, he's a comedian but sad.

O'REILLY: And, this is basic truth. I think Stewart is the smartest guy in the entertainment current affairs business.

INGRAHAM: I agree with you.

O'REILLY: He's smarter than all of the others and he's an honest guy. You're right. He's a liberal guy and he's disappointed with his vote.

INGRAHAM: Bill -- no. No. I just meant he's a comedian but he seems sad, because he was disappointed.

O'REILLY: You would be sad, too. Look, you were sad -- I remember interviewing you on this program when Iraq went south. You were sad because Bush was getting pounded. You were over in Iraq yourself.

INGRAHAM: Yes.

O'REILLY: You knew things were rough for the guys and gals over there. You were sad. It's the same thing with Stewart now.

INGRAHAM: Yes, Bill, but I'm not a comedian. Here's what I think that you really did bring out last night that was great is that Stewart is a smart guy and he knows when somebody lights up an audience, right? When somebody can light it up, he knows it. That's why he came on your show. That's why he has this derivative reality, that's derivative to Glenn Beck.

But he knows that Barack Obama is in an auditorium now and the oxygen has been totally sucked out of it. That's what he knows. He knows entertainment. He knows show business, and he knows audience energy. And he feels it, that Barack Obama has lost it. I think that came through last night. I thought you brought that out.

O'REILLY: All right. Laura, thanks as always. We appreciate it.

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