This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," October 14, 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: reaction from both the left and the right, beginning with Fox News analyst Laura Ingraham, author of the big best-selling book "The Obama Diaries." Ms. Laura joins us now from Washington.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Hey, Bill, my ears are bleeding. I mean, that was wild.
O'REILLY: Well, it was wild. Nobody expected it, by the way. I didn't expect that to happen.
INGRAHAM: It wasn't a contrived walkout, because it looked a little too convenient to me. Let me tell you.
O'REILLY: No, no, it wasn't. Go ahead.
INGRAHAM: Now, well, Bill, here is what I say. Who gave Joy Behar the badge? Last time I checked, she wasn't an official speech police officer but apparently she has appointed herself as such. I'm a little surprised that Whoopi Goldberg would go down that road, because she said some really sensible things lately when I was on "The View" and I know when you have been on before about taxes and so forth.
But here we are at a point in our country, Bill, where you can't actually say something that is true without getting jumped and without people getting up, saying inane things like repeating themselves over and over again without making an argument, walking off the stage and then demanding an apology essentially from you. I find that to be mind-blowing.
O'REILLY: The distinction -- I'm interested to hear your opinion on this and also Alicia Menendez, a liberal, is coming up behind you. I want her opinion, too.
INGRAHAM: Good.
O'REILLY: The distinction that Ms. Behar and Ms. Goldberg make is that you can't say in this country Muslims attacked us. You have to say…
INGRAHAM: Well they consider themselves Muslims. They consider themselves Muslims.
O'REILLY: Of course they do, and they are justifying their attack by what Allah is telling them to do.
INGRAHAM: It's ridiculous.
O'REILLY: But you can't say – you must say Muslim extremists. I submit to you and everybody watching tonight that after 10 years, we got it. We know the difference between peace-abiding Muslims and people who make war under the banner of Islam. We know that, but wait, here is the question.
INGRAHAM: Yes?
O'REILLY: As I mentioned in the "Talking Points Memo." Did we say in World War II we were attacked by Japanese extremists or German extremists? Did we do that? No.
INGRAHAM: No. Of course we didn't.
O'REILLY: We said we were attacked by Japanese. We were attacked by Muslims. That's who attacked us.
INGRAHAM: Bill, this is an example of where the elites fall off the cliff in the media and the regular folks out there watching going how -- did that just happen, because they are essentially accusing you of using bigoted language.
O'REILLY: I know.
INGRAHAM: I don't think they think you are bigot but…
O'REILLY: I know. It's so crazy.
INGRAHAM: Bill, I did some research here, OK? Joy Behar herself has said the following things about Christians, OK? She called homeschooling parents demented. She has made fun of the Catholic saints as people who needed psychotropic drugs. She has called people who stand for traditional marriage, ridiculed them as Bible-thumpers. With Ann Coulter, she talked and mocked Christian women's sexual habits. She said prayer is anti-intellectual, raising the ire of Elisabeth Hasselbeck, said prayer takes the place of logical thinking. Can you imagine if you had said those things about Muslims what they would have done?
O'REILLY: OK.
INGRAHAM: I can't imagine.
O'REILLY: You know, let's take it…
INGRAHAM: But she is guilty of what she claims you are doing. She is actually truly guilty of that type of anti-Catholic, anti-Christian speak on her show. It's been documented.
O'REILLY: All right, well, you watch the show more than I do, so I don't know that.
INGRAHAM: Well, let me educate you on that. It's anti-Catholic. I don't like it.
O'REILLY: Here's the big political question. I submit in "Pinheads and Patriots" that it's not only the economy that's really hurting the president right now, but it is the gulf that is being created between him and the folks. Not all the folks. Liberal people still love him. But working-class Americans can't understand when you ask a simple question to the chief executive what about the wisdom of building this? And he goes I'm not going to comment on the wisdom. I submit to you that that is part of the Obama perception problem. That's the point I was trying to make here. I wasn't trying to ridicule people in Riyadh and Islamabad.
INGRAHAM: But what they're doing -- I just want to be very clear so people listening can understand what's going on. What they did today was an attempt to intimidate others. They know they are not going to intimidate you. But it's very disturbing to me because people who say that they are for free speech and Barbara Walters usually does a pretty good job of moderating that. I mean, to come back and say that you are the pinhead after they embarrassed themselves walking off their own set. That was embarrassing. They're treating you like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N. and you are a lot taller than Mahmoud, Bill. So I mean, it's ridiculous. This is an attempt to shut down political speech.
O'REILLY: But I didn't take offense at Ms. Walters. I have to say I didn't take offense at Barbara's…
INGRAHAM: Well you should have. You are not a pinhead. Well, sometimes you are a pinhead but not this time.
O'REILLY: She sees it -- sincerely sees it that if you say Muslims attacked America on 9/11 you are somehow denigrating an entire people. I don't see it that way. It's as simple as that. I will give you the last word.
INGRAHAM: Bill -- Bill, here is what is really happening is that I think a lot of the gals on "The View," they're kind of freaking out, right? Because the hope and change thing and Obama and insignia and the star power and all the celebrities and all the Hollywood people who loved him, all of that has resulted in anemic approval numbers and a Republican conservative Tea Party resurgence…
O'REILLY: All right.
INGRAHAM: And they don't know what to do. So they're trying, you know, create these side shows, and I think you did just fine.
O'REILLY: Thank you, Laura. I appreciate that.
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