Updated

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," January 17, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Weekdays With Bernie" segment tonight, let's bring in the purveyor of BernardGoldberg.com, who joins us now from Miami.

Now, Bernie, earlier in the broadcast we played a sound-bite from Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen calling Sarah Palin stupid. Another Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank, also went on TV and said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA MILBANK, COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: I think it's irresponsible and I think it's a bit of a straw man that people are claiming that Beck and Palin are being blamed. Mostly people are saying they're not being blamed for this particular incident. They are being blamed, as well as some on the left should be blamed, for inciting people generally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: Now, that confused me a little, Bernie, because Milbank himself has been very vicious over the years, has he not?

BERNIE GOLDBERG, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Let me try to un-confuse you, and for the 99.9 percent of the American people who don't know what Dana Milbank is. Dana Milbank lecturing us on civility is about the same as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lecturing us on human rights. That's No. 1.

No. 2, he's just plain wrong. He's just plain wrong. They did blame Sarah Palin for the shooting and they blamed her very directly. The New York Daily News, an iconic newspaper in America's biggest city, had a headline that said Congresswoman Jeffords -- Giffords' blood is on Sarah Palin's hands. I mean, that's pretty direct. Markos Moulitsas, the head of the Daily Kos, a very important person, probably the most important left-wing website out there and a group that President Obama paid homage to during the campaign, within hours of the shooting he put out a message that said, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin."

So Dana Milbank is wrong; they did blame her. But the way Dana Milbank and other liberal columnists do it, they say, "Well, they're not directly responsible because the guy is crazy who did it, but they're responsible for creating a climate of hate that, generally speaking, can lead to this kind of violence."

O'REILLY: But what I don't understand is what is Milbank and Cohen doing? I mean, I've been in the business a long time. So have you. Column after column after column after column all they do is attack the right wing. It's all they do. It's all they have. You take that away from them, what do they have? What are they going to do?

GOLDBERG: They don't have much. But here's -- here's the thing. They are not really talking about civility. If their goal was civility, then they would lash out at their fellow liberals who spew hate for a living. This is very important, Bill. Their real goal is to stifle the kind of opinions they detest by people like you, Beck, Palin and Limbaugh because you have big audiences. They have lost power, these people, the left. They fear that because you have influenced the national conversation and because you guys have influenced elections, they don't know when they're going to get power back. And they're doing what anybody does when they lose power. They're trying to shut down those kinds of opinions. They're trying to poison the well. They're trying to poison the well so that people don't take any of you seriously.

O'REILLY: Marginalized.

GOLDBERG: They fear your audience.

O'REILLY: Right.

GOLDBERG: They fear your large audience.

O'REILLY: I think you're right. But I mean, to masquerade, you know -- The Washington Post, as we said with Brit Hume, you know, is different than talk radio. It's different than Bill Maher. It's a newspaper that puts itself up as an important media organization, and these guys are running around.

Now, you have a beef with me. Bernie and I were talking in the break before we came on here because I made the analogy in the NPR segment that there were some people who, in column form, said, if it had been a Tea Party person they would have gone crazy and they were hoping that it was a Tea Party person. And I guess you were one of them. I didn't know that when I made that comment but go ahead.

GOLDBERG: That's because you never listen to me. I said -- I said that on this program last week.

O'REILLY: Bernie, you say so much. It's just hard. I'm old. I can only retain so much. Go ahead.

GOLDBERG: I know, I know. I'll try to talk slow here. Here's the point I made, and I think that you're wrong and I'm right. But that's -- that wouldn't be unusual either. I'm saying that Paul Krugman -- well, let's use Bill Maher for openers. Bill Maher, who's never had a good word to say about Tea Party people. Do you really think -- I mean, nobody wanted the shooting to happen. I want to make that clear. Nobody on the left, nobody on the right. But do you really think he wasn't crossing his fingers hoping, just hoping it was a Tea Party person?

O'REILLY: It's possible. But my point was why bother with that kind of speculation?

GOLDBERG: Because it's not just wild speculation, Bill.

O'REILLY: But then Hernandez, Daisy Hernandez could say the same thing.

GOLDBERG: I'm coming to a reasonable conclusion.

O'REILLY: Then she can make the same thing. I'm injecting race because it's not wild speculation. If it had been a Latino, everybody would be screaming about tighter border control. See, I'm saying that I think we've got enough to deal with dealing with the facts. We don't really have to do this other stuff.

GOLDBERG: Well, all I'm saying is that I didn't pull this out of...

O'REILLY: No, it's not illogical. What you're saying is not...

GOLDBERG: It's not illogical.

O'REILLY: ...unnecessary.

GOLDBERG: Well, in your view it is.

O'REILLY: Yes.

GOLDBERG: And since this is "The Factor" with Bill O'Reilly, I guess that matters. But I don't think it's -- I don't think it's unnecessary at all. I think…

O'REILLY: But then you have to stick up for Daisy Hernandez's NPR column, too.

GOLDBERG: Listen, you don't think Daisy Hernandez was crossing her fingers also hoping it was a Tea Party person?

O'REILLY: I don't know Daisy.

GOLDBERG: It's so obvious.

O'REILLY: But I don't like speculation. You know...

GOLDBERG: People at home right now are saying, "Bill, listen to Bernie. Please listen to Bernie. He's right."

O'REILLY: I can hear them. I can hear them. Where are they? Get rid of them! Get out of here. "Listen to Bernie." I'm going to have a bumper sticker made up: "Listen to Bernie. Ignore O'Reilly."

GOLDBERG: You should have.

O'REILLY: All right, Bernie. Good discussion, as always. Thank you.

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