Hurt Feelings in San Francisco

Hurt feelings in San Francisco, that is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo".

As you may know, voters in San Francisco by a 59-41 margin chose to oppose U.S. military recruiting in public schools there, including colleges. The vote is flat-out disrespectful, in my opinion, to the American military which is doing a magnificent job protecting us from terrorists and fighting to bring people to people in Iraq.

Now you may not agree with the Iraq War, but disrespecting the military is disgraceful. So on "The Radio Factor", I called San Franciscans on their vote.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

I hate to be picking on you guys in California. I hope you don't take it personally. One lady did yesterday. It isn't about you, the individual Californian. It's about how crazy your state is.

In San Francisco, they're voting on two initiatives. One would ban military recruiting. Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money.

You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right in to Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

And then I went on to do a satirical riff with a serious point. Why should the USA protect San Francisco from terrorists if they, in the city, are trying to undermine the military? We posted the entire monologue on billoreilly.com.

Predictably, some far left Internet smear sites have launched a campaign to get me fired over my point of view. I believe they do this on a daily basis.

This time, the theme is O'Reilly is encouraging terrorist attacks. Unbelievably stupid, but not unusual with these guttersnipes.

The San Francisco Chronicle picked up the story, but the reporter Joe Garifoli, realizing the absurdity of it, wrote a tongue in cheek article. Included in the article are foolish statements from Mayor Gavin Newsom and some other city officials.

Newsom's afraid to appear on this broadcast, but I have only one question for him: Hey, Mayor, are you proud of that anti-military vote? Are you? If so, why? Do you think there's one reporter in the city of San Francisco that would ask Mayor Newsom that simple question, just one? It hasn't been done so far. If somebody asks it, I'll put it on the air.

Finally, what did the citizens of San Francisco think was going to happen after they voted to oppose military recruitment? We're in the middle of a War on Terror and these loopy voters did something like this? And I'm not supposed to call them on it? Come on. Can you imagine this happening during World War II?

So I'm glad the smear sites made a big deal out of it because now we can all know who was with the anti-military Internet crowd. We'll post the names of all who support the smear merchants on billoreilly.com. So check with us.

Bottom line, these San Franciscans who voted to deny military recruiters access are working against their own country, period.

And that's "The Memo."

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Once again, The New York Times has run a positive article about the far left Air America radio network. That makes 24 stories on the operation since February 2003, 24.

My question is, why doesn't the Times just buy this network? The company apparently loves what they do, so just purchase it. Air America will be overjoyed, since it's having trouble paying its bills, meeting its payroll. A guy named Rob Lasser (ph) apparently paid the network's October bills.

Anyway, the New York Times in support of any commercial enterprise to this extent is ridiculous. Just buy it already.

—You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" and "Most Ridiculous Item" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the FOX News Channel. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com