This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 21, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Thanks for staying with us. I'm Bill O'Reilly.
In the "Factor Follow-up" segment tonight, you may remember that we had journalist Bernard Goldberg on the program a few days ago, and we told him that if he was treated unfairly about his new book "100 People Who are Screwing up America," that we would tell the audience about it.
Well, last night on the CNBC (search) program hosted by a guy named Donnie Deutsch (search), Mr. Goldberg was attacked by not only Deutsch but four other people. It was five against one on the program.
Here's a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How come she's not on his list? She's the one out there every minute.
BERNARD GOLDBERG, AUTHOR, "100 PEOPLE WHO ARE SCREWING UP AMERICA": Let me know when you're finished, all right? Are you sure?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm finished. Well, you've been on this show for an hour. He did ask you a question and you didn't answer it.
GOLDBERG: That's because you don't shut up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bernie, come on, stop with the shut up stuff. Bernie...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're such an angry guy.
GOLDBERG: Because she doesn't. Now she's asked me 12 questions and nobody...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. First I asked you a question and you said you wouldn't answer it. Don't you find that vulgar if you're yelling at somebody to shut up on television? Because I find that really vulgar.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't agree more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I don't understand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let him respond to that.
GOLDBERG: I only did it because you don't shut up.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just ignorant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're talking about cultural wars. What signal is that, to any young girl watching out there, you tell a woman to shut up?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'REILLY: We asked NBC for a statement. They declined to provide one. You should also know that the Deutsche program is one of the lowest rated on cable television. Last night it got a 0.1 rating, which means just about nobody on earth was watching.
Joining us now from Miami is Bernard Goldberg.
Why would you put yourself through that? Why would you?
GOLDBERG: I'm suffering posttraumatic stress syndrome watching that clip. You know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, you know.
O'REILLY: Why don't you call me on this stuff?
GOLDBERG: How many people — how many people watch that show?
O'REILLY: I don't know. About...
GOLDBERG: How many actual people?
O'REILLY: About 70,000 maybe. I don't know.
GOLDBERG: There were more people...
O'REILLY: You could have sold more books — you could have sold more books setting up a little lemonade stand on South Beach waving it around.
GOLDBERG: There were more people than that at my bar mitzvah, than 70,000 people.
Listen, they did — they did three things that were really inexcusable. I mean, I'm laughing about it, because I don't think I came away hurt but I think they did.
First of all, they ambushed me. They misled me and said it was going to be a debate with people on both sides. It was five on one side and me on the other.
They threw everything they had at me but, as I said on the air, but they cut it out. I said it was throwing spitballs at a battleship. It had no effect.
The second thing...
O'REILLY: You mean, they edited the interview?
GOLDBERG: That's the third thing I want to tell you.
O'REILLY: They edited it?
GOLDBERG: That's the third thing I want to tell you that. I want to tell you that third.
The second thing they did, all five people — I swear to you I'm not making this up, all five people on the other side, not one of them read the book, and they all admitted that. Nobody read the book, but they spent 30 minutes attacking the book. Think about that. They spent 30 minutes attacking it but they didn't read it.
O'REILLY: OK.
GOLDBERG: The third thing is, and this is the worst thing, this is really low and unethical, they edited the tape to take all the stuff where Donnie Deutsch looked even more foolish than he looked in the part you showed, they took that out. I mean, that's really — that's really unethical.
O'REILLY: I mean, we might tell everybody on this program we don't edit it unless there's something that's libelous or obscene or something like that. Usually, in a cable news program, you do live like we're doing right now or live on tape and you don't edit.
But look, see, what I'm trying to get at here is you knew you were going to be attacked. This crew that they threw at you, they don't like the book for a very simple reason, that your book contains far more liberals who you believe are screwing up America than conservatives.
And all of these people are either — you know, Linda Stacey is not ideological bomb throwing. She's been on this program before. We don't have any problem with Linda. She's usually pretty straight.
None of them see it your way, Bernie. None of them. And Deutsch sent me a — and said, "Look, Bernie didn't have to come on this panel. He agreed to come on." Is that true?
GOLDBERG: Well, of course I agreed. Nobody held a gun to my head. But...
O'REILLY: Why would you agree? I wouldn't agree. I mean, I wouldn't have done that.
GOLDBERG: Obviously, I shouldn't have agreed to go on a panel with them. But when they say they have some people on one side and some on the other, I don't know, I took them at their word.
O'REILLY: OK.
GOLDBERG: They made it up. They ambushed me. But you know what? That's not important. This is a totally inconsequential program, the "Donnie Deutsche Show." That's not the issue. The issue is that this is the way a lot of cultural elite liberals behave all the time.
O'REILLY: Well, they made your point for you. They made your...
GOLDBERG: Exactly.
O'REILLY: Your point is that these people are nasty and there you go. They made your point for you.
GOLDBERG: Yes. One of the main points of the book is that the culture in this country has gotten way too angry and way too nasty and that liberals are responsible for more than their fair share. So what do they go and do? What do they do? They go and prove my point for me by doing that.
O'REILLY: Yes, I mean, and they got you on the shut up thing, which is what they did to me, exactly what they did to me.
GOLDBERG: Even that was edited. Even that was edited. Linda Stacey spoke for about a week and a half before I said, "Would you shut up?" But when they edited it on the air...
O'REILLY: Well, that's the same thing Stuart Smalley did to me. Stuart Smalley threw every kind of defamation he could for 20 minutes and I finally had enough.
Well, look, you know the game, though. But I want to caution you in the sense that you're not going to get a fair shake, Bernie. You're just not, because they don't want a guy like you, who was a liberal, who's now rethought that position and is looking at, you know, the landscape saying, you know, there's something wrong here. They're going to try to do everything they can to discredit you and you have to protect yourself against it.
GOLDBERG: Right. Right. Except Bill, the American people have a sense of fairness. And when they see something like that, even when they disagree with me, and many do, obviously, they won't tolerate that. I mean, they won't tolerate somebody being ambushed by five people who didn't read the book.
But they only did this to me. That's not a big deal. I didn't lose an ounce of sleep over this. They're the ones who look foolish, not me.
The problem is that they did the same thing, not these people but the cultural elites on the left did the same thing to Judge Bork and there's a good chance — they did it to Judge Pickering who — from Mississippi, who they portrayed as a racist. And there's a good chance, if they have to, that they're going to do it to Judge Roberts. It's the M.O. of the cultural elites in this country.
O'REILLY: Yes, but it's changing. It's changing. And I think — did we just lose Bernie on the satellite? Is that what happened or did somebody at CNBC pull the plug on us?
Did we lose him? Is he coming back? Do we have his sound? I'll just take him on audio if I have to take him. Is it a conspiracy?
No, we don't have anything. Is Bernie OK? Did they beat him up? Did they hit him? How much time do I have to vamp here? OK.
Let me just sum this up, though, because — how much time do I have in this segment? He's back. Hey, Bernie, there's somebody up there — they're after you.
GOLDBERG: Donnie Deutsche, while we went to black, Donnie Deutsche ran in here. He pulled the plug out of the wall and it's insane. I'm only kidding. He didn't do that.
O'REILLY: Yes, I know that.
But look, sum it up. You've got to protect yourself. I went on, and you remember this, NPR (search) with a woman named Terry Gross...
GOLDBERG: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: ... who did exactly the same thing to me that they did to you. And I took 45 minutes of it and I said, "Look, lady, enough." And I got the tape and I put it on the web site. Everybody in the world heard it and they can make up their own mind just as we showed you. I couldn't show anymore. It was too painful. I'll give you the last word.
GOLDBERG: Because they're afraid of ideas that don't fit their preconceived notions. It happens on college campuses with kids who have views that are contrary to the popular view. It happens in Hollywood, and it happened to me last night. No harm, no foul. I'm fine, Bill.
O'REILLY: All right. You'll sell even more books, Bernie. You will. You'll sell even more books because of it. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate it.
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