The Continuing Sagas of George Clooney & Bill Moyers

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Hi.  I'm Bill O'Reilly.  Thank you for watching us tonight.

The continuing sagas of George Clooney and Bill Moyers, that is the subject of this evening's Talking Points memo.  Now, I know I run the risk of overkill here, but these guys continue to misbehave.  And what they are doing is important, because it's part of a bigger picture.

We'll begin with Mr. Clooney.  Columnist Liz Smith is reporting the actor knocked Charlton Heston's medical condition in remarks at a National Board of Review event.  Said Clooney, "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's."  Ms. Smith then asked if he went too far.  Clooney replied, "I don't care.  Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association.  He deserves whatever anyone says about him."

Now, I believe most Americans would find these remarks to be mean-spirited, even as the entertainment press continues to give Clooney a pass.  Just imagine if someone had mocked the paralysis of Christopher Reeve.  The Hollywood press would go nuts and so would the elite media here in New York.  But very little has been said about Clooney's insensitivity.

So, why did Clooney do it?  I believe it's because he has contempt and possibly hatred for those with whom he disagrees.  He doesn't like the NRA, so anything he says about Heston is justified in his mind.  This kind of extremism is practiced by both the far left and the far right, but it is un-American and vicious.  And clear-thinking Americans know it.

Sincere beliefs based on the law should be respected in America.  Hating someone for their opinions is contemptible in itself.  If this had been Clooney's first mistake, I would just mock him and forget about it.  But this guy's clearly out of control.  Just today, he compared the Bush administration to The Sopranos, and he wasn't kidding.  Alec Baldwin found out the hard way that irrational rantings and despising others for their beliefs does not go down well with the American public.  Mr. Clooney will now learn the same lesson, I'm afraid.

And then there's Bill Moyers.  He continues to blast me all over the place.  The latest assault came in a Utah newspaper.  And that's fine.  I fully understand why Moyers despises me.  I want to know if he's using tax money from the PBS to enrich himself.  He doesn't want to open his books, and neither does PBS.

But Moyers is now saying that he's paragon of a journalistic virtue.  And that spin stops here.  He said this in The Deseret News: "We are not ideologues.  Ideologues look at the world in a certain way and try the shape everything to fit that world of the world.  I take my opinions and my views from the world as I find it."  Sure, and I'm Ho Chi Minh.

Bill Moyers runs the Schumann Foundation, which has assets of $75 million.  According to their tax return of 2001, Moyers gave out these grants: $2 million to the Web by TomPaine.com, run by his son John.  TomPaine is a far-left outfit that has spent more than $800,000 on New York Times advertisements as it often blasts the Bush administration; $2 million to support the biweekly magazine The American Prospect, which describes itself as embracing a liberal philosophy; $250,000 to the Institute for America's Future, which The New York Times describes as a liberal advocacy group; and $200,000 to the Public Citizen Foundation, founded by Ralph Nader.

Now, I could go on and on.  I got the list here.  It's just all left-wing, all.  But you get the picture.  Moyers puts other people's money where his mouth is, way over on the left.  By the way, the foundation pays him $200,000 a year to dole out the cash, another donation to a left-wing cause.

Talking Points knows charlatans when they rant and rave.  There is no shame in being a liberal or a conservative.  The shame lies in playing fast and lose with the truth and celebrating other people's misfortunes.

And that's The Memo .

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Time now for "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day."

The rock singer Bono won a Golden Globe award last night and then used the "F word" in front of a worldwide audience:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BONO: I was really, (EXPLETIVE DELETED) brilliant, and really, great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now why did the guy do that?  I mean, you know, the pinheads in Hollywood, of course -- oh, ha, ha, ha, ha.  But what's the point?  Now, I'm no prude, and bad words have been known to come out of my mouth.  But not in public.  These foolish celebrities continue to intrude on society and coarsen the discourse.

Bono was ridiculous, and he should have his mouth washed out with Irish Spring.