The President of Colorado University Quits...

Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thanks for watching us tonight. This will be a Martha Stewart free zone this evening. She's home, she's rich. And that's it.

The president of Colorado University quits over the Churchill and football controversies. That is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo.

Elizabeth Hoffman (search) announced today she will step down because C.U. is in chaos, with donations down and the school's image in tatters. It was clear to me that President Hoffman simply could not handle the controversies. Here's what I said last Wednesday:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: I'm going to go further. I think Governor Owens should replace the leadership at the University of Colorado. Am I wrong?

She's got to go. I'm telling you. She has got — she is what? The president of the university, right, Hoffman? She's got to go, Dan. Look, she doesn't talk to you. She doesn't talk to me. She doesn't talk to Dave and "The Denver Post (search)," all right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now before her resignation announcement, President Hoffman did talk, blaming the Ward Churchill (search) disaster on me and others in the media who she says are pushing a new McCarthyism. —You may remember Senator Joseph McCarthy (search) was a communist witch-hunter in the '50s.

That, of course, is ridiculous. The problems I have with Churchill center on his cruelty towards the 9/11 families, not his insane ideology, which few take seriously.

The problem with President Hoffman and many other college leaders is that they don't live in the real world. Hoffman's not a bad person. She's smart. She's done some good things at C.U. But she's clueless about how radicals like Churchill are perceived by most Americans.

The folks intensely dislike Churchill. They feel he's irresponsible, that he's abusing his position of authority by spewing foolish propaganda and hateful opinions about his own country.

Hoffman is totally intimidated by Churchill. She should have called him into the office and told him to button it, that his offensive rantings for money were making C.U. look bad.

On the football front, President Hoffman was simply overwhelmed. The program was out of control, with sex recruit allegations and slush funds. She simply had no idea how to fix the situation.

The sad truth is that the University of Colorado (search) has been severely damaged on Hoffman's watch. She was smart to resign, showed a lot of class, much more than Ward Churchill would ever show. He'll take the entire University of Colorado down with him.

And that's "The Memo."

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

A sign of the times: Some American lawyers are suing the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Thai government for failing to give an effective warning about the tsunami. Can you believe this? One of the lawyers, Edward Fagan (search), won a big judgment against the Swiss banks in the Holocaust case. Now he's suing because of the tsunami.

Well, the suit's ridiculous because the tsunami prediction is not an exact science and nature is the culprit here. I guess we can expect to see the deity called to testify. The world is lawsuit crazy. Something has to be done.