Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Monday, Jan. 14, 2002

In the book itself, O’Reilly put former Clinton Surgeon General Dr. Jocelyn Elders, Dan Rather, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, James Carville and other such tempting targets though his meat grinder. And despite his relentless style of interviewing, he managed to be both polite and considerate while skewering his guests when they tried to put the spin on him.

Take Dr. Elders, notorious for her strident advocacy of abortion and the legalization of drugs.

Back in the 1860s, the pages of the New York Times were open to advertisers selling snake oil remedies such as Percy Patented Piles Pipe - recommended for "officers and others much in the saddle.”

The ads pulled few punches, but there were limits beyond which even the less-than-staid Times of the Civil War period would not go. That was obvious with a preparation known as Dr. Hunter’s Red Drops, which allegedly cured a host of disorders including "soul-destroying secret habits.”

Dr. Elders had no trouble identifying such soul-destroying habits, but went a step beyond and recommended teaching them to youngsters as a means of preventing unwanted pregnancies and venereal diseases among school-aged children.

O’Reilly zeroed in on this peculiar suggestion -- one that finally got her canned by President Clinton, a man not especially known for his distaste for things sexual.

"You must have known you were going to get in trouble over the masturbation remarks,” O’Reilly said. "Why?” Dr. Elders asked.

"Come on. This is America,” O’Reilly scolded.

After Elders charged that huge percentages of both men and women practice soul destroying secret habits, O’Reilly shot back, "Parents don’t want it taught in school.” To which Elders replied, "Nobody has to teach anybody,” adding the rather shocking allegation that "God taught us how to do it.”

Wrote O’Reilly: "Schools have no business teaching sexual techniques of any kind, no matter what the well-meaning intention.”

In a face-off with former Clinton spin-master James Carville to whom nothing his former boss did, no matter how outrageous, immoral or corrupt it might be, was worthy of condemnation.

Given that fact, it bordered on the astounding when O’Reilly managed to get Carville to admit that defending Clinton was like defending organized crime.

How It Went

Here’s how it went.

"What will Bill Clinton do with the rest of his life besides golf?” O’Reilly asked.

"I don’t know,” Carville said. "I told somebody -- I said defending President Clinton is like being in the Mafia, you just can’t get out of the thing. I’m like Michael Corleone. How do I get out of this business?”

A gleeful O’Reilly chortled, "Can I just say one thing. Really, this whole event has been worth it to hear James Carville admit he’s been involved with organized crime for the past eight years.”

His confrontation with former New York governor Mario Cuomo was noteworthy in that it showed just how far left Cuomo is, and displayed his use of class hatred as a debating tool.

O’Reilly began by saying he wanted a tax cut. "Let's help the working guy. Let’s do away with the payroll tax [for Social Security] and give everybody who works a 12 percent raise.”

Instead of responding to this suggestion, Cuomo lashed out at President Bush. "We should say to President Bush: ‘We saw you with your pictures of middle-class workers and poor workers, saying these people would get tax cuts. We love the pictures. We notice you didn’t take any pictures with millionaires. We’ll give you the tax cuts right now for the poor and middle class and argue about the rest later...’”

O’Reilly shot back, "I would say that Mr. Bush doesn’t believe in income redistribution. He wants an across-the-board cut.”

Things got hot when Cuomo defined redistribution as "when I take money from you and spend it on something else.”

"No,” said O’Reilly. "Give it to somebody else, not spend it on something. For thirty years you guys in the Democratic Party have been driving entitlements for the poor, and the poverty rate hasn’t changed. One more question. I’m for a national sales tax in place of the payroll tax. Would you favor that?”

"Not instead of a progressive tax which would take you who makes millions of dollars ... and say, now you only want to pay the same as me and I’m homeless,” Cuomo said.

After reminding Cuomo that he pays far more in taxes than someone who lives modestly, O’Reilly reiterated his call for a national sales tax and remarked that the average worker would get a 12 percent raise out of the abolition of payroll taxes.

He allowed Cuomo the last word, which the former democrat governor used to call for expanded government programs.

O’Reilly had deftly flushed Cuomo’s socialist philosophy out into the open.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Clinton Scandals

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