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Letterman: Bill O'Reilly is here, ladies and gentlemen. The Fox News - um host of The O'Reilly Factor, weekdays at 8 o'clock and he has a uh brand new book out. It's called Culture Warrior. There he is - Bill O'Reilly, the culture warrior. And it's interesting - the last time Bill O'Reilly was on the show, there was a bit of uh - a bit of a dust up. He was saying things that were - that uh didn't make sense to me. I didn't think they were true, and of course I'm not smart enough to be able to prove that anything is true or not true. So, I just said, "Oh I think you're lying." And then he got, I don't know if he got upset or said something to me and then I said, "Oh yea?" and the next thing you know we had our shirts off and we were rolling around. Remember that, Paul? I was embarrassed. Anyway, he's back tonight and we'll see what fun transpires tonight. ... Letterman: I'm secretly hoping that when Bill O'Reilly comes out here tonight, I'll have opportunity to call him a bonehead. ... Letterman: Our first guest is the author of this current best selling book. It's entitled, uh, Culture Warrior. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is - Bill O'Reilly. Bill, come on out.
O'Reilly: We're armed in combat.
Letterman: Yea, that's cute. That's nice. You come out with toys. Uh, how's it going? Am I right about one thing? You guys over there at Fox News, guys like Rush Limbaugh - uh, you you you guys just know it's all just a goof, right? You're just, you're just horsing around? Am I right about that? You're doing it because you know it will be entertaining?
O'Reilly: What are we doing exactly?
Letterman: You, you, uh - well, see here again you got me because I've never seen -
O'Reilly: See, you don't, you've never seen the show, you don't watch the network.
Letterman: Let me tell you something, I don't even know how to get to your show.
O'Reilly: Right down, you just go straight down, you take a right.
Letterman: But it's on, it's on Fox, I dial up Fox and it's always The Simpsons. And I don't - Where are you? Bill?
O'Reilly: I'm not going to help you out, Dave. I mean, you know, whatever you got we're gonna answer tonight. We're going to be nice, we're going to be friends. People don't know that Dave and I, Dave and I are in the same bowling league.
Letterman: Let's talk about the, everyone's all excited about the, the mid-season's election. How do you see that going down?
O'Reilly: Well, I think that the Democrats will win, uh, improve their situation. Um, the Senate I don't think they'll take, the House could go either way. It's gonna be very close.
Letterman: And uh, the reason for this, now more than ever, is what?
O'Reilly: People are angry about Iraq. And they feel we need a change. And whenever you have a situation where Americans are - I used the word tonight on the Factor tonight, I used the word "depressed." People don't want to watch the news, don't want to hear about Iraq, they don't want to hear about Iran, they don't want to hear about the nutty North Korean guy. They wanna watch Bowling for Dollars, Dialing for uh the Dancing with the Stars, Are you gonna be on that?
Letterman: I'm sorry.
O'Reilly: Are you gonna be on the Dancing with the Stars thing?
Letterman: You bonehead.
Letterman: I had that ready to go.
O'Reilly: I know, I saw it. I teed you right up for that.
Letterman: Well, I mean, it's just, it's more than a choice of what to watch on television.
O'Reilly: I think people are depressed.
Letterman: People are depressed. And rightly so because we have a failed policy and Americans, God Bless them, are over there, volunteering to have gone, to have joined the Army, are over there and giving their lives nearly to the number of 3,000 Americans so far. So yes - people are depressed, but it's not because they want to watch Dancing with the Stars.
O'Reilly: But they don't want to hear about the bad world that we live in. It's an evil world that we live in. Let me ask you something. And this is a serious question. Do you want the United Sates to win in Iraq?
Letterman: Well, you know in the beginning, here is my position in the beginning and I, I think I - I sort of felt the way everybody did, we felt like we wanted to do something, because something terrible had been done to us. We did not understand exactly why, all we knew was something terrible, something heinous, something obscene had been done to us. So while it didn't necessarily make sense to go into Iraq as it did perhaps to go into Afghanistan, I like most everybody else felt like yes, we needed to do something. And as the weeks turned into months, years and one death became a dozen deaths and hundred deaths and a thousand deaths - then we began to realize you know what? Maybe we're causing more trouble over there than the whole effort has been worth.
O'Reilly: Possible, but do you right now? Do you want the Untied States to win in Iraq?
Letterman: First of all, I don't -
O'Reilly: It's an easy question, If you don't want the United States to win -
Letterman: It's not easy for me because I'm thoughtful.
Letterman: How 'bout that? That was a good one.
O'Reilly: That was great, Dave. You get paid for those.
Letterman: No, but uh - I, uh, What I would like would be uh, for uh, uh Americans to stop dying. And for there to be stability in that part of the world. Now if that means an American victory, ok. But I'm not sure that you can have stability in that part of the world with or without an American presence now, uh, so I would do whatever it would take to stop Americans dying.
O'Reilly: You think before the Iraq invasion started there was stability in that part of the world? Do you believe that?
Letterman: Well, let me ask you a question. Was there more heinous, more dangerous violence taking place then in Iraq or is there more heinous, dangerous violence taking place now in Iraq?
O'Reilly: It's probably pretty much a tie. Uh -
Letterman: Well, then how can we -
O'Reilly: Oh stop it, Come on Saddam Hussein slaughtered three - four hundred thousand people, so knock it off. Um...
O'Reilly: It's, it's a situation that's fluid, but here's, here's the deal - you can object to the policy in Iraq -
Letterman: But that wasn't, that wasn't reason we went over there -
O'Reilly: No -
Letterman: We went over there because there were Weapons of Mass Destruction -
O'Reilly: That's true.
Letterman: But there were no Weapsons of Mass Destruction.
O'Reilly: That's right.
Letterman: Now, what everyone is saying - What about Kim Jung Il? Not only are we guessing that he has Weapons of Mass Destruction, he's saying, "Hey, look at me, we're setting another one off. Come on over!
O'Reilly: Yea, I don't think it's a guess, Dave. I think when he sets it off we got a clue that he has it.
Letterman: Then well why don't we go there? Because he actually has Weapons of mass destruction.
O'Reilly: And why we don't go there and do what? What do you want to do? You want to drop an atomic bomb on them?
Letterman: Well, what were we supposed to do going into Iraq then?
O'Reilly: What we were supposed to do was that the United States Government believed that Saddam had WMDs, ok and they were wrong. People make mistakes in war. Now, Tony Blair was wrong, Colin Powell was wrong, all these people were wrong. So, that's accepted.
Letterman: So, we made a mistake in war and so we stay there and kill as many Americans as we possibly can?
O'Reilly: No, no, no -
Letterman: That's the way you get out of a mistake.
O'Reilly: What you do is you try to maximize -
Letterman: Do you honestly believe, irrespective of -
O'Reilly: Do you even want my answer?
Letterman: I don't care. Irespective of, irespective of what the - Oh sure, help yourself
O'Reilly: We're really friends. This is all an act. We're buddies, we bowl.
Letterman: But irre - irrespective - irrespective of what the United States, let's say to your way of thinking - the United States prevails militarily in Iraq, how long do you think stability in that apart of the world will last?
O'Reilly: It's impossible to say, but -
Letterman: Well, then would it have been worth it?
O'Reilly: Listen.
Letterman: If it's stable for the next thousands years, George Bush is a genius, but is that going to happen? Is that going to happen? Is it going to be stable for another thousand years?
O'Reilly: How do I know? Am I a Carnac here?
Letterman: What's your best guess?
O'Reilly: What I'm trying to tell you is -
Letterman: What is your best guess?
O'Reilly: I don't know. What I'm trying to tell you is this is geopolitics and the world we live in is incredibly complicated. The reason to go into Iraq was WMDS with a mad dictator, okay? That was the reason. It was wrong. If we could go back in a time machine, we wouldn't do it. Alright?
Letterman: But how does staying there, killing more and more Americans make it right? How do you make a right decision out of a wrong decision?
O'Reilly: If you get out -
Letterman: But it looks to me like the country is going to fall apart anyway, regardless of what people do. Do you think stability will prevail over there?
O'Reilly: Look Dave - if you get out of Iraq and leave it in chaos, Iran comes in takes over, alright. And then we basically have a ten times worse situation because the oil then goes under the jihadists in Iran. You want to debate geopolitics with me, do you really?
Letterman: It's all about oil, you just answered the question.
O'Reilly: Absolutely it's about oil. The whole world is about oil.
Letterman: It's all about oil. That's why we're there. Big deal.
O'Reilly: The show's not gonna be on the air - Alright look, do you actually think we're a bad country for doing what we did? And Bush is an evil man? Is that what you're putting forth here?
Letterman: I, I, I don't know that I think he's evil. I think he's misguided. I, I, I think that in the beginning, like I said, we needed to do something. People wanted to feel like we were doing something, people wanted to feel like the attack was going to be accounted for. Well, to my way of thinking, the attack hasn't really been accounted for. And beyond that,
O'Reilly: It hasn't been accounted for in the sense that we - Look everybody says -
Letterman: Terrorism now is a far more - It's white hot where previous to anything in Iraq it was a fact of life. It was a gruesome fact of life. Now it's become a damned intramural sport.
O'Reilly: Hold it, I think it was pretty white hot on 9/11 when 3,000 people were slaughtered on the streets of the city. So, why don't you - what you're doing is you're making the mistake of oversimplifying a pretty complicated situation.
Letterman: Oh, I'm oversimplifying it?
O'Reilly: Yes, you are. We made a mistake on WMDs. That is true.
Letterman: Alright, solve the mistake. Correct the mistake for me. How do you correct the mistake?
O'Reilly: The mistake cannot be corrected. What can happen is, and I pray it is happening, is that we stabilize that situation over there so that it becomes a functioning democracy. It might not happen. But the intent was noble - to make it a democracy, to make Afghanistan a democracy, to put pressure on the Iranians who are causing all kinds of trouble.
Letterman: But why didn't we stay in Afghanistan? Why didn't we stay in Afghanistan. It seems to me that Afghanistan was more directly the source. I mean there has been no tie proven between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, the Taliban, anything. Why didn't we stay there?
O'Reilly: You know what Ansar-al-Islam, do you know what that is? You don't. And I'm not saying this in a condescending way, I'm really not. Okay? I'm not going to call you a bonehead or a pinhead?
O'Reilly: Ansar-al-Islam was the al Qaeda affiliate in Northern Iraq who tried to poison the British water supply with Ricin. They operated with Saddam Hussein's okay. Again, complicated, but it isn't so black and white, Dave. It isn't, "We're a bad country, Bush is an evil liar."
O'Reilly: That's not true.
Letterman: I didn't say we were a bad country,
Letterman: I didn't say he was an evil liar. You're putting words in my mouth. Just the way you put artificial facts in your head.
O'Reilly: We're really friends. Gimme one artificial fact.
Letterman: Where you gonna be for Thanksgiving?
O'Reilly: At your house. We're coming over, as we always do. This is an act, this whole thing is a big act!
Letterman: But I mean honestly - you've raised some points, uh, but the truth of it is a reasonable person can't believe what you're saying.
O'Reilly: No, that's ridiculous.
Letterman: No, no, no, no it is. It is.
O'Reilly: Total absurdity. I have the highest ratings in cable for the last five years.
Letterman: Then how come I can't find the damned show?
O'Reilly: That might be your fault. Ok? That's ridiculous.
Letterman: Oh Golly...
O'Reilly: Did you enjoy Culture Warrior - the book?
Letterman: I haven't read the book.
O'Reilly: You really haven't read it? Come on. You're in the book!
Letterman: I know. I looked at it and I thought, 'What is he? What is this? A book about sailing? And then I said, "No, I don't need that."
O'Reilly: You'll like the book, Dave. It's full of artificial facts. You'll love it.
Letterman: Uh ... Oh gosh, where has the time gone? You know I appreciate you coming over her and indulging me because you know once again I'll just end up saying I have no idea what I'm talking about but I don't think you do either.
O'Reilly: You're entitled to your opinion.
Letterman: And the same to you. Bill O'Reilly, ladies and gentlemen.
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