Sometimes I feel a little badly for Bill O’Reilly. For my steady eight o’clock news diet, I always tune in to Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, and Keith’s continuous mocking of O’Reilly is both hilarious and uncomfortable. Just last night, Olbermann was having a field day with O’Reilly’s “war” against Spain’s efforts to try several neoconservatives for war crimes, as well as O’Reilly’s “war” against UPS. UPS recently dropped their advertising on O’Reilly’s show over concerns that O’Reilly was and is a serious whackjob that UPS doesn’t want to have anything to do with.

Olbermann’s daily vendetta isn’t the only thing O’Reilly has to worry about. Bill appeared on David Letterman’s The Late Show last night, and it was clear that David still isn’t pulling his punches on O’Reilly. I have to give O’Reilly a little credit though – even though Letterman has famously mocked and belittled him before, O’Reilly showed he has a pretty good sense of humor. The Huffington Post has the story on what went down:

David Letterman, who infamously told Bill O’Reilly in 2006 that “about 60 percent of what you say is crap,” had his old bête noire back on his show on Tuesday night.

At the start of the show, Letterman couldn’t help lashing into the Fox News host, saying “I wish I was smart enough to make him look ridiculous… He’s going to come out here all puffed up.”

From practically the moment O’Reilly sat down, the sparks flew along with some surprising topics upon which they agreed.

“I think of you as a goon,” Letterman point-blank told O’Reilly. Then, holding up the cover of O’Reilly’s book, “A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity,” which has a photo of O’Reilly as a boy, Letterman quipped, “I look at that and I see this sweet, adorable kid… I have a sweet adorable kid and I wonder, ‘What if he too becomes a goon?’”

And Letterman launched into O’Reilly positions, such as his boycott of Sean Penn movies, giving him the ultimate back-handed compliment: “You’re too smart to believe what you say.”

When Letterman focused on Rush Limbaugh, implying that he’s the face of the Republican party, O’Reilly alluded to the radio host’s power, saying that “I don’t think any Republicans or conservatives want to offend the man.” And he strove to distinguish himself from Limbaugh and fellow Fox News personality Glenn Beck by claiming that he’s a journalist: “I got a degree, I paid a lot of money for… I went out, covered stories… those guys are basically entertainers… we give information”.

O’Reilly also revealed that former Vice President Dick Cheney refused to come on his program, adding that he doesn’t like Cheney: “We asked him a million times… he wouldn’t come on.”

And he laughed about the famous video of him cursing out his staff – “I have so much better stuff than that… Irish guys curse. That’s in the DNA… We’re loud and say bad words.”

From The Huffington Post

I’ll give credit to O’Reilly for some things – he doesn’t just read off Republican talking points, and he was never just a vessel for the Bush Administration, though their ideologies often lined up. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that O’Reilly isn’t even close to being the worst “television personality” on Fox News. I save that honor for batsh-t insane Glenn Beck, whose apocalyptic rantings and honest-to-goodness calls for violent domestic insurrection scare the hell out of me. Next to Beck, O’Reilly seems like an almost honorable journalist. Until Olbermann replays that clip of O’Reilly saying that a murdered rape victim deserved it because of what she was wearing.

Shocking no one, Bill O’Reilly is criticizing Sean Penn again. Bill gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter (quotes via OK!) where he says that Penn is a great actor, but Bill will never, ever sit through one of Sean’s movies. The reason? Because Sean “gives aid and comfort to people like [Iran president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Saddam Hussein, when he was alive”. OK! has more:

Despite constantly railing against the liberal-leaning folks in Hollywood, Fox News bully pundit claims that he’s actually a “big movie guy.” In fact, says Bill, the only big-screen star whose politics keep him away from the theater is Sean Penn.

“He’s a great actor, and if you hire him, you’ll get a good performance,” explains the outspoken O’Reilly in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m just not going to give a guy who gives aid and comfort to people like [Iran president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Saddam Hussein, when he was alive, my 10 bucks. That’s my right as an American.”

On the opposite side of the O’Reilly spectrum is — not shockingly — Clint Eastwood. “I admire him because he’s a self-made guy,” says Bill.

Ironically, when O’Reilly rattles off his favorite movies of all time, he includes Robert Altman’s legendarily leftist anti-war comedy M*A*S*H.

[From OK! Magazine]

Bill might have a point… he’s not saying Sean Penn should be lynched or anything, he’s just saying he doesn’t want to see Penn’s movies, which is his right. A lot of people probably feel that way about Sean Penn and other actors whose films can’t be separated from their politics. Even in the mythical liberal Hollywood, Sean Penn is very, very left of center.

Is Bill O’Reilly just trying to stir the pot and get some press by starting a mini-war with one of Hollywood’s most liberal actors? Or did he just answer a question posed to him with honesty?

Jessica Alba isn’t one of my favorite celebrities, but I like her a hell of a lot more after she said exactly what she thinks about Bill O’Reilly. On Sunday night she was at the Declare Yourself ‘A New Birth of Citizenship’ Inauguration kick-off event, where some Fox News goons came up to her and started prattling on about republicans and Fox and former President Bush.

Alba was clearly trying to be polite when they asked her if she had any words for Bush, to which she replied “Goodbye!” with a huge grin on her face. But then they decided to push her even more and asked Alba if she had any words for Bill O’Reilly. And then she called him an a-hole, and all was right with the world.

Jessica Alba, attending one of the Inaugural shindigs, was the victim of one of those Fox News ambush crews that wanders events where liberals are numerous and tries to get them to say something dumb so Bill O’Reilly can make fun of them later. She told them exactly what she thinks of Bill O’Reilly.

Reporter: Bill O’Reilly says hi. You wanna give him a Factor Inauguration Shout Out?

Alba: No. He’s kind of — [Laughs] He’s kind of an a-hole.

As is their SOP, the crew badgered her to give examples. (Examples? You want examples? We gotcher examples right here, dude.) And she was smart enough not to take the bait:

Reporter: How so?

Alba: I don’t know how he does it. I guess he was just born that way, for some reason.

Reporter: Can you give me an example? Come on.

Alba: No, because that means admitting that I actually have watched Fox.

Of course, O’Reilly showed off this clip proudly and smugly, no doubt to show his audience how “nasty” those Hollywood liberals are. Not that any of them have ever been caught wishing publicly for a terrorist attack on San Francisco, but hey. Nasty is in the eye of the media-megaphone holder.

[From Crooks and Liars]

Good for her. O’Reilly, of course, showed the clip and tried to act all smug and superior about it, though it was unclear what he felt smug and superior about. An actress hates you… as do a lot of people… and you’re right and better than everyone else how? It definitely wasn’t one of O’Reilly’s better arguments. But kudos to Jessica for saying what she thought. And when you watch the video, she actually said it quite nicely, everything considered.

Thanks to TMZ for the story idea.

Here’s Jessica at the Declare Yourself ‘A New Birth of Citizenship’ Inauguration kick-off event in Washington DC on Sunday. Images thanks to WENN.