Bill O'Reilly

By Joel Stein

Bill O'Reilly, a Fox News channel host, has written The O'Reilly Factor.

Q. Why am I talking to you?

A. Highest-rated cable-news show in the country. No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. I'm charming.

Q. Does Fox News get money directly from the G.O.P., or does it have to launder it first for the sake of the FCC?

A. We have never been able to rise to the level of the Bill Clinton bunko squad, where we can get money directly from a Riady family or someplace in China. However, I understand the executives of Fox are meeting with Time Inc. and are going to get some tips over there.

Q. I invented this game called "O'Reilly or Larry King." Ready? "Kudos for Arli$$, Robert Wuhl's brilliant HBO series."

A. Larry King.

Q. Yes. "Kindly Dr. Huxtable has a very sharp mental scalpel."

A. O'Reilly.

Q. In your novel, Those Who Trespass, you wrote, "Ashley could feel his rhythm. First quick, then slow, then quick again. He brought her right up to orgasm, then pulled back." Why did he pull back?

A. That was inserted by a friend of mine named Peter Jennings, who read the novel and said, "You need a little more sex in this."

Q. Who is more jealous of your ratings, Sean Hannity or Alan Colmes?

A. Those guys are in oxygen tents most of the day, so I don't get to talk to them too much.

Q. You wrote that today's journalism is full of "legions of shameless, agenda-driven, power-mad hacks who believe that the news is a vehicle to bring you them." Couldn't you have at least worked my name in there?

A. I believe you're far above that, Joel. Primarily because you have editorial sway over this interview.

--By Joel Stein