On the October 4 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly claimed that “a lot of secular progressives” do not “believe in the concept of evil.” However, O'Reilly has previously attributed the belief that the United States is “evil” to anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and filmmaker Michael Moore, both of whom O'Reilly attacks in his recently released book, Culture Warrior (Broadway Books, September 2006). The book purports to “expose the secular-progressive movement,” as Media Matters for America documented. In his September 6, 2005, syndicated column, O'Reilly wrote: “Ms. Sheehan may be sympathetic on the surface, but underneath she is a committed far-left individual who believes the USA is a force for evil in the world.” Similarly, as Media Matters noted, on the June 28, 2004, broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly read remarks by Moore and said, “This is Michael Moore. He believes this. He believes that we are an evil country.”
O'Reilly has also claimed that the “left-wing press” and the “far left” believe that the Unites States is “evil.” As Media Matters noted, on the May 31 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, while discussing how the “the left-wing press” was publishing stories about the alleged killings of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops in Haditha, O'Reilly stated that “some Americans, including many in the press, honestly feel that the Bush administration is evil.” Additionally, on the August 7 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, O'Reilly alleged that “the far left ... define us [the U.S.] as the evil empire”:
O'REILLY: But let's get back to America's the evil. And that's why, Mr. Peretz, that's why I spend so much of my time trying to dismantle the far left because they're the danger. Not the far right. The far right isn't dangerous to the country in my estimation right now. It's the far left, because they define us as the evil empire.
As Media Matters noted, in Culture Warrior, O'Reilly writes: “As a traditionalist who wants to win the fight, I try to avoid the personal stuff.”
From O'Reilly's discussion with Geraldo Rivera, host of Fox News' Geraldo at Large and former Fox News correspondent, on the October 4 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: Last question. You're a good, old-fashioned liberal for many years.
RIVERA: I'm a radical.
O'REILLY: All right, you're a radical leftist, you know, [Black Panther party founder] “Bobby Seale” Rivera. Do you believe in the concept of good and evil in this world?
RIVERA: I do, indeed; and I also believe in karma. I think that evil will come back to bite you in the -- in the ass.
O'REILLY: But, you know, this case, these two guys, it killed them, but they did so much damage before.
RIVERA: They committed suicide both of them.
O'REILLY: Right. We know that.
RIVERA: They committed suicide.
O'REILLY: So, you do believe in the concept of evil --
RIVERA: Oh, yeah.
O'REILLY: -- because a lot of secular progressives don't.
