Bill O’Reilly returned to “The View” Wednesday for the first time since his infamous comments about Muslims caused Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg to walk off the show nearly a year ago.
This time, everyone made sure to behave themselves. Goldberg even whipped out a seat belt and literally fastened herself into her chair to ensure that she wouldn’t take flight.
However, things got rather testy in the second half of the chat. O’Reilly was on to promote his new book about President Lincoln, and he kept refusing to engage in any debate with the co-hosts about current politics.
O’Reilly said Lincoln was his “gold standard” because he put the country “over himself.” Joy Behar quickly tried to connect that point to current politics. Referencing the crowds at GOP debates who have booed gay soldiers and dying patients, she asked, “is that the party of Lincoln?”
“I’m not going to get into the party politics because I don’t care about that,” O’Reilly said. “I’m telling you the country’s in trouble.” The co-hosts all seemed to be trying to pin him down on any particular person who he thought might get the country out of trouble, but he would not budge. “President Obama may be the guy, or the Republican party may be the guy,” he said. “…I’m not going to talk about partisan politics.”
When Behar started saying that President Bush had not asked Americans to sacrifice after 9/11 (as O’Reilly said the current or next president should), O’Reilly cut her off. “You’re back to Bush-bashing and I think it’s boring,” he snapped.
“You’re a historian, I’m giving you history!” Behar said to applause. “If you guys want to live your life as partisans, go ahead,” O’Reilly said. “That doesn’t interest me.”
