Fox News host Bill O'Reilly shot back at
George Will Thursday over a column Will wrote blasting O'Reilly's bestselling book
"Killing Reagan."
In the column, titled "Bill O'Reilly Slanders Reagan," Will agrees with
several historians who have taken issue with O'Reilly's assertion that the 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan began a slow mental decline and that aides at one point tested him to see if he was still able to serve as president.
"The book's perfunctory pieties about Reagan's greatness are inundated by its flood of regurgitated slanders about his supposed lassitude and manipulability," Will wrote. "This book is nonsensical history and execrable citizenship, and should come with a warning: 'Caution — you are about to enter a no-facts zone.'"
O'Reilly defended himself on Thursday's
"O'Reilly Factor," saying he and co-author Martin Dugard faced attempts to thart the book by Reagan loyalists even before it was written.
Noting the word "slander" in the title of the column, O'Reilly offered a correction: "But it is his column that's libel. Slander is a spoken word. George, libel is a written word. And I'm sure you know that."
Will never called him about his issues with the book, even though both work for Fox News and "He can just punch up a little extension and there I am."
Still, O'Reilly said, he bears his co-worker "no ill will" and said he has invited him on Friday's show.
"We'll see if he has the 'Courage Factor.'"