O'Reilly Revises History, Says Nixon Never Met With Mao Zedong (VIDEO)

Sometimes, if you linger too long over certain qualities of Bill O'Reilly, you miss the full picture. For example, if you're always paying attention to O'Reilly's pointless demagoguery, rampant paranoia, blustery cowardice, and overall sex freakery, you might miss the fact that deep down, the man is also unrelentingly stupid. But on last night's edition of the Factor, viewers got a reminder of the Miseducation of Bill O'Reilly.

Discussing the recent Summit of the Americas, O'Reilly and Alan Colmes were locked in a discussion over whether Obama's handshake with Hugo Chavez meant that Obama would catch a scorching case of Chavez Cooties, and suddenly become a Latin American autocrat! Colmes made the sensible point that politesse and tact should compel a certain degree of civility.

COLMES: Well, first of all, this shows -- first of all, what do you, ignore the guy? When George W. Bush was at the UN and asked, "Will you ever -- will you talk to Ahmadinejad if you're in the same room?" "No, I won't talk to him" -- like a 5-year-old. What do you, ignore somebody standing right next to you? Do we -- because he touched him, put his hand on his shoulder, shook his hand? Do these people have a problem with Mao and Nixon? And of course, you worked for Richard Nixon. I mean, Nixon goes to China, do you have a problem with --

That's when O'Reilly started demonstrating his copious knowledge of history!

O'REILLY: It was Zhou and Nixon. Mao was not involved.

COLMES: There was --

O'REILLY: Yeah, Zhou.

COLMES: Did you have a problem with looking into Putin's eyes and seeing his soul? Did you have a problem with any of the other --

O'REILLY: All right, but -- OK, all of those are valid points, as long as you realize it was Zhou Enlai, not Mao Zedong.

COLMES: Zhou Enlai, OK.

O'REILLY: OK. Yeah, I don't want to confuse you -- the high school thing. But --

COLMES: Talk slowly and I think I'll be OK.

No, Alan Colmes! You won't be okay! Because Richard Nixon TOTALLY met with Mao. Shook his hand, smiled, the whole nine!

A critical point to note, by the way, is that unlike Chavez, Mao was an actual Communist dictator, as opposed to an elected leader!

The funny thing about handshakes is, you never know what might happen afterward. Sometimes, you end up shaking a guy's hand, and he sees it as a cue to give you a book you didn't want and you can't read that you now have to stick in your carry-on luggage.

It's annoying! But things could always end up going a lot worse:

[WATCH

MORE:
Political History 101: O'Reilly falsely claimed Nixon never met with Mao [Media Matters]

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Comments

[wordvarc]

07:46 PM on 04/26/2009

This expert knows Nixon and Mao never met.

History, reality, and the rest of us are wrong.

[Fred Bohm III]

06:50 PM on 04/24/2009

The Right never has to deal with facts because they believe they can simply talk about the past in ways they think it should have been. To talk about Fox News as if what they were doing were actually trying to present the news is an insult to what most of us think of as journalism. The problem is, in fact, that the phrase "Fox News" they use to describe themselves is a contradiction in terms. We should all be afraid, very afraid, that Fox News might become the model for future journalism.

[wordvarc]

07:45 PM on 04/26/2009

Yes!

"The Way It Ought to Be."

vs

The way it is.

[Hugh Robinson]

05:43 PM on 04/27/2009

Yes, I do have to agree it seems that the far right of the Republican Party, especially neo-conservatives (Bush Admin.) regurgitate history falsely and expect us to believe it. It’s almost as if there trying to re-write the past in a sly way; as if the past was so traumatic that we (ordinary citizens) need the application of their partisan propaganda to put ‘it’ all into ‘perspective’. Where the problem lies is that admitting to their mistakes fundamentally goes against their republican and many times conservative ideals. For example-- They (the republicans) can’t admit to their wrongs b/c in their creed they can’t be wrong b/c the voice of their party is being polarized by extremist and many times the religious right. On the conservative side they can’t be wrong because fundamentally they are CONSERVATIVE and the fix this economy you cant be conservative in Federal spending in this present economical crisis. I firmly believe in the context of media platforms we as consumers of media AND as journalists; need to speak up against the misinformation--b/c eventually what you speak and hear is what you begin to believe no matter how far from the truth it is.

[Mover]

12:39 PM on 04/30/2009

I believe you are projecting. Projecting is when someone who acts or thinks in a certain way, such as revising history, and accuses someone who he/she opposes of that very same behavior. When called on it, the projector will deny any such thing and call the the challenging person names.

Democrats and liberals do this all the time, especially when it comes to the history thing.

Face facts. You hate O'Reilly because he doesn't tow the liberal line like the legacy media does and you don't like hearing the facts behind any stories that could affect your chosen political party or candidate.

The evidence of this is Barry, our new president. Those who voted for him knew only that he was not W, he said there would be hope and change, he is African American and he is a Democrat. Oh, there were some right wing racist stories about his kind pastor and some reputed homegrown terrorist guy, but is all right wing propaganda.

BTW: O'Reilly was only half wrong. Nixon did meet with Zhou Enlai for about 7 days. Nixon met with Mao once on one day on the same trip. This episode just goes to show you that no one is right all of the time.

[Vurz]

06:01 PM on 04/24/2009

I think we need to all write to FOX and take them to task for exploiting O'Reilly's dementia and poor memory. I mean, I was young then, but I remember the pictures of Nixon meeting with Mao. FOX exploiting someone so memory challenged is a crime.

It's not the first time O'Reilly has shown what a poor memory (or education) he has. Who can forget O'Reilly's inability to get the facts straight about the Malmedy massacre. Every time he opens his mouth about it, he insults the memory of the American POWs that were brutally slaughtered by the Nazis.

[twb1951]

07:01 PM on 04/24/2009

perhaps we should all write to Fox and ask who in their organization is responsible for putting "Bill O'Really" out there so forcefully. I personally would like to thank the person responsible, as well as Roger Ailes (sp). O'Really is a train wreck that would be difficult to create as fiction, and Fox just keeps putting him out there, way to go guys.

[Roxanna]

05:17 PM on 04/24/2009

It never ceases to amaze me that you can be absolutely "Ignorant" on facts and history as O'reily and Limbaugh have shown periodically, but make millions simply by "Acting" as if you know what you are talking about.
These people are paid to make up fluff.

[Mover]

12:50 PM on 04/30/2009

According to FAIR (a left-wing operation), Limbaugh is correct 98% of the time. That's better than Joe Biden's score, who hasn't been correct yet.

Just today, he'll be apologizing for telling people to stay out of confined places, such as commercial jets, buses, subways, restaurants, pubs and bars, movie theaters. Thanks for helping the economy guys.

Go figure.

[AbbieHoffman2]

05:02 PM on 04/24/2009

can you say: a 6'-4" dufus?

[chedet]

04:40 PM on 04/24/2009

He's going to say the liberals photoshopped the picture of him and chairman mao... you know he's so full of hot air. Hahahaha or maybe he was honest thinking the man nixon shook hands with was indeed the premier zhou... misinformation...

[LDnearthesea]

04:20 PM on 04/24/2009

Bill O The Clown would be fired for this mistake by any other corporate media than Fixed Noise. Remember what happened to Dan Rather in 2004?

[Mover]

12:54 PM on 04/30/2009

You mean when Dan Rather made up a story, fabricated documentation for the lie, and sold it to you? Then there is the part when the truth came out, he stood behind the lie and still does. Is this the incident you're referring to?

I see your point. Rather was a good point man for the Democrats. Too bad he got caught, ay?

[inthedesert]

04:18 PM on 04/24/2009

Rethuglicans like to throw invalid "facts" out there just to confuse the illiterates that follow BO. LOL

[KansasWrangler]

03:23 PM on 04/24/2009

B.O. engages in one-ups-man-ship, he has to be on top even if he has to make something up.

[AbbieHoffman2]

05:04 PM on 04/24/2009

"make something up"?......yer lost Wrangler...go back to Bill-Os blog

[KansasWrangler]

08:40 AM on 04/25/2009

I suspect a new distinction needs to be made between B.O. (Bill O'Reilly) and B.O. (Barack Obama) in this thread. In as much as Barack Obama is not the topic and Bill O'Reilly is, I am pretty sure all of the B.O. references are to the latter.

[labman]

02:48 PM on 04/24/2009

B.O. supposedly taught History after college. He had to be the worst teacher the school had, he makes more historical mistakes then a 9th grader

[Liberal2]

03:12 PM on 04/24/2009

Well, he's telling rethug history. His "Nixon" nuked China out of existence. Different planet, different dimension.

[naeldwyck]

03:22 PM on 04/24/2009

Please don't use these initials for this m.f.

[WowJones]

12:26 PM on 04/24/2009

Bill is old enough to remember, I think he was just being contrary.

[gwinegarden]

12:51 PM on 04/24/2009

No, BO just makes it up as he goes along.

[Gidster]

03:21 PM on 04/24/2009

I think he actually believes that his delusional state is reality.

He is proven wrong time and again, on issue after issue, yet he does not admit his mistakes, he blames others for them. A text book narcissistic personality type !

I wonder how he will blame MSNBC for "Doctoring" the archival footage just to discredit him.

Clown is an apt identifier.

[SethBLiNK]

12:01 PM on 04/24/2009

Nixon never met with Mao? That is not an obscure photo there. When Nixon was in China, there were photos of him and Mao on the front page of every newspaper in America.

[Liberal2]

03:13 PM on 04/24/2009

Awwww, you know that dang liberal media...

[StephenBarry]

09:08 AM on 04/24/2009

Nixon and Mao admired one another. Nixon bowed very respectfully when he met Mao. Before he died in 1976, Mao flew ex-president Nixon to China for final farewells. There is nothing wrong in any of that.

[Liberal2]

03:14 PM on 04/24/2009

One dictator saluting another.

[LDnearthesea]

04:16 PM on 04/24/2009

Exactly, like Bush palling around with the Saudi Royals!

[joceeco]

05:52 AM on 04/24/2009

Republicans talk loud and often, but they say nothing... well they do lie, so I guess that is saying something, even if it's not the truth!

[grf67]

05:32 AM on 04/24/2009

How is it possible that a person with a college degree could be that stupid? After all, this is not hannity, beck, or limbaugh we are talking about.

[Simpletruthiness]

11:32 AM on 04/24/2009

He plays stupid. He went to Harvard oh wait never mind.

[naeldwyck]

03:23 PM on 04/24/2009

Er, remember the previous president?

[LDnearthesea]

04:17 PM on 04/24/2009

O" Reilly, a self-professed practicing Catholic, is a LIAR!