Bill O’Reilly Has “A Beef” With Glenn Beck, Wants Him To Get Real

Bill O’Reilly had his colleague Glenn Beck on The O’Reilly Factor last night, as he does more and more (especially as Beck’s ratings continue their rise), but it wasn’t all love between the cable hosts. “I have a beef with you,” said O’Reilly early in the segment.

What’s the beef? Well, it mainly boiled down to, ‘You talk a lot, but what do you want?’

O’Reilly, who says he watched last night’s show, described seeing Beck explain things “in your blackboard,” but he had an overriding question. “At the end of all of that exposition, which is interesting, I say, ‘But who does Beck think can turn the country around?’” said O’Reilly. “And what say you?”

With his head in his hand, pausing for effect, Beck answered: “I wish I had an answer for that Bill, I haven’t seen them yet. I keep looking for George Washington to appear.” (insert joke here, but yes, we believe he was speaking metaphorically.)

Later, while discussing Beck’s hope people “blow the whistle on corruption,” O’Reilly got a little confused on the process. “They call you up on a special phone and tell you, ‘This is going on Beck, go get ‘em.’” We think he’s referring to the Mao Hotline, which only Anita Dunn has the number to. Unless she’s a corruption whistleblower?

Some people don’t get the “Your Moment of Glenn” posts, but they serve to illustrate a side of Glenn Beck’s show that separates him from an Alex Jones or even a Sean Hannity. Beck is a terrific entertainer, and yes, he is making points about the government and responsibility and re-founding that others in the cable news universe are not, but he does it in a way that’s through-and-through entertainment. He had a Connect Four game on his desk all show yesterday – yes, there’s a point to it, but look…it’s a Connect Four game (past board games: Hungry Hungry Hippo, Jenga). He’s done slight of hand magic tricks on the show. He’s had a guest literally faint on-air, and no one was really sure if it was part of the act or not.

If you don’t think there’s some aspect of Beck that takes pride and maybe chuckles a bit at the lengths he goes to illustrate a thought, at the boundaries he pushes, at the self-one-upsmanship that must go into the formulation of some of his segments, then you’re probably missing one of the many points Beck makes on his program.

Also discussed in the segment was the political future of Sarah Palin, which both O’Reilly and Beck agreed is “make or break” on this upcoming book tour. Here’s the full clip:

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