During last night’s O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly challenged George Will to come on his show after Will published an unapologetic dismantling of ‘Killing Reagan,’ Bill O’Reilly’s latest book. While O’Reilly has faced harsh criticism from those who were close to Reagan, as well as fellow authors who have spent much of their life honoring the former president through biographies and articles, the feedback from George Will was particularly brutal.

Donald Trump is just one symptom of today’s cultural pathology of self-validating vehemence with blustery certitudes substituting for evidence. Another is the fact that the book atop the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list is a tissue of unsubstantiated assertions. Because of its vast readership, “Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency” by Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly and his collaborator, Martin Dugard, will distort public understanding of Ronald Reagan’s presidency more than hostile but conscientious scholars could.

George Will took the challenge and joined O’Reilly on his show, except it wasn’t really a show, but more of a blood bath. O’Reilly, clearly grieved by Will’s article, frequently interrupted his guest, until finally exploding near the end of the interview. 

O’Reilly then invented an obligation on Will’s part to call O’Reilly before publishing Will’s column on the book. The book is the issue. The book, as they say, speaks for itself. Unfortunately for O’Reilly, Will has read the book.

Will didn’t have the opportunity to say much, but he really didn’t have to. O’Reilly thinks indignation is a form of argument. When he tries to mount an argument, he is betrayed by internal contradiction, as Will cruelly points out.

O’Reilly’s show has become a franchise at FOX News, but he needs an intervention. Unable to mount an argument in defense of his book, O’Reilly angrily calls Will “a hack.” This is a form of argument or error that falls under the category of ad hominem. In this case, however, I think it would be more accurate to describe it in psychological terms as projection.

Watch the segment below:

George Will was able to get in a few points here and there. 

O’Reilly confronted him on a bunch of statements from people close to Reagan to refute what Will was saying and accused Will of “actively misleading people.” Will shot back by saying O’Reilly’s “something of an expert” in that field.

Well, at about twenty seconds in all I could say was, “Well, that escalated quickly.” Apparently O’Reilly didn’t want to have a discussion, he wanted to yell at George Will. While a phone call would have sufficed, it did make for some interesting television. I’m team George Will on this one, anyone citing Kitty Kelly, a woman known as the “consummate gossip monger,” should be called into question – especially when it comes to the upstanding reputation of The Gipper.