Bill O'Reilly Blames The 'Far-Left Machine' For Getting NBC's Drone Story Wrong

Fox News

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly gave a mea culpa on his show Thursday night for bizarrely suggesting the night before that NBC had not reported on a story it had broke about President Barack Obama's controversial policy on drone strikes.

O'Reilly didn't exactly give an apology. He tried to explain it away by blaming the "far-left machine" trying to "marginalize me." He said that he "wasn't talking about" what everyone thought he was talking about.

Here's his confusing monologue from Thursday night:

"Last night, I talked with Bob Beckel about the difference in analysis on the subject of waterboarding as compared to killing people with drones, a policy President Obama embraces. I put forth that at NBC News and other media places, they were hysterical over waterboarding but muted over President Obama’s drone attacks, at least until yesterday.

"Immediately the far-left machine cranked up. 'O'Reilly didn’t say that NBC News broke the drone memo story! He’s a deceiver!' True. I didn’t say NBC broke the memo story — because we weren’t talking about that! Waterboarding vs. drone strikes. So once again, we have a propaganda campaign designed to make ignorant people on the left even more ignorant.

"Factor tip of the day: Don't deal with loons."

That said, O'Reilly hasn't exactly been a leading campaigner against Obama's policy on drone strikes. He mentioned it briefly last April while discussing a "60 Minutes" segment on waterboarding. And during a debate with Jon Stewart in October, he held up a sign that said, "Drones. Yes. Waterboards. No."

Here's the clip of O'Reilly from Thursday night: