O'Reilly Producer Defends 'Lynching' Remark

Okay, so "lynching party" may not be the best choice of words to use when discussing a black Presidential candidate and his wife. But don't expect Bill O'Reilly to apologize, a la David "Pimped" Shuster and Mark "Pussy" Halperin.

In fact, O'Reilly was defending Michelle Obama, who's taking some heat herself over comments she made to Newsweek, when he used that term -- a fact his executive producer, David Tabacoff, made when I contact Fox News for a comment.

"What Bill said was an obvious repudiation of anyone attacking Michelle Obama," he said, via email. "As he has said more than ten times, he is giving her the benefit of the doubt."

Here's the relevant portion of the transcript, from yesterday's edition of O'Reilly's radio show:

O'REILLY: You know, I have a lot of sympathy for Michelle Obama, for Bill Clinton, for all of these people. Bill Clinton, I have sympathy for him, because they're thrown into a hopper where everybody is waiting for them to make a mistake, so that they can just go and bludgeon them. And, you know, Bill Clinton and I don't agree on a lot of things, and I think I've made that clear over the years, but he's trying to stick up for his wife, and every time the guy turns around, there's another demagogue or another ideologue in his face trying to humiliate him because they're rooting for Obama.

That's wrong. And I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down.

That's via Media Matters, which knows a thing or two about lynchings -- it makes a point of having interns listen to every O'Reilly broadcast in hopes of catching him in a career-ending slip of the tongue. But this, while embarrassing, won't be that slip.