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| All content taken from The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel. Each weeknight by 6 PM EST a preview of that evening's show will be posted and then updated with additional information the following weekday by noon EST.
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| Greg began Friday's program by peering over the rapidly approaching "fiscal cliff" with Republican Senator John Thune. "I'm glad the President is finally engaged," Thune said, "because you can't do big things here in Washington without presidential leadership, which is what we haven't had. At least he's now presenting something that will give us a chance to avert what everyone agrees would be a major financial disaster. But obviously there's a long way to go and it will be a tough needle to thread in order to get this done." Greg theorized that taking no action and going off the "cliff" should please many Democrats: "This is a Democratic agenda with cuts to defense and higher taxes. What's not to love if you're a Democrat? Not to psychoanalyze the President, but he seems so obsessed with the top 2% that he's disengaged himself from the bigger problem, which is that we're headed toward being Greece." |
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| FNC analyst Juan Williams and Republican strategist Alice Stewart entered the No Spin Zone with their views on the budget impasse. "I don't want to go over the cliff," Williams declared, "because I have investments and it would be absolutely traumatic for the American economy and the global economy. If President Obama starts a second term with consumer confidence sinking, that's not good news for Democrats." But Stewart agreed with Greg's theory that many Democrats would welcome the end of negotiations. "President Obama and the Democrats are in the convertible Thunderbird," she said, "ready to put the pedal to the medal and go over the cliff so they can raise taxes, cut military spending, and blame the GOP. Republicans are doing the smart thing by pointing the finger at the real problem, which is out-of-control spending. If we give the President every tax increase he wants, we're still looking at a trillion-dollar deficit." |
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| According to reports last week, four State Department officials were dismissed for their roles in the Benghazi consulate attack. But it now turns out that the workers were merely shuffled to other positions, which Greg discussed with Fox News analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters. "This is an only-in-Washington program for federal bureaucrats," Peters groused, "where the bigger your screw-up, the more chance you'll be protected and promoted. So it didn't surprise me to learn that they're still on the job because it's very hard to get rid of a Washington bureaucrat. This Benghazi thing is still simmering and the administration does not want someone to go rogue and tell the truth." Peters predicted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will likely testify about Benghazi in January. "A group of Senators, determined to get to the truth, is going to try to hold up Senator Kerry's confirmation as Secretary of State until Hillary Clinton comes to Capitol Hill and testifies under oath. She doesn't want to testify because she doesn't want anything staining her record for 2016." Greg suggested that the Obama administration has time on its side, saying, "They're waiting for this story to die down and the media is helping it to die down." |
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| Last month protesters in France, demanding that same-sex couples have full marital privileges, doffed their clothes and donned nuns' habits to show their disdain for the Catholic Church. Greg introduced Bill's recent segment about the incident with Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes. "This is the left," Crowley declared. "This happens all across Western societies and they have one objective, it's all about tearing down and destroying so they can rebuild their Marxist utopias. These are the tactics the far left has been using for decades." Colmes ridiculed Crowley's assertion and came to the defense of his fellow liberals. "You always say the 'far left' as if there's no other kind of left, and you always say people like that represent everyone who's to the left of Attila the Hun. The fact is that on issues like the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and gay marriage, the left is on the right side of history." Bill pointed to the stark contrast in tactics on display in France: "The people who want traditional marriage are peaceful, they carry their signs and they try to get their points across. Why can't the other side be peaceful as well?" |
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| Senator Diane Feinstein and other Democrats want to reinstate the "assault weapons" ban that was in effect until 2004. Greg was joined by gun rights advocate Larry Pratt, not a big fan of the proposed law. "Even though we've had a declining murder rate in the United States," Pratt said, "and even though Connecticut has the very kinds of law that Feinstein wants, somehow we're to believe this would work. These same kind of guns were used by Korean merchants when the police weren't able to protect them during the Los Angeles riots, and these same kinds of guns protected people after Hurricane Katrina. It's a pretty cavalier attitude toward human safety to say these guns are not needed." Alexis McGill Johnson, head of a liberal organization, argued that an assault weapons ban would indeed lead to greater safety. "We know that 40% of guns in this country are being sold by unlicensed dealers, so we're not getting universal background checks and the kinds of things that would help us reduce crimes. 'Assault weapons' are a very small percentage of guns, so banning them is not going make a huge difference for people who use weapons and support the Second Amendment." |
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| Greg introduced some highlights from previous "What the Heck Just Happened?" segments, which co-star Greg and Bernard McGuirk. This was Greg after Joe Biden had a close encounter with a biker chick in Ohio. "He's preparing for the White House Christmas party," he quipped, "where he is going to be Santa. I love bikers, they're either taking teddy bears to hospitals or giving meth to my uncle." Greg also weighed in on President Obama's pre-election interviews with MTV, Leno, and other soft outlets. "This is infuriating," he protested. "There is a massive scandal with four people dead and they're talking about music! It's disgusting." Just prior to Thanksgiving, McGuirk roasted PETA for comparing turkeys with dogs. "Bill, you fought the good fight in the war on Christmas," McGuirk said, "now you have to fight these giblet-brained communists. They can't tell the difference between eating Lassie and eating some yummy wild-eyed turkey! Unless you're some sicko, you don't develop an emotional attachment to a turkey." |
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| Greg ended the week with conservative columnist Michelle Fields and liberal editor Cathy Areu, who debated the future of the Tea Party movement. "Obama's election was not a loss for the Tea Party," Fields declared, "it was a loss for the Republican establishment. The Tea Party was never on board with Mitt Romney and he never embraced the Tea Party, so it wasn't a loss for the Tea Party. They still have tremendous influence; just look at John Boehner's proposals for the 'fiscal cliff,' which were rejected by conservatives on Capitol Hill because they didn't meet the Tea Party's philosophy of lower taxes and smaller government." But Areu dismissed the Tea Partiers as a dying breed. "They've lost appeal, they've lost many of their supporters, and they actually hurt the Republicans when it came to trying to win the Senate. They are losing their influence." Greg theorized why some Tea Party members are no longer quite as active: "They have jobs and they moved on. They work for a living, unlike Occupy Wall Street." |
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