O’Reilly? Yes, Really The Combative Bill O’Reilly Strikes A Chord On The Air And With A New Best Seller

Back in the Golden Age of television, network newsmen would give their reports - and then shut up.

The only personal flourishes were Edward R. Murrow’s cigarettes and Huntley and Brinkley’s sign-off: “Goodnight, Chet.” “Goodnight, David.”

But these days, you’re nobody if you don’t have a show, a shtick and a hefty book deal. Which helps explain such recent literary offerings as Tom Brokaw on the greatest generation, Peter Jennings on the greatest century, Larry King on the greatest guests - and, now, Bill O’Reilly on drugs, dating and Janet Jackson?

Let the others tackle the cosmic stuff. The 51-year-old host of “The O’Reilly Factor” (the cable TV show) insists that “The O’Reilly Factor” (the book) comes from the heart, not from some self-indulgent need to join the pundit-packaging sweepstakes.

Indeed, the man who loudly and regularly ridicules all manner of sanctimony has subtitled his book “The Good, the Bad and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life” (Broadway Books, $23). He fills its 214 pages with his takes on just about everything that tickles - or rankles - him.

Celebrity culture? “Fame contributes so little of value to society,” he writes.

Yuppie children? “We seem to believe - and they certainly agree! - that they must have everything we did not have.”

Rosie O’Donnell? “Ros-ie, come on, let’s think out your flaky liberal agenda a little.”

It’s struck enough of a chord to top The New York Times’ nonfiction best-seller list for the past six weeks.

“I’ve had this book on the drawing board for 15 years,” O’Reilly says in his standard-issue beige office at Fox News.

“Fifteen years ago, my father was on his deathbed, and he said to me, `My one regret in life is that I didn’t fulfill my potential.’ He was born in Brooklyn, he went to Lincoln High School, his father was a cop and (he) was an accountant.

“He bought into the system, and the system didn’t treat him well. I decided that if I ever reached a position of prominence in this country, that I would write a book that told working-class people what the rules of the game really are, not the myths that the elite media throw at you.”

This son of Levittown, N.Y., has done so well, some might include him among the media elite.

After years of struggling for recognition, he’s not only cracked the best-seller list, his TV show nosed out archrival Larry King in October and November (though the Nielsen ratings people say that’s true only if you don’t count the 25 million homes that carry CNN and not Fox).

In person, the 6-foot-4 O’Reilly is far less bombastic than he comes across on camera, though he tends to speak in italics and strong, declarative sentences.

For all his combativeness, though, O’Reilly doesn’t see his role as being a national provocateur.

“I give you information, and then I analyze the information: Here’s what the Supreme Court said today, and what are we going to do to get out of this? But there’s just so much untruthfulness and manipulation out there, and I’m not going to stand for it. I’m just not going to stand for it.”

O’Reilly, who warns guests they’re in a “no-spin zone,” refuses to be pinned down by political labels, claiming he’s neither liberal nor conservative. But a search of voter registration rolls in Nassau County, where he lives, showed he has been a registered Republican since 1994 - something he insists he was not aware of until a reporter pointed it out. Clearly rattled, he called the Nassau County of Board of Elections to change his registration to what he contends it should have been all along: “I am now officially an independent.”

O’Reilly paints himself as a common man beholden to no one, still rooted in the suburbs of his youth. He pads around his office in black chinos and a blue work shirt, and says the stylish Arnold Brandt suits he wears on the air are courtesy of Fox. But he lives in a gracious Colonial in one of the leafiest communities on the North Shore, where the local mall includes Barneys, Prada, Burberry and Armani. And though he insists he buys only “pre-owned” cars, his is a Lexus.

He doesn’t apologize. “I live in a modest home - it’s not a mansion,” says the man who once scolded “60 Minutes” correspondent Morley Safer for cutting the line at the CBS commissary. “I live way below my means. My mother still lives in Levittown.”

Whether you take his self-assessment at face value, there’s no doubt that for O’Reilly, something’s working. The question now is where his unpolished polish will take him.

“I want to be the top-rated show,” he says. “When we started, there were 10 in front of us.”

As for political office, the man who once said he wanted to take on Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2006 - and who sits with a Hillary doormat at his feet - isn’t sure.

“I won’t run for office until they change the campaign finance stuff,” he says. “And then, what party would I run in? … I’m against the death penalty - are the Republicans going to go for that? I want a big-government watchdog over environmental issues. I want gun control. There are just so many issues I come down on against both parties that it would be hard for either one to embrace me.”

Which, of course, is exactly where O’Reilly wants it.

Two sidebars appeared with the story: 1. Tune in

“The O’Reilly Factor” airs daily at 5 and 8 p.m., also repeating at various other times, on Fox News Channel.

2. O’Reilly tells us a few of his least favorite things

President Clinton: “This man did tremendous damage to our country, but many of our fellow citizens were too busy watching `Buffy, the Vampire Slayer’ and professional `wrestling’ to figure that out.”

SUV drivers: “As her little kids freeze in terror, Mom weaves in and out of traffic, flipping the bird to anyone who doesn’t like it.”

Al Sharpton and David Duke: “If God has a sense of humor, they will be sharing a sauna in the netherworld. With one thermostat.”

The thin crowd: “I am sending Kate (Moss) and Calista (Flockhart) giant porterhouse steaks.”

Tattoos: “They say, `Beneath these silly pictures and slogans on my skin, I’m a dunce.”’

Skin piercing: “Listen up here: I know who is doing the hiring in America. They don’t like body piercing! Okay?”

Sean (Puffy) Combs: “He makes millions and millions from catering to antisocial tastes with mind-numbing rap music, then he runs out to the Hamptons to party with the likes of Martha Stewart and Donald Trump.”

Martha Stewart: “A first-rate con artist.”

“The O’Reilly Factor”