Via APNews:

NEW YORK (AP) – Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly said Wednesday his critics took remarks he made about a famed Harlem restaurant out of context and “fabricated a racial controversy where none exists.” He criticized the liberal group Media Matters for America as “smear merchants” for publicizing statements he made on his radio show last week.

Here’s the thing, I read the transcript and you can make a strong argument he is being smeared. Too bad for him.

It’s no surprise, Bill O’Reilly, that you don’t like the technique when it’s used on you. But, it’s a standard technique used by you and others at Fox “not” News to make their points. Excuse me for having zero sympathy for you on this issue. Live by the smear, die by the smear.

The only down side of this incident is, I don’t think it will cost him any viewers. The offended population wasn’t his demographic in the first place.