President of The Harvard Crimson Bobby Samuels was the focus of a rather awkward segment Tuesday evening on the "O'Reilly Factor."
Samuels, tasked with defending a Crimson editorial lambasting O'Reilly for criticizing his alma mater, stumbled through most of the interview and appeared unprepared to rebut O'Reilly's objections:
BILL O'REILLY: Do you remember what my objection to that group was?
BOBBY SAMUELS: Um, No. I don't recall.
BILL O'REILLY: You don't recall. So maybe you were wrong in writing that I implied some kind of moral turpitude about this situation? Is it possible that you might have been wrong there?
BOBBY SAMUELS: Well, I think instead of taking a step back and looking at the overall staff editorial, it was actually not as much on the "Munch" component of it but on the pinheaded professors comment.
BILL O'REILLY: You wrote that I was implying and something we never do here. I don't imply and you can ask Alan Colmes. I state. All right. I don't imply anything. But you don't know what my objection to the "Munch" thing was. You just don't know. Even though your brother was here and defended the organization. And I will tell you what my objection was. That the Harvard student fund would pay for it, I couldn't care less whether the "Munch" people go out and do whatever they want to do. But we had a young woman, woman, a young Harvard student who said look I object to this in your face stuff in public and I don't want my student fees to be paying for it. And I think that is a reasonable position that I took up. So you don't know that, that's not good for you. Would you concede that is not the best journalism, Mr. Samuels?
BOBBY SAMUELS: Well -
BILL O'REILLY: Would you concede that or not, I don't think that's a strong argument, and we'll get to the other one in a moment.
BOBBY SAMUELS: You know, I think it's more important to talk about the staff editorial as a whole.
BILL O'REILLY: Well I'm interested in journalism. This is a journalism thing. "I'm a disloyal alumnus because I did this," and I didn't really do it. I objected to the student funds [...].