Ah, Bill O’Reilly. Whether he’s bragging about how much money he makes each year or letting Hillary Clinton emasculate him on national TV, this is a man who never shies away from controversy.

Or from being a complete blowhard.

Just the same, this old school, behind-the-scenes clip from Bill’s days on Inside Edition is frightening (and hilarious) even by his high (low) standards.

Apparently some poor sap was screwing up on the teleprompter. Bill O’Reilly goes through several takes, then absolutely loses his $h!t.

WARNING: Clip of ass clown may contain profanity and induce laughter.

Classic Bill O’Reilly: More hair, same temper.

If you missed “tough guy” Bill’s recent interview with Hillary Clinton, you can watch Hill rough his punk a$$ up here in parts I and II.

Ding, ding! Democratic insiders and CNN contributors Paul Begala and Donna Brazile went at it May 6, the night of the North Carolina and Indiana primaries.

Brazile, a Barack Obama supporter, took issue in particular with a remark by Begala - a Clintonite - that Obama needs to build more than just a coalition of “eggheads and African-Americans,” a.k.a. the Michael Dukakis vote.

Not sure why it’s so addicting to watch talking heads debate the same things for months on end, but watch Donna Brazile - the manager of Al Gore’s campaign for the White House in 2000 - lay the smack down on Begala…

“We now know who the [Democratic] nominee will be” and there are “no ifs, ands or buts about it,” Tim Russert said last night on MSNBC.

After last night’s North Carolina and Indiana primaries, the Hillary Clinton is bordering on life support, even if it’s not quite game over.

Here’s what Tim Russert had to say about it.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was interviewed Monday on CNBC’s Morning Joe, from Greenville, N.C., about the current Gas Tax “war” Between herself and Barack Obama, as well as other issues dominating the 2008 presidential race.

Mika Brzezinsky then questioned Hillary Clinton about the tax and Tiki Barber later jumped in to discuss the “Comeback Kid” and the confidence level question as she prepares for the Indiana and North Carolina primaries…

A few days after Barack Obama presented the Top 10 Surprising Facts About Barack Obama, his rival, Hilary Clinton, appeared on the Late Show and delivered the Top 10 Reasons Hilary Clinton Loves America.

Seriously, Tivo? Not one but two Dakotas? Teddy Roosevelt? 232 years and never a cookie shortage? Is this a great country or what!

A funny HRC mocked David Letterman (”Apparently, anyone can get a talk show”) as well as herself, making the obligatory pantsuit joke on his behalf.

It isn’t every night that “celebrities” like Ashlee Simpson, Lauren Conrad and the Jonas Brothers descend on Washington, D.C., though many of them match the intellectual level of our chief executive (a frightening but true thought).

Those stars - along with Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Marcia Cross and Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick - were guests at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night in Washington.

President George W. Bush and Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson poked fun at themselves, the celebrities, and all three presidential candidates in front of an audience of the Washington press corps at the annual gala.

“Pamela Anderson and Mitt Romney in the same room?” Bush said. “Isn’t that one of the signs of the apocalypse?”

Bush also joked about his daughter Jenna Bush, and her May 10 wedding to fiancé Henry Hager - likening her to John McCain.

“Senator [John] McCain’s not here,” the president told the audience.

“He probably wanted to distance himself from me a little bit. You know, he’s not alone. Jenna’s moving out too.”

Jenna Bush, for her part, has indicated that she may not support McCain in this November’s election. Henry Hager is a former aide to Karl Rove.

President Bush later added, “Hillary Clinton couldn’t get in because of sniper fire and Sen. [Barack] Obama’s at church.”

During Craig Ferguson’s speech, he joked to the president, “By the way, Mr. President, you were fantastic on Deal or No Deal.”

Boy. How badly does the New York Times want to retract its Hillary Clinton endorsement from earlier this year? Why won’t it just say so overtly?

Maybe it doesn’t have to. Its scathing editorial from yesterday, “The Low Road to Victory,” which criticizes the New York Senator’s negative tactics in the Pennsylvania campaign, leaves no other conclusion.

While the New York Times‘ own credibility is suspect at this point, you have to wonder about the toll this protracted, increasingly bitter campaign is taking.

It’s nearing the point where the damage may be impossible to undo.

Here’s the piece from Wednesday’s paper, which also criticizes Barack Obama for falling victim to the negative tone set by Clinton, but compares the former First Lady to George W. Bush and Karl Rove (seriously) …

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Pennsylvania primary, which produced yet another inconclusive result Tuesday night, was even meaner, vacuous, desperate, and filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction.

Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race.

It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1.

But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11.

A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden.

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.

Continue reading this article …

While most of the media attention focused on Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the U.S. was overwhelmingly positive, one TV show host’s choice words for the pope and the Catholic Church landed him in hot water.

Maher, host of Real Time on HBO, spouted off a rant on his April 11 live show that had many calling for his resignation. Bill went off on the pope and Catholics everywhere, stating among other things that:

• The Catholic Church “a child-abusing religious cult.”
• Pope Benedict “used to be a Nazi.”
• The Catholic Church is “the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia.”
• Pope Benedict “wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the statute of limitations ran out.”
• The Catholic Church’s attitude is, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”

This is a shame, because in the past, Maher has often made lucid points and said things few others will. But he’s crossed the line. Any legitimate criticism is overshadowed by offensive, over-the-top rants like this.

A non-apologetic apology from Bill Maher only stoked the fire. After the backlash, the host” offered an apology on his April 18 show:

“So, on that score, you know what, my Catholic friends, I will never make the ‘pope is a Nazi’ joke again. Because, you’re technically right, OK, and also because it distracts from the main point. And the main point I was making was that if the pope, instead of a religious figure, was the CEO of a chain of nationwide day care centers who had thousands of employees who had been caught molesting children and then covering it up, he would have been in jail.”

Riiight. Very sincere as you can tell. What might have been a commentary on the church’s corruption and hypocrisy has now devolved into an offensive name-calling binge. As a result, a pro-life Roman Catholic group, the American Life League, has launched a new website calling for Bill Maher’s ouster.

Since its launch, Fire Bill Maher has received many hits. Time will tell if Maher’s political incorrectness means he hits the road - for good.

What do you think? Should HBO fire Bill Maher?

A day after their contentious Pennsylvania debate, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both appeared on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

Host Stephen Colbert remarked that former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards - who dropped out of the race before Super Tuesday - won the debate.

In any event, Obama’s addition to Colbert’s famed “On Notice” board, where he calls out various people and inanimate objects that have drawn his ire, got us thinking of all the stuff we’d like to put on notice lately.

Thanks to this terrific On Notice board generator, we were able to!

1. The McCain Girls were outed as a hoax. Which is funny, but also sad, as we were hoping they really were that unfunny.
2. Forget rural Pennsylvania voters clinging to guns or religion… how effing annoying is it when your socks stick to the rest of your clothes when you take them out of the dryer?
3. Ah, bad credit home loans. Two years ago, a gateway to homeownership, now the scourge of the financial world. Way to get greedy and screw over the whole country, Florida mortgage brokers.
4. The 27 million (to date) Democratic primary voters only represent 3,253 of the 4,049 delegates to the convention. The 796 “superdelegates” are thus 33,913 times more important than you. Let’s hear it for democracy!
5. Not only were George Stephanopoulos’ debate questions dreadful, but his name is so hard to spell, it costs us valuable blogging time daily.
6. As liberals, the obligatory remarks about Ralph Nader costing Al Gore the White House in 2000 will surface from time to time. Deal.
7. Really, Cindy McCain? The Food Network? You don’t have friends you can steal recipes from like everyone else?
8. Forget the ’60s radical group… the ’00s iteration of Weather Underground never gets its forecasts right more than 24 hours in advance.

Now that Donkey Dish has whet your appetite for political punditry, check out what other media sources (mainstream and otherwise) had to say about last night’s debacle debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia…

• What about us? The Philadelphia Daily News‘ irate Will Bunch penned an open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos, lambasting their inane “issue” questions and trivial wastes of valuable time.

• According to Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic, it was a lifeless, drained and dreary Obama turning in his worst performance yet. Yes, he’s up against the Clinton wood-chipper, but he wilted painfully.

• The Politico’s Ben Smith has two critical points: 1. Didn’t those quotes from the Constitution really set the tone? 2. How much money will Obama raise off supporters’ perception that this debate was unfair? [NOTE: No fewer than three emails from the Barack Obama campaign have been received by one of our contributors in the past 12 hours].

Hillary Clinton shields her eyes. Last night’s debate made us wince, as well.

• Joe Sudbay of the Americablog says it was, quite simply, the worst. Debate. Ever. The level of discourse has reached a new low - a very new low. Obama did fine, but it was a disaster for our political system.

• Was this debate Barack Obama’s Waterloo? Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey feels Obama was exposed as an empty suit, while Hillary cleaned his clock, and the real winner, John McCain, didn’t even have to show up.

• If either candidate hoped to score a clear victory, writes Peter Canellos of the Boston Globe, those hopes evaporated as ABC’s harsh questions on their personal “gaffes” and connections threw them both off.

• There are only two ways Clinton can win, Stephen Spruiell of the National Review reminds us - overcome Barack Obama’s lead in pledged delegates, or win the votes of the superdelegates. Both are extremely unlikely.