Quote of the Day

"Torture, my ass."—The always-charming Bill O'Reilly, on whether waterboarding constitutes torture, in the middle of a rant about how exasperated he is with the people who insist on regarding it as torture and thus support investigations into its use.

Newsday Columnist Ellis Henican: Why are so insistent on politicizing this? Why don't we let the [crosstalk]—

O'Reilly: I'm politicizing this?

Ellis: Yes. Why don't we let the professionals—

O'Reilly: Leahy is the guy calling for it! MoveOn and Soros!

Ellis: We've got politicians on both sides of it yelping, but you're a man who ought to have some values that we share—

O'Reilly: I do.

Ellis: —and those values [crosstalk]

O'Reilly: I do. Here's my value: I would have done exactly what Bush did.

Ellis: You disappoint me.

O'Reilly: Exactly.

Ellis: You disappoint me. You know better.

O'Reilly: I woulda dumped that guy in the water a thousand times to save your life!

Ellis: You learned the same—

O'Reilly: YOU!

Ellis: You learned the same thing from the nuns that I did—

O'Reilly: Yeah, yeah.

Ellis: —that expediency does not justify doing something wrong.

O'Reilly: Expediency!

Ellis: Something that's wrong. Waterboarding people!

O'Reilly: To save your life, I woulda dunked the guy in the water!

Ellis: You're coming out for torture now?!

O'Reilly: Torture, my ass.

Ellis: Torture?! TORTURE?!

O'Reilly: Bleep that word. All right, Ellis. Calm down. [to camera] We'll waterboard Ellis in a moment.

Ellis: [laughs]