Maddow responded both to O'Reilly's comments on his own show, The O'Reilly Factor, and also comments he made in a syndicated column which was read nationally in a number of highly respected metropolitan dailies.
"This time the case against me is in his nationally-syndicated column, which I'm sure is read by millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of people," she said, mocking O'Reilly's attitude, which simply reeks of his own over-inflated sense of self-importance, to dismiss arguments against him.
O'Reilly's comments were triggered by a comment Maddow made on David Letterman's show where she called the people at Fox News 'slimeballs'.
"Remember, Mr. O'Reilly says there is not a shred of evidence that Fox News hypes stories about scary black people taking white people's stuff," she said.
"I am not interested in playing cable news insult ping-pong with Mr. O'Reilly, but as much as he keeps insisting that I'm no one worth arguing with, that I'm an 'uber-leftist' -- he called me that in his column -- and a loon twice now, and a slightly larger percentage of 1% of the population watches his show than the proportion of 1% of the population that watches my show, for all he complains about how unimportant I am, my criticism that Fox News scares white people on purpose to politically benefit conservatives -- damn the consequences for the country -- that criticism appears to have struck a nerve over at Fox. It appears to have gotten under Mr. O'Reilly's skin," she concluded. "Good."
