Bill O’Reilly: ‘Enemies’ trying to hurt my book
On Monday night Bill O'Reilly is set to further address the allegations against his book. | AP Photo Close
By
MACKENZIE WEINGER | 11/14/11 4:03 PM EST
Updated: 11/14/11 11:50 PM EST
Bill O’Reilly strongly defended his best-selling “Killing Lincoln” book on Monday after the Ford’s Theatre bookstore refused to sell it because of alleged historical inaccuracies.
The Fox News host told POLITICO that the attack on his book about President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination is “a concerted effort by people who don’t like me to diminish the book.”
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In a historical review of “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever,” Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site deputy Superintendent Rae Emerson on Saturday slammed the book’s “lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication.”
As a result, she recommended the National Park Service not stock “Killing Lincoln” on the shop’s shelves at Ford’s Theatre.
O’Reilly said he was speaking out about the controversy because “you ignore most of it, but we were getting a little bit tired.”
He also shot back at Emerson’s claims about the book’s mistakes, saying there are just four errors in his 325-page work — and two of those are typos.
The alleged mistakes by O’Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard start in the prologue and are found in other places in the book, according to
Emerson’s analysis published in The Washington Post on Saturday. O’Reilly claims Ford’s Theatre burned to the ground in 1863, but it actually happened on Dec. 30, 1862. He writes several times over that Lincoln held meetings or sat in the Oval Office — a nice image. It turns out, however, that the West Wing’s Oval Office wasn’t built until 1909, during President William Howard Taft’s administration, Emerson wrote.
On Monday night’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” the Fox personality is set to further address the allegations against his historical work.
“That’s a pretty good record even for nitpickers who want to hurt the book,” O’Reilly will say on the air, according to the script obtained by POLITICO.
“By the way, there are now more than 1 million copies of ‘Killing Lincoln’ in print, and the book continues to sell briskly,” O’Reilly will also say, calling the book “honest” and saying all students should read it. “We well understand our enemies are full of rage at our success.”
And as for Emerson, O’Reilly said he’s invited the NPS employee to make an appearance on his show. “I would love to talk with her,” O’Reilly says, according to the script.
For those trying to buy O’Reilly’s book at Ford’s Theatre, it’s a case of upstairs, downstairs.
While there had been
initial reports that the theater where Lincoln was shot had banned the best-seller from being sold at the site because of claims of historical inaccuracies, the museum is still offering the book in one of its shops, Ford’s Theatre publicist Lauren Beyea said.
How that works, Beyea noted, stems from the fact that the National Park Service and the Ford’s Theatre Society operate the site in a joint public-private partnership — and that means what’s sold in the lobby shop is a different story from what’s available in the basement store.
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