Ailes Defends O'Reilly

By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/24/2006 9:23:00 PM

Fox News Channel Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes responded Monday to Keith Olbermann’s shots at his network’s Bill O’Reilly over the weekend.

After first saying he didn’t want to comment, Ailes went on to stick up for O’Reilly.

“Clearly he has no viewers except those he gets when he attacks Fox News,” Ailes says of MSNBC’s Olbermann. “He’s made himself committed to continuing to attack Bill and, therefore, his family and I really think that’s over the line.... It seems like the use of corporate assets for personal vendettas.”

Olbermann had used a Saturday-morning breakfast session at the Television Critics Association press tour to fire yet another shot at O’Reilly, holding up an O’Reilly mask while raising his right arm in a Nazi salute to mock his on-air rival. 

Fox's Ailes refused to comment directly on the action, or what his reaction would be if one of his staffers did something similar.