that infamous dust-up with Geraldo Rivera -- there's more than abundant evidence to back up her charges. There's a reason O'Reilly hasn't filed a libel suit, and it's not merely because he's a public figure.

The crazy thing about this is: Not only have O'Reilly's "rights" not been violated, but he is doing to Charlize Theron and Joanne Ostrow and the L.A. Times' Ann Powers (who also recently criticized him) and all of the countless parade of targets who populate his newscasts every night exactly the thing he is accusing them of doing.

He's trying to shut them up. By claiming they're trying to shut him up. And it isn't hard to figure out who started the to-and-fro in the first place.

What set him off, apparently, was this remark from Charlize Theron in response to the Prop 8 ruling:

I don't agree with homophobia or discrimination of any kind. I will continue to fight this fight for equality and speak up for the basic civil rights of all Americans.

O'Reilly asks:

"Does that include the rights of Americans who sincerely do not believe in gay marriage the right NOT to be called homophobes?"

Sorry, Bill, but no such "right" exists. Otherwise, there would be a similar "right" not to be called a "pinhead" or "Nazis" by Bill O'Reilly. And trying to claim that it does exist is in fact every bit as much an attempt to suppress the free-speech rights of the people Bill O'Reilly is criticizing.