What didn’t FOX News want you to hear Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart say about Obama and the Tea Party?

For all the bluster, no matter whom you think is blustering (but we all know who), it's interesting to see TV personalities play the game and dance with each other to promote their new books. Such was the case again last night when The Daily Show's Jon Stewart paid another visit to Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor. Comedy Central meets FOX News. Always fun times in the No Spin Zone, right?

Well, what if the No Spin Zone is continuously spinning? Just like sometimes you look at a car tire's rims and you cannot figure out if they're spinning or not, or even maybe rotating in reverse. Maybe that's what's really going on with the Factor.

What I do know from watching the TV show last night is this: The unedited version of O'Reilly's "interview' with Stewart — I use quotes because as you watch this, you can tell that O'Reilly doesn't actually care what Stewart thinks so much as he wants to goad and jibe the satirist to prove how witty and connected the broadcaster is. O'Reilly says some really dopey things, and Stewart zings him right back on them, in a few of the moments cut from the segment that FOX News viewers saw in the broadcast.

FOX News viewers did get to hear off-camera laughter during the broadcast. But when O'Reilly suggested the Obama was somehow different in "separating himself from the regular folks," causing Stewart to turn in his chair, is cut short for TV so they don't hear O'Reilly claim that you can and he has shown up to trick-or-treat at the White House for Halloween. Of course O'Reilly has. There's also a great line Stewart gets in on O'Reilly about wearing a costume to his rally: "No, you can dress up as a guy still pretending to be blue collar." To which O'Reilly replies, smiling: "OK, fine. And that is something I do very well."

FOX News viewers also didn't hear O'Reilly claiming that "dope dealers" would be crawling all over D.C. for the Oct. 30 rallies planned by Stewart and Stephen Colbert. And where's that section where Stewart talks about what the Tea Party Republicans have done to Karl Rove, that O'Reilly tries to duck and weave away from.

So what FOX News did air? And do they get credit for showing the full unedited conversation? Or by doing so, do they merely reveal that the editing conceals 

And this is the second portion, in which O'Reilly shows he really doesn't care about the new Comedy Central book written by Stewart and his Daily Show staff.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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