Fox News

Bill O’Reilly is on the West Coast, and after taping his show in LA yesterday, he dropped by “The Tonight Show.” O’Reilly and Jay Leno talked politics, including what might come up at tonight’s CNN debate: “CNN is definitely going to bear-bait him into this contraception thing, there’s no doubt,” said O’Reilly of Rick Santorum. And on whether Sarah Palin might jump into the race: “The governor is happy where she is, making a fortune on the Fox News Channel and shooting moose, or doing whatever she’s doing,” O’Reilly joked.

Leno and O’Reilly also talked about the coverage of the death of Whitney Houston, O’Reilly’s defense of Ellen DeGeneres and his appearance on “Saturday Night Live” during “What’s Up with That?” Watch:

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Tonight at 9 PM, Brit Hume will host a one-hour special on former President George H.W. Bush. The special, which FNC says will have “never before heard stories,” will look at his long career in public service.

It will also note his amazing annual tradition of jumping out of an airplane, well into his 80′s:

Fox News correspondent Kris Gutierrez is leaving the network to join WBBM, the CBS-owned local station in Chicago.

Gutierrez joined Fox News in 2007 as a Dallas-based correspondent. In a statement announcing his hire, CBS Chicago news director Jeff Kiernan praised Gutierrez for having “an incredible depth of news experience — on a local and national level.”

TVSpy reports Gutierrez will start as CBS Chicago’s morning anchor on March 12.

Our sister blog GalleyCat has the news that Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly has signed a new book deal, following on the success of his last book Killing Lincoln. As part of the deal, O’Reilly will co-write Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot with Martin Dugard.

He will also write a book on Abraham Lincoln targeting younger readers. It is expected to serve as something of a companion to Killing Lincoln.

“As with most baby boomers, the murder of JFK was a signature moment in my life … Killing Kennedy will answer many questions about the president and why his life was cut short,” said O’Reilly in a statement.

Read more at GalleyCat.

Sarah Palin made it The Six on Fox News’s “The Five” tonight.

“Just in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by,” said Palin who talked about her son Trig getting new glasses, referred to Greg Gutfeld as “Gut” and demurred when Andrea Tantaros asked if she’d run again: “I don’t know…”

The drop-in also revealed that Palin seemed to be buttering up resident liberal Bob Beckel as she gave him a box of chocolates yesterday. “This young lady called me a doofus,” said Beckel to Palin. “But she was nice enough to own up to it. And I will say, once in a while I’ve used a few words about you. But we’ll put that all under the table won’t we?”

When “The Five” signed off, “Special Report” went on the air with Atlanta-based FNC correspondent John Roberts in for Bret Baier. This Is Roberts’ first time filling in on the 6pmET show.

Tucker Carlson — one of a few who’ve managed the cable news tri-fecta: working for CNN, MSNBC and now Fox News — continues his series about Media Matters, today looking into the tax-exempt status of the organization. Much of the series has to do with Media Matters attempts to delegitimize Fox News, so Carlson has been getting plenty of air time on Fox News with appearances on “Fox & Friends” Monday and Tuesday and last night on “The O’Reilly Factor,” as well as numerous stories on other FNC programs.

Fox News told Mediaite they are not coordinating with Carlson on his series, adding they have “no idea what Tucker’s motivation is in on the timing of this.”

Tuesday on “The Five,” the five discussed how Media Matters had planned to make their fight very personal.

In the second part of his series into the group Media Matters, Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson reveals a memo from Sept. 2009 that suggests the group was prepared to dig up dirt on Fox News employees. Carlson claims the memo with its cloak & dagger style scenarios came from Karl Frisch, an MMFA contributor:

“We must take Fox News head-on in a well funded, presidential-style campaign to discredit and embarrass the network, making it illegitimate in the eyes of news consumers.” What Frisch proceeded to suggest, however, went well beyond what legitimate presidential campaigns attempt. “We should hire private investigators to look into the personal lives of Fox News anchors, hosts, reporters, prominent contributors, senior network and corporate staff,” he wrote.

Like yesterday, Carlson was back on “Fox & Friends” this morning discussing his findings. But as FishbowlDC found out, the report had its share of technical difficulties.

Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson got some plum airtime this morning to talk about his site’s weeklong series into Media Matters, which Fox & Friends anchor Steve Doocy calls, “the liberal blog dedicated to destroying Fox News.” In his first story on Daily Caller, Carlson reports, “The group operates in regular coordination with the highest levels of the Obama White House.”

Carlson spoke to current and former Media Matters staffers for his report. One former employee told him, “We pretty write their primetime” speaking of MSNBC. Carlson says the former staffer added: “We call Phil Griffin, the head of MSNBC, he takes our call.” Carlson spent three years at MSNBC, including as a host in primetime. As the network started a shift to the left, his show was canceled and his contract was allowed to expire. Carlson, who earlier in his career co-hosted “Crossfire” on CNN, joined Fox News in 2009. He launched Daily Caller in January, 2010.

Megyn Kelly took on a controversial issue on today’s “America Live,” reporting on a new study that finds spanking children leads to “emotional problems and aggression.” After admitting that she was spanked as a child — and playing a string of some of her most heated on-air incidents — Kelly turned to “a very special expert” on the subject: her mother.

Watch (at the 2:45 mark):

On his show tonight, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz promises to tackle the Twit-scuffle he found himself in this afternoon with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity.

Last night, Hannity was talking with Frank Luntz about Pres. Obama’s electability, and how the campaign will use the killing of Osama bin Laden to its advantage. But Hannity added this: “But it wouldn’t have happened if he had his way and that can be proven, as well, on tape.”

That, led to this, on Twitter:

> Update: After the jump, Schultz’s segment from Wednesday night…

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