Bill O'Reilly For Debate Moderator

(MarketWatch)  Presidential debates are such anticlimactic affairs, in which ultra-cautious candidates invariably fail to connect with millions of American voters watching at home.

I don't know about you, but I had more questions about what John McCain and Barack Obama stood for AFTER their first debate than I did beforehand.

Want to give the whole debate process -- not to mention the politicians themselves -- a much-needed kick in the pants? How about letting Bill O'Reilly anchor one of these snoozers?

O'Reilly is the host of Fox News Channel's long-running "The O'Reilly Factor," the perennially top-rated show in cable news. (Fox, like MarketWatch, the publisher of this column, is a unit of News Corp. .)

"I'd love to host the debates," O'Reilly said Wednesday afternoon at the Fox News headquarters. "A lot of people would watch."

O'Reilly respects the journalists who have served as moderators, but carps (as I do) that they "are too nice." He grinned and said with characteristic bluster, "I'd be, 'What do you mean?!'"

Whether you love O'Reilly's brand of in-your-face interviewing or think he's way over the top, he has an undeniable presence on TV. O'Reilly insists on doing it his way. He said he'd stress "close-quarter questioning" and wouldn't let the candidates "give rehearsed answers."

It's an intriguing scenario: O'Reilly pushing the circumspect candidates to speak their minds.

"I think you'd double the audience," he said.

Chutzpah

That's vintage O'Reilly: challenging conventional wisdom and trying to help viewers connect with a larger world outside their living rooms.

If you wonder where his confidence -- or is it chutzpah? -- comes from, check out his interesting new book, "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity." The title stems from something an exasperated teacher at St. Brigid's parochial school in Westbury, N.Y., once said about a very young O'Reilly. (And he's still obstreperous after all these years.)

One of the shrewdest people in the TV business, he knows people tune in to his show to be entertained as much as informed.

"I want to tap into the emotion of the day," he said. "That's No.1. I'm giving people a look at the day in America."

The pacing of the show is significant, too. "It's quick," he observed. "We move it along."

Naturally, many of his rivals on other news shows have tried, with no success, to get better ratings by ripping off his aggressive approach to broadcasting.

Some say the reason for O'Reilly's popularity is his ability to galvanize conservative viewers. I don't see it exactly that way. I'd counter by saying that the keys to his success are his show's freshness and originality.

Sure, he loves to stick his finger in the eye of the establishment, but so did Mike Wallace in his glory days at "60 Minutes," whose network, CBS , has faced countless charges of having a liberal bias.

When I asked him to comment on his notorious feuds with other journalists, he said the media don't "want to be held accountable by some punk named O'Reilly."

It's really all about giving the news a little pizzazz as a way to find and keep an audience and boost ratings. O'Reilly cites the show's commitment to "straight talk" and stresses that "The Factor" is "not ideological."

O'Reilly also has little patience for people who insist he's a bully who gets his kicks by cutting down his guests. "I'm not here to try to humiliate people," he said.

It's an accomplishment to be No. 1 in the television ratings -- but it's remarkable to stay there year after year. As O'Reilly points out in "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity," he has always stayed true to his modest Levittown, N.Y., roots and the traditional values he learned there.

O'Reilly also said:

"I don't watch [MSNBC nemesis Keith Olbermann]. It's like the New York Yankees paying attention to the Pawtucke Red Sox."

Journalism schools "are too ideological now."

He'd like to interview the Pope someday, owing in part to "the good Catholic boy" that he is.

It took him "six years to feel comfortable" on TV.

Critics' charges that Fox is a tool of the right wing are "garbage" and an "excuse for failure" by less successful journalists.

If Katie Couric had Oprah Winfrey as a lead-in for her evening news show, Couric would "be No. 1" in her time slot

When Obama defeated Sen. Hillary Clinton, "I was shocked."

Now, the million-dollar question: Will O'Reilly vote for Obama or McCain?

He smiled: "I vote for the person who I feel will do the least amount of damage."
By Jon Friedman