Fox News' Wilson falsely claimed that O'Reilly said "confrontation" with Obama staffer was "just verbal"

On the January 5 edition of Fox News' Weekend Live, discussing an incident between Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and Marvin Nicholson, a staffer for Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), at an event in Nashua, New Hampshire, anchor Brian Wilson said that "Obama staffers now say the confrontation got physical," but that O'Reilly "says it was heated but just verbal." Wilson then aired a clip from an interview he had conducted with O'Reilly earlier in the program, in which O'Reilly claimed: "I might have called him an SOB. That's possible ... but nothing more than that." In the clip Wilson aired, O'Reilly was responding to Wilson's question, "Were there any profanities uttered?" In fact, while O'Reilly denied there had been a "scuffle" during the same interview, he also repeatedly said that he had "removed" or "gently removed" Nicholson from in front of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor's camera.

Other media reports described O'Reilly's confrontation with Nicholson as physical. Slate.com's John Dickerson reported in a January 5 article that O'Reilly "shoved" Nicholson:

At first, the railing where O'Reilly stood wasn't very populated. Then, as the Obama team saw who was laying in wait, they started to huddle. Staffers started to arrive at the scene. Three policemen showed up, too. One of them stood in front of O'Reilly until O'Reilly asked him to move. One of Obama's staffers, Marvin Nicholson, took up the same post, standing in front of the Fox camera as Obama neared the door.

"You're blocking our shot," yelled O'Reilly.

"Oh, am I?" asked the Obama staffer, not entirely sincerely, and not moving.

This is not a new trick. When staffers block you because you're being too aggressive, the standard thing to do is give them a little business and then move to another spot. O'Reilly didn't do this. He shoved the Obama aide. There was an exchange and a little more shoving. I didn't fully capture it because as I looked at O'Reilly in his black leather Fox jacket, which resembled the kind we wore during football season in high school, I swore I could hear him challenge the staffer to a rumble out by the drive-in......

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