4. Bill O'Reilly vs Al Franken
Al Franken and Bill O'Reilly shared a podium at BookExpo America in Los Angeles in 2003 to promote their upcoming books and the event was broadcast on C-SPAN, which means you can catch this on YouTube. Al Franken speaks first about his tome Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right (an obvious referencing of Fox News) and, as a former writer for Saturday Night Live, he is very funny: eliciting loud laughs from the well-appointed, good-humoured audience. Franken then relates an anecdote in which he caught O'Reilly in a lie as he had claimed in three separate interviews to have won not one, but two prestigious Peabody awards for distinguished achievement in broadcasting. As Franken details the forensic unravelling of the subterfuge - by contacting Peabody Board who confirmed, with a laugh, that this was patently untrue - Bill leans back in his chair and swishes his pen about like a hunting knife, occasionally stabbing at the table top. His violent intent is etched in every line on his face. You can see him visualising the very moment he jams his Bic biro up through Franken's left nostril and into the soft brain tissue. "Dont you think its odd you got it wrong about a journalism award? teases Franken towards the end of his turn at the mic. O'Reilly is utterly defeated and demoralised by Franken's presentation and doesn't even bother going to the lectern to speak. Instead he stays in his seat to offer the risibly weak defence that: "I misspoke... I labelled a Polk Award a Peabody." Franken attempts to interject and say that O'Reilly did more than merely misspeak, but is interrupted as O'Reilly loses it in spectacular fashion. "Shut up!" he barks. "You had your thirty five minutes. Shut up! We're supposed to be on here for fifteen minutes and this idiot goes thirty five." The convivial mood in the auditorium changes in an instant as Bill reveals himself to be an unhinged, deluded, graceless bully and a genuinely scary man.