Telling us how he sees it, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said Fmr. Senator Fred Thompson was “picking a fight” with Moore. The all-knowing Bill O says Fred! doesn’t like Moore or his relationship with Fidel Castro. Gee wilikers, what is he going to tell us next, that the earth revolves around the sun?

The fact is, Moore attacked Thompson first in a scathing letter challenging the potential Presidential candidate to debate health care in the United States. Fred then responded in a casual video blog.

According to O’Reilly, Thompson did this as a publicity stunt (how ironic) to boost his popularity among conservatives.

Send O’Reilly an email and let him know the real story.

Thanks to Allah for sending the tip my way.

Update (BP): In a way, it turns out that O’Reilly is right about who started it. Before Moore challenged Thompson to debate health care, which was itself a publicity stunt (otherwise why would a potential presidential candidate debate a crockumentary film maker?), Thompson called Moore out in an article at National Review Online:

You might have read the stories about filmmaker Michael Moore taking ailing workers from Ground Zero in Manhattan to Cuba for free medical treatments. According to reports, he filmed the trip for a new movie that bashes America for not having government-provided health care.

Now, I have no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care. I defend his right to do what he does, but Moore’s talent for clever falsehoods has been too well documented. Simply calling his movies documentaries rather than works of fiction, I think, may be the biggest fiction of all.

While this p.r. stunt has obviously been successful — here I am talking about it — Moore’s a piker compared to Fidel Castro and his regime. Moore just parrots the story they created — one of the most successful public-relations coups in history. This is the story of free, high quality Cuban health care.

Thompson goes on in the article to describe Cuba’s show clinics, discuss Castro’s personal wealth and film maker Nicolás Guillén Landrián, who became a guest of Castro’s health care system after running afoul of the dictator.

It was probably this article that prompted Moore to challenge Thompson to a debate. Well, that and Moore’s insatiable appetite for publicity. So O’Reilly has the timeline right.

On the other hand, it was Moore who decided to use yet another of his films to bash America, this time by using 9-11 responders as props to promote Castro’s health care system over ours, and Fred! didn’t take that lying down. Good for Fred.

Update (AP): In case there’s any confusion, we apologize for the error.

Update/correction (MM): The timeline in this post–the premise of this post–was wrong. Whatever you think of Moore’s crockumentary, Thompson challenged Moore first.