Dennis Miller and Bill O'Reilly had a discussion about cable news on "The O'Reilly Factor" Wednesday night to mark Fox News' 13th birthday.
"Billy, I view it like a long piece of straightaway," Miller said. "Like that road betwen Barstow and Vegas. Cable news is a long straightaway."
MSNBC, Miller said, is in the left lane.
"On the left lane, MSNBC has gone completely over the shoulder, over the breastplate, over the hip, over the knee, over the bunion," he said. "They are so far out there now that quite frankly Magellan and OnStar can't locate them."
Miller compared CNN to "that old faded yellow line down the middle of the road."
"Periodically a rumble strip breaks out for the elections or the debates or something like that, but by and large, people know it, they're familiar with it," he said.
"Now on the right side — granted, Fox, I believe, is in the right lane but you still got rubber on the road. Hannity's gone off-road, and Beck — he's way down the road — but for the most part you, Cavuto, Greta, Bret, you still got rubber on the road. And I think credibility is like a baseball diamond in a cornfield: if you build it, they will come."
O'Reilly disagreed with his assessment of his fellow Fox News stars.
"I disagree with you in two ways there," O'Reilly responded. "Hannity represents the Republican party - he's a Reagan Republican, so the Republicans are going to watch Sean. And there's nothing wrong with having somebody on the air that represents the Republican party. So he's not off the rails anywhere, he's a Republican.
"Beck is successful — fabulously successful — because he's just a guy! He's not a journalist, he's a guy. The first time we've ever had a guy, OK? He doesn't pretend to be anything other than a guy who loves his country....People want to watch people that they identify with, and they identify with Beck."
Miller did praise the fact that he's allowed to poke fun at Beck on Fox News.
"Right, it's permitted!" O'Reilly said. "I poke fun at Beck!"
"If I go onto another station and poke fun at their big guy, I'd be so out of there," Miller said, and then switched gears to praising Roger Ailes.
"Roger Ailes is an absolute genius at hiring women that are so beautiful but even smarter than they are beautiful so nobody can make the accusation that he's using them strictly as objects," Miller said.
"Ailes has always been a guy who hired very smart women and very dumb men, which is how I got the job," O'Reilly responded.