I caught the tail end of Terry Gross’ interview on Fresh Air with the original man who can dish it out but can’t take it. He spent most of the time beefing about all the people who are critical of him and about Gross for reminding us all, contrasting the treatment he got to the reception she had previously given Al Franken. I have never before heard Gross lose her composure as she did under this onslaught, stammering with a quavering voice and trying to regain her edge. She shouldn’t have gotten so flustered— it is O’Reilly who comes out of the piece sounding like a fool (to start with, for ever agreeing to an NPR interview?). Finally O’Reilly made it easy for her — he walked out on the rest of the interview, leaving her with dead air to fill, which she readily did by reading aloud from one of the press drubbings of O’Reilly’s new book, Who’s Looking Out for You? It was this review that had started O’Reily whining about how unfair it was that the reviewer had reviewed him instead of his book. and how he would never do that… and then proceeded to call the reviewer in question a pinhead and throw insult after innuendo at NPR, Fresh Air and Gross. She missed an ironic opportunity, however. Instead of being so adversarial with O’Reilly, when he complained about how much she was focusing on the media criticism he has been receiving, she should have told him she was bestowing on him the courtesy of an opportunithy to answer his critics. Give ’em enough rope, Terry…