Homeless vets rebuffed by Fox News

On Thursday, after several strong denials of the existence of homeless U.S. veterans, Bill O'Reilly received a visit from an actual pack of homeless U.S. vets eager for a personal apology from Papa Bear himself.

Despite the David versus Goliath theme, yesterday's protest wasn't exactly a media event. Which is why one particularly slick-looking reporter (identified by the Daily News as producer Jesse Waters) seemed so out of place. Maybe it was his flipped-up coat collar, his fancy leather shoes, and his well-coiffed hair. Or perhaps it was the fact that he kept sticking the mic in the vets' faces demanding to know why the hell they were there and if they were the same people that called our troops in Iraq "baby-killers" and "mercenaries."

Yep, Fox News had crashed the Bill-O protest.

It took everyone some time to catch on. When asked straight out, Waters played coy before finally admitting that, yes, he works for the same network as O'Reilly. But what was he doing out there? Was he a plant? A saboteur? Was Fox News actually trying to cover the story?

The vets weren't sure if they should hand their petition to Waters, news teams weren't sure if they should be filming the vets or Waters, and onlookers were crowding around to see what all the commotion was about.

Eventually security guards restored order, and Waters and his Fox staff sauntered back inside the building. The vets finished their news conference and convened at the Fox News entrance for the big finale: handing O'Reilly a petition with more than 1,700 signatures and demanding an apology.

But Waters was waiting for them just inside the door and made it clear that they weren't going to get much further. In the end, the vets left the petition with them. "They said they'd get back to us," said Gregory Rollins, a 46-year-old veteran from the first Gulf War. "They still had those smirks on their faces."