“That they do!” answers Bill O’Reilly when I note that he’s “at the top” and “your enemies hate that!” 

I spoke to the Fox talk king on the occasion when his show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” came to be listed as No. 1 for 100 consecutive  months.

Some O’Reilly detractors felt he was bragging and note that “The Today Show” and “Meet the Press” had been on air longer. But Bill just added, “This was for 100 months in primetime!” I’ll let Bill speak for himself …

BILL: The people who lie about us on a daily basis, and you know who they are, like to omit the word "primetime." They do this every night. It’s a compliment to me. They can’t beat me so they have to slime me. We have enemies in the media because of our success primarily and then there is the ideological to consider – super liberals don’t like me. If it’s just about issues, we don’t care. If it’s personal attacks, we chalk it up to jealousy. Most of them we ignore.

LIZ: You’ve written eight books and five are on the bestseller list, including the last one with the fabulous title, A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity. How does anyone work as hard as you do and write books?

BILL: Well, the books are written at night and sometimes on the weekend. The secret to writing a book, if you have a regular job, is to say to yourself, "I’ll do ten pages a week." That’s how I do it.

LIZ: Are you privately religious?

BILL: I go to church. My line is I have to go every Sunday because otherwise I’ll fall behind in my atoning. I gotta atone or I’ll never catch up. I  am a Catholic and I show up and the priest gives me a dirty look. 

LIZ: I’ve known you almost 40 years, Bill, and in the early days, I just thought you were a good-looking news guy, but I admit I wasn’t prescient. I had no idea you’d turn out to be such a big deal! Maybe it was your conviction, your ambition, and maybe a Harvard education helped. 

BILL: All those things helped. I always knew I would succeed but nobody could have possibly predicted success at this level. My work ethic was always strong, ever since I started in Scranton, PA, in 1976. I just said to myself, "Look, I’m going to work as hard as I can and I’m going to have fun."

But it takes a lot of luck to get where I am. I’d give it about a million to one given my personality and the fact that I never kissed anybody’s butt. But still, if I wasn’t having fun then I’d always go get another job.

If you add up the reruns of the show every night — our eight o’clock show appears on the West Coast and at 11 here, and adding that, we have more than five million viewers a night. So in a cable universe, we’ve accomplished a lot. And you know what I’m proudest of? BillOReilly.com — and all the money from the website goes to charity. This year we’ll donate close to a million, helping Habitat for Humanity, children’s charities, help for the homeless. This goes directly to the community. Every penny!

LIZ: But, Bill, in spite of what you say about having fun, are you really a happy guy?