Bill O’Reilly’s threat to a New York Times reporter who wanted to discuss accusations that he has not been truthful in his accounts of reporting on the Falklands war may not have done much to improve his credibility or reputation but it was no big surprise to those of us who are familiar with his behavior.

O’Reilly’s threat to The Times reporter (“I am coming after you with everything I have. ...You can take it as a threat.”) was not the only one he made recently. He also made threatening comments to one of the Mother Jones reporters who wrote the article raising the questions about his claims ("I expect David Corn to be in the kill zone. Where he deserves to be.") Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel notes that these are far from the exception with O’Reilly:

In 2009, O’Reilly was scheduled to speak at an event for a group that helps rape survivors. At the time, I was a blogger for ThinkProgress, and I noted in a post that in the past, O’Reilly had implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped.

A few weeks later, while I was on vacation several hours outside of Washington, D.C., a producer for O’Reilly, Jesse Watters, ambushed me outside my hotel, asking me why I was hurting rape victims and demanding that I apologize to rape victims everywhere for my post.

Fox News never answered my inquiries about how Watters found me, but my best guess—since I hadn’t told anyone exactly where I was going that weekend—was that he staked out my apartment and followed me to Virginia. No one from The O’Reilly Factor had contacted me before the ambush for comment.

Terkel also noted that O’Reilly has also ambushed columnist Cynthia Tucker, then of the Atlanta Journal-constitution, after she criticized O’Reilly and Seattle Post-Intelligencer editor and publisher Rogers Oglesby. A quick Google search also uncovered O'Reilly ambushes of New Yorker Editor Hendrik Hertzberg, after he wrote something about Newt Gingrich O’Reilly didn’t like, former PBS host Bill Moyers, producer and director of Outfoxed, Robert Greenwald, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and the editor of the Virginian Pilot, Denis Finley. O’Reilly had wanted to ambush Dan Rather, but thought better of it for some reason. That was before O’Reilly tried to get Rather to bail him out of the Falklands controversy.

My friend Steve M., at No More Mister Nice Blog, nailed it when he wrote last week that O’Reilly would skate away from the Falklands controversy but not because of the facts. The mainstream media will not hold O’Reilly to the same standards as Brian Williams, Steve wrote, because O’Reilly and his defenders will engage in thuggish tactics that have always worked well:

The mainstream media actually respects bullyboy tactics like this. This kind of thuggish behavior seems to have worked extraordinarily well for Murdoch for decades, especially for Fox News since its inception—Murdoch is thriving while other media operations are dying, and Fox always dominates the ratings. The rest of the press envies and respects Murdoch & Co. for this. What’s regarded as unethical at other journalists’ news organizations is “colorful” or “audacious” in Murdoch Land. It’s “swagger.” It’s old-fashioned Front Page bare-knuckle toughness. No one’s going to hold these guys to journalistic standards—they’re mas macho.

Now, just as Steve predicted, the thuggish tactics have begun. Fox News pals Hugh Hewitt and Mediaite’s Joe Concha have joined the pile on. While O’Reilly plays the victim.

Watch O’Reilly complain about how he’s “tired of all the garbage” below, via Media Matters.