Bill O’Reilly is ready to declare Stephen Colbert a flop as host of The Late Show because he’s just too darned liberal. 

I’m sure the fact that Colbert made his name in late-night comedy lampooning O’Reilly had nothing to do with O’Reilly’s glee. In fact, O’Reilly never even mentioned it!

O’Reilly did pat himself on the back for his foresight. He played a clip from April, 2014 predicting that Colbert would be too liberal to do well.

O’REILLY: Colbert has made a living exclusively satirizing the right. And he has plenty of material. But that won’t be enough to beat Fallon and Kimmel who are sharp and well-produced. Colbert will have to be better than those guys to compete well in the ratings. And remember, he’s already alienated 40% of the country who define themselves as conservative.

Last night, O’Reilly suggested he had been proven correct.

O’REILLY: Now the ratings of the week of November 23^rd show that Mr. Colbert has fallen behind Fallon, Kimmel and even Seth Meyers, who’s on the air an hour later than he is. Again, that’s because Colbert makes a living in the far-left precincts. When Letterman started doing that, his ratings started to fall. Fallon, Kimmel and Meyers – they’re not all that ideological. The late night audience simply wants a few laughs. They don’t want derisive political discourse.

Then O’Reilly took another victory lap, this time over his own ratings.

O’REILLY: By the way, in cable news, The Factor continues to dominate the ratings in all categories even though some publications dishonestly spin the numbers. Annoying, but after 19 years, we’re used to it. 

However, the story of Colbert’s ratings is not so simple, not so bad and not so settled. Variety explains there’s a “new math” in late night partly because of many changes in the programs but also in large part because of the rising role of social media.

In that light, the hosts need to build appeal with their core viewers, and then work to branch out. For instance, Colbert may not be the most-watched host in the wee hours, but his “Late Show” nabbed 52% more viewers between 18 and 49 in the first nine weeks of the television season, which exclude Colbert’s first two weeks, compared with the year-earlier period, and snared 118% more viewers between 18 and 34.

“The show can be very successful and very profitable without having to worry about Fallon and/or Kimmel,” said David Poltrack, CBS Corp.’s chief research officer. Colbert is luring a well-heeled, highly educated viewership, he said. “As long as he can hold on to that audience, he doesn’t have to win the numbers(game).” In other words, in a time slot splintered by new hosts, Colbert has to trump David Letterman, not Jimmy Fallon — at least for now. 

In other words, O’Reilly’s self-congratulations may well turn into, “Curses! Foiled again!”

Watch O’Reilly’s schadenfreude below, from the December 10 The O’Reilly Factor.