It took 15 minutes for former vice president Al Gore to reject Glenn Beck's offer to buy Current TV — a point of pride for the former Fox News host-turned-media entrepreneur.
Beck told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly on Thursday that it was a "badge of honor" to not be "anywhere close to his agenda, to his values."
"Did you really make an offer to buy this dopey network?" O'Reilly asked Beck, who has previously said he attempted to buy Gore's nascent cable network, sold recently to Qatar-based Al Jazeera.
"We debated back and forth because I think it was worth about half of what they paid," said Beck, who offered to make a bid for Current. "They said, 'We actually have to go to the vice president — we're going to call you back.'"
About 15 minutes later, he said the phone rang.
"'The vice president has a reputation and under no circumstance will he ever entertain an offer from Glenn Beck,'" Beck recalled the Current representatives saying. "His legacy of his network was too important, so he sold it to Al Jazeera."
Beck went on to accuse Al Jazeera of conspiring to hide Osama bin Laden. he also said the network supports the stoning of women and homosexuals in the streets of Qatar.
Al Jazeera completed its purchase of the liberal-minded network on Jan. 2, reportedly paying $500 million for a cable foothold in the United States.
The deal has raised eyebrows among those who question Al Jazeera's editorial independence. The Arab- and English-language news channel is funded mostly by the Qatari royal family, who allegedly have tampered with its editorial integrity, according to U.S. State Department cables published in 2010 by WikiLeaks.
"You believe that Al Gore, in his mind, believes you are more of a threat to the world than Al Jazeera?" O'Reilly asked.
"I do absolutely believe he is more in line with Al Jazeera than anything I would preach," Beck said, calling Gore "a fraud." "I think he thinks I'm much more dangerous than Al Jazeera — he's that insane."
