Less than a week after Shep Smith's cruel on-air mocking of his colleague Glenn Beck, Dennis Miller last night told Bill O'Reilly that Beck "makes Howard Beale look like John Wayne."

To off-camera laughter, Miller mocked the eschatalogical Mormon ex-cokehead's "nine principles and twelve values project" as the "nine prophecies of the twelve sarcophuses."

"Hey," O'Reilly responded, "that guy's racking up huge ratings for Fox." Point taken.