O'Reilly Ready to Deal?

Bill O'Reilly is hoping he can get back to doing what he does best--running his mouth--without a lawsuit hanging over his head.

Lawyers for the Fox News Channel and its prized commentator are reportedly powwoing with reps for the female coworker who has accused him of sexual harassment about settling their differences outside of court.

The New York Daily News first reported Friday morning that Andrea Mackris, the associate producer for The O'Reilly Factor at the center of the saucy phone-sex scandal, has made back-door overtures to settle the case out of court.

By Friday evening, several other media outlets, including the Associated Press, Reuters, Court TV and Celebrity Justice were quoting unnamed sources close to the negotiations saying a deal could be imminent.

Celebrity Justice executive producer Harvey Levin said on MSNBC that he would "be surprised" if this case wasn't settled by next week--although sources initially told Levin the case could come to a close Friday.

"We always wanted to settle this in private and it's always an option," a spokeswoman for Mackris lawyer Benedict Morelli's legal firm told the Daily News Friday.

As of Saturday morning, though, there was no word on whether a deal had been struck. But this isn't the first time the two sides have flirted with an out-of-court solution to the saucy drama.

Mackris and Fox News had been hashing out a settlement before filing dueling lawsuits, but the 33-year-old accuser reportedly rejected a $2 million offer to make the allegations go away.

After the settlement talks broke down earlier this month, O'Reilly launched a preemptive suit Oct. 13, accusing Mackris and her attorney of trying to extort $60 million in exchange for dropping the complaint. Hours later, Mackris filed her own salacious suit, seeking $60 million from Fox News and O'Reilly.

The new settlement talks reports came as both sides agreed to postpone a court hearing Friday on a motion by O'Reilly and Fox News to obtain the XXX-rated recordings Mackris is believed to have made of her phone conversations with O'Reilly.

Although no one has confirmed the existence of such recordings, Fox lawyers believe Mackris has tapes of her reputed sex chats with O'Reilly due to the amount of detail revealed in her court documents (the juiciest portions of the complaint can be seen online at The Smoking Gun).

Further, the right-wing hero claimed that Mackris' suit was not filed solely for reasons of financial gain, but was also politically motivated. He alleged that lawyer Morelli was a contributor to the Democratic Party, and that the suit was filed in an effort to embarrass him and Fox News shortly before the upcoming election.

O'Reilly, obsessed with his left-wing mirror image and nemesis Al Franken, also posits that Franken is somehow behind the charges. However, Franken said on his own show that he takes no joy in the allegations against his conservative rival.

And, in what apparently was a leak by Fox News or its allies, the right-leaning Drudge Report said Friday that Mackris might have had financial motivation to file suit--she is reportedly $100,000 in debt. (Then again, so is pretty much anyone who attended private college, like Mackris did.)

Morelli has denied that the suit was grounded in politics and called O'Reilly a "bully" during a news conference where Mackris sat beside him, but remained silent.

The settlement talks, however incongruous with previous statements made, may be just the ticket out of painful headlines for Fox News and O'Reilly. Despite the fact that O'Reilly tried turning the case into one of principle by saying on his Oct. 13 show that "there comes a time when enough's enough," his bosses at Fox may want the network's name out of the headlines. This is the kind of case the self-proclaimed "fair and balanced" network usually covers, and it is not used to being at the center of a tawdry scandal.

Besides, if the sex tapes do exist, it could not only be a source of huge embarrassment for Fox News and O'Reilly--who has been forced to cancel several promo appearances for his new advice book for parents called The O'Reilly Factor for Kids and has clammed up on the harassment charges on the advice of his lawyers--but could also be enough evidence to sway a jury into giving Mackris a hefty settlement.

And that would put the "No Spin Zone" into a no win zone.