O'Reilly shoves Obama aide

NASHUA, N.H., Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Secret Service agents stepped in Saturday when Bill O'Reilly of Fox News got into an altercation with an aide to U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The 6-foot-4 O'Reilly reportedly yelled angrily at 6-foot-8 Obama staffer Marvin Nicholson and then shoved him to try to clear him out of the way so a Fox camera operator could get a better shot of the Democratic senator from Illinois, CBS reported. The incident involving the Fox News commentator occurred following an Obama speech in a high school gymnasium in Nashua, N.H.

"I was shadowing the senator as I often do during the rope line and he started yelling at me to move out of the shot," Nicholson said afterward, adding that he approached O'Reilly shortly after he was shoved. "I went up to him and said 'Sir, don't push me anymore and he said that I was low class."

Speaking by telephone on Fox News, O'Reilly downplayed the incident.

"No scuffle at all. I just removed him from in front of the camera," he said. "I might have called him an S.O.B. That's possible."

Obama -- who apparently had his back turned and didn't witness the exchange -- subsequently shook hands with O'Reilly and the two spoke briefly.