"I don't want to give the impression that I'm being railroaded by the system, " Muto said.
They couldn't quite understand why Muto was there for making a copy of a Gingrich clip.
Muto spent most of the only column he wrote prior to detection criticizing a Fox-related website.
Muto's short-lived tenure as the Fox "mole" wasn't particularly well thought-out in the first place.
After eight years at Fox, his first job out of Notre Dame, Muto had decided to leave.
"He might even be one of the most misunderstood media figures of all time, " Muto said in an interview.
He knows there are stories some of his former colleagues won't like, but Muto is hard on himself, too.
Muto did get a book deal out of the experience, though, and "An Atheist in the Foxhole" (Dutton) is being released Tuesday.
Fox representatives didn't return phone or email requests to talk about Muto.
Muto's proximity allowed him to make a detailed character study of O'Reilly.
"This is a positive for the economy in the sense that it prevents the yen from rising, " said Hiroaku Muto, senior economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management.
Muto was sentenced to 10 days of court-ordered community service and 200 hours of private service that he will fulfill by working with a literacy organization in Brooklyn.
Muto, who worked on Bill O'Reilly's prime-time show, began writing an anonymous column for the Gawker website about what it was like for a liberal to work at Fox.
In an agreement with the Manhattan district attorney, Muto pleaded guilty May 9 to two misdemeanors attempted unlawful duplication of computer material and attempted criminal possession of computer material.
There is a chance of a stand-off, or at any rate an uneasy compromise between Mr Fukui and the central bank's traditionalists on the one hand, and Mr Muto and Mr Iwata on the other.
Muto is still a strong contender, according to people familiar with the situation, and is thought to be the preferred candidate of Japan's powerful finance ministry, where he spent 37 years before joining the BoJ in 2003.
Muto said he wasn't miserable at Fox, even if he'd roll his eyes at some of the things he saw on the air, and misses some former friends who won't have anything to do with him since his act of disloyalty.
The government will be anxious to avoid a repeat of the 2008 nomination process, which saw its top two picks as governor rejected by the DPJ on the grounds that the candidates -- Muto and Koji Tanami, former vice-finance minister -- represented a threat to the BoJ's independence.
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