Bill O'Reilly vs Obama: What Bill did wrong

I have already opined about Obama not having an endgame in his interview with Bill O'Reilly yesterday.  But I think Bill O'Reilly made some mistakes too.  There's an old expression, "Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself."  Bill O'Reilly wanted answers.  His audience wanted answers.  But Bill O'Reilly genuinely seems to believe his audience (who are typically not Obama fans) wants combativeness more than they want to see president Obama say something that he can't take back.

Here are some examples of exchanges where O'Reilly let his audience down.  The reason will be self-evident.

O'REILLY: It's in the past. But isn't that the...

OBAMA: So...

O'REILLY: -- biggest mistake?

OBAMA: Well, I, you know, Bill, as I said...

O'REILLY: You gave your enemies...

OBAMA: You...

O'REILLY: -- a lot of fodder for it.

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OBAMA: -- that's an act of terror, which is how I characterized it the day after it happened. So the -- so the question ends up being who, in fact, was attacking us?

O'REILLY: But it's more than that...

OBAMA: And that...

O'REILLY: -- though...

OBAMA: -- well, we...

O'REILLY: -- because of Susan Rice.

OBAMA: No, it...

O'REILLY: It's more than that because if Susan Rice goes out and tells the world that it was a spontaneous demonstration...

OBAMA: Bill...

O'REILLY: -- off a videotape but your...

OBAMA: Bill...

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OBAMA: -- by the independent agency...

O'REILLY: I...

OBAMA: -- but we also have to make sure that we understand our folks out there are in a hazardous, dangerous situation...

O'REILLY: I think everybody understands that...

OBAMA: -- and we...

O'REILLY: -- Mr. President.

OBAMA: No, but -- but, actually, not everybody does, because what ends up happening...

O'REILLY: I think they do.

OBAMA: -- what ends up happening is we end up creating a political agenda...

O'REILLY: Absolutely...

OBAMA: -- over something...

O'REILLY: -- and that's...

OBAMA: -- (INAUDIBLE)...

O'REILLY: -- that was my next question.

Oh really, O'Reilly? That's not a debate, that's not a conversation, it's not even an interview. It did nothing. In fact, it reminded me of the Superbowl itself in that way - disappointing.

What was Obama's endgame on his O'Reilly interview?

What was he thinking?  President Obama was on Fox News being interviewed with Bill O'Reilly hours before the Superbowl.  I get why Fox News did it, it helps the prominence of their most prominent and highly successful news talk show, The O'Reilly Factor.  O'Reilly isn't always solidly conservative, but he is at least willing to ask questions that most of the media will avoid with this president.  So Obama going into the interview had to know it was not going to be a softball interview.  So why do it?  Three years ago he did a Superbowl interview with O'Reilly but that was 2011.  Obama had just lost a big election and was trying to damage control and regain credibility/approval with some non-liberal voters who might still be his supporters and who happened to watch Fox News.  It made him seem reasonable.  But this is 2014 and the sides have been chosen.  He wasn't going to likely soften his image amongst his detractors without striking a very conciliatory tone on a number of issues.

But that's not really his style.  Obama doesn't like being questioned, and he doesn't think he's ever wrong, so the interview would not only be challenging, it would be contentious.  Obama had to know that going in. So if he were not to be conciliatory, he'd have to hold himself in check and be gracious.  Not only did that not happen, he went on offense.

O'REILLY: All right.

Was it the biggest mistake of your presidency to tell the nation over and over, if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance?

OBAMA: Oh, Bill, you've got a long list of my mistakes of my presidency...

There was a testy exchange as well on the IRS targeting Tea Party groups:

O'REILLY: OK, so you don't -- you don't recall seeing Shulman, because what some people are saying is that the IRS was used...

OBAMA: Yes.

O'REILLY: -- at a -- at a local level in Cincinnati, and maybe other places to go after...

OBAMA: Absolutely wrong.

O'REILLY: -- to go after.

OBAMA: Absolutely wrong.

O'REILLY: But how do you know that, because we -- we still don't know what happened there?

OBAMA: Bill, we do -- that's not what happened. They -- folks have, again, had multiple hearings on this. I mean these kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part because you and your TV station will promote them.

When he wasn't going on the offense he seemed, well, annoyed:

O'REILLY: -- I'm just confused.

OBAMA: And I'm -- and I'm trying to explain it to, if you want to listen. The fact of the matter is is that people understood, at the time, something very dangerous was happening, that we were focused on making sure that we did everything we can -- could -- to protect them. In the aftermath, what became clear was that the security was lax, that not all the precautions and -- that needed to be taken were taken and both myself and Secretary Clinton and others indicated as much.

What was Obama's end game taking a combative approach with O'Reilly? To reach out to lost voters  Clearly not, or else his execution was abysmal, even too abysmal for him.  Was it to energize his base - who believe he's been too conciliatory? His base doesn't watch Fox, but even if they catch the excerpts on MSNBC, they aren't going to cheer-lead him for taking a tough stance against a political enemy.  They expect that of him.  Was her trying to win over conservatives? Don't even bother asking that one.  Really, there wasn't an end game with this, which is about par for the Obama course.

Yes, it's become a tradition for Obama to interviewed by the host network on Superbowl Sunday, but it doesn't need to be a carved in stone tradition.  It would have served Obama more to have cancelled the interview.

O'Reilly, Oh Really?

Bill O'Reilly often irks conservatives by painting liberals and conservatives with the same brush, or often going out of the way to seem fair and balanced to the point of giving some liberal positions undue due.  But tonight, he was bang on about the latest on the Arizona situation. Credit where it's due he really got this right.

Obama Meets With GOP - Hilarity Ensues

Presdent Obama met with Congressional Republicans today in order to try to find some common ground on...anything.

As the ABC report points out, it turned into more of a mutual airing of grievances and not a step towards common ground. Not that the door wasn't left open to the possibility, but given that it's an election year, it's hard to believe that any bi-partisanship from either side is going to be forthcoming. The President cannot expect that he can demonize Republicans in one sentence and then call for bi-partisanship in the next.

Nevertheless, he did agree to meet with his political opponents, so he deserves some credit. The first, and only other President to do that (twice), as Bill O'Reilly pointed out today, was George W. Bush. Of course he never got credit for it.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the hilarity - it's the premise. This is nothing more than theater for the President and it's funny to think that anyone believes anything could come out of it. Sorry - that's it. Okay it's not hilarious, what do you want -it's late and I'm tired. I found it funny.

Newty and the Beauty

Dennis Miller waxes rhapsodic on the O'Reilly show regarding multiple topics - but he makes a great point about a debate between Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama. Newt would mop the floor with him.

His dream ticket - Newt Gingrich with Sarah Palin. That could work.

MSNBC's turn in the light of day

Albeit briefly for now.

Mainly Socialists Nonsensical Broadcasting Community. Far worse than CNN.

O'Reilly discusses it.




Scarborough discusses it;



O'Reilly compares Fox to other outlets;



MSNBC is hyperbolic in their lean to the left. They don't balance out Fox, Fox isn't enough to balance them out because they are the fairest network. MSNBM+NBC+CBS+ABC+NYT+... versus Fox. And Fox tries to moderate itself by balancing in liberal talking heads in fairly even numbers.

The real question is, as a conservative - where's OUR Fairness Doctrine? Why do you think we own talk radio? Drive us out of that and we'll find something else that liberals will eventually try deem unfair. But to proclaim unfairness and imbalance on radio is blind at best and anti-freedom, anti-Constitutional and un-American at it's malevolent worst.

More MSNBC garbage to follow (guaranteed).

The Gold Standard?

The National Review has an interesting article pending extolling the merits of a return to the gold standard. It's a fairly technical article, but if you enjoy reading economic treatises then it's worth a read because he makes a compelling, albeit insufficiently robust argument. He expounds the benefits quite well, but does not address the potential negatives. He does touch on the difficulties of getting international agreement, the difficulties of making the switch and the lack of political will/desire to do so. But not the real potential negatives, at least robustly enough.

But he does address many positive aspects that could/would result from a change, such as forcing governments to not run deficits, helping trade imbalances and helping to restore the manufacturing sector in America. These are important and deserving outcomes, and ones worth consideration. But is the correlation between the gold reserve idea and these outcomes guaranteed? That requires a more esoteric economic discussion, but it is one I would love to hear and one that deserves to be sat through, even if you are someone who doesn't like / doesn't get / doesn't care about economic theory. The outcome matters.


Nevertheless, his points are quite worthy of consideration and further discussion. There are detractors of course, likely on both sides of the political spectrum.


As an aside, a friendly Buckley-versus-Reagan-Panama-Canal-style televised debate amongst conservatives is something we need to see more often. It's a great way to look at issues from various conservative viewpoints. Even if the principles do not coalesce around a single viewpoint, it gets our viewpoints out there and also shows that the Republican/conservative world views do not conform around a single set of ideas. It shows that we are a considered and reasoned group and our ideas are based on both principled values and thought-out positions.







Unfortunately I couldn't find a Reagan clip to embed here but wouldn't you rather see those two gentlemen debate than Olbermann versus O'Reilly? No offense intended to Bill O'Reilly, I'd enjoy seeing him debate someone like Sean Hannity on an issue of substance where substantive ideas could be exchanged rather than any rabid liberal where it is likely to descend into something little better than repeated talking points. You might as well try to reason with a paint chip.


Getting back to my main point about the gold reserve / gold standard, there are many articles
that are pro and con on the idea. Some examples of each below;

Pro:

Ron Paul (note I am not a Ron Paul supporter, but he does make some interesting points at times. He might be kooky, but I don't think he's a total kook).
Kitco (biased, I'm sure).
Lawrence White @ the Cato Institute

Con:

Credit Suisse
Associate Professor of Economics Brad De Long (he sources Krugman a couple of times, so it's not my favorite opinion).
Steve Saville


So what's the right thing to do, practicality aside since the time for timid solutions has passed? I'm not convinced either way at this point but it would seem that the benefits warrant looking for a way to overcome the objectionable points.