So once again I had to watch the start of the O'Reilly factor to see more of the interview with Obama. O'Reilly began the show with a classically hypocritical talking points memo, claiming of all things that the AP has a left wing bias and the ripping into MSNBC claiming they're corrupt and support Obama endlessly - generally as hypocritical as could be imagined from Fox's lead commentator.
Next the third part of the Obama interview aired, this section being about Obama's so called questionable associations. As in the other sections I thought Obama performed brilliantly.
Obama did not let O'Reilly get away with anything without a clear and convincing comeback. Everything O'Reilly tried to shoot Obama down with was effectively explained; I thought Ayres was handled especially well - explaining that he hasn't even seen him in a year and half and the now familiar reminder that he was eight years olds when the bombings happened, he was also very clear about not having heard Wright in his more extreme moments.
Then O'Reilly attacked Obama on the Daily Kos, Obama responded perfectly, totally defused the situation and defended this place in the process. O’Reilly seems to believe that this place operates as a monolith Obama made the simple point that "I might not agree with everything said on Fox News but I still agreed to come on here", which to my mind was absolutely perfect. Pointing out that this a collaborative public effort with many voices seemed very effective.
All in all a lot to be pleased about.
part three (no longer embeded because the other version was taken down)
part 1
part 2