This is what happens when you let a non-journalist attempt to conduct an interview with a national leader.
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Bill O'Reilly opened the interview with Barack Obama by thanking him for saving the lives of a couple of Fox News reporters. That, in and of itself, is a perfectly appropriate comment. The problem is that O'Reilly is exploiting the harrowing experiences of Greg Palkot and Olaf Wiig to promote the Fox News Channel. I have yet to see Fox report on the similar experiences of CNN's Anderson Cooper, NBC's Richard Engle, or CBS's Lara Logan, who was not only roughed up by thugs, but detained by Egyptian authorities. O'Reilly's purpose was to portray Fox News as the sole network of a courageous free press.
Next O'Reilly asks Obama when Mubarak is leaving Egypt. Did he expect the President to give him a date? Then O'Reilly editorializes saying that "the longer he stays in, the more people are going to die." Maybe so, but a real journalist wouldn't inject his opinion into the discussion. What's more, O'Reilly had better check with his Fox News colleagues who are clamoring for the President to support Mubarak, including their "expert" foreign policy analyst John Bolton.
O'Reilly then addresses the legal battle surrounding healthcare reform. He asked Obama about a recent Florida ruling against the bill, but ignored the fact that 12 other courts have ruled in Obama's favor. He even ignored it after Obama pointed it out to him. To O'Reilly, the only ruling that matters is the one that serves his partisan interest.
The next question is one that tests the boundaries of satire. Somehow O'Reilly thinks it is "fair and balanced" to ask Obama to respond to a Wall Street Journal editorial that said he is "a determined man of the left whose goal is to redistribute much larger levels of income across society." Fittingly, the President laughed at the question. The editorial was not about healthcare or taxes or the deficit. Its title is The GOP Opportunity, and it is an undisguised blueprint for Republican electoral success. And if you're confused about the Journal's stance on GOP victories, they clear it up in the second paragraph describing the "real source" of the Party's "power and legitimacy" is the Tea Party. Asking Obama to respond to this is not much different than asking him to respond to Glenn Beck's accusation that he's a Marxist.
But O'Reilly doesn't stop there. His next question is framed as if coming from the American people, but is really his own perspective being projected on them. He asks whether Obama is "a big government liberal who wants to intrude on their personal freedom." Obama laughs and, quite correctly, points out that it is "a lot of folks who watch you [who] believe that." Whereupon O'Reilly admits that "They think way worse than me." That's an admission that his viewers are utterly delusional and ill-informed. And apparently he doesn't care to set them straight.
In closing, O'Reilly asked a series of questions that would have embarrassed a high school intern on Entertainment Tonight: What's the worst part of your job? What's the most surprising? How have you changed? Are you annoyed by people who hate you? And then there was the obligatory question on who would win the Superbowl. Even there O'Reilly could not behave professionally as he tried, unsuccessfully, to paint Obama as not knowing anything about football.
I was against the President agreeing to this interview from the moment it was announced. Not so much because I didn't think he would comport himself well - he did. But because it gives credibility to a network that hasn't earned any of its own. I also predicted that O'Reilly would be on his best behavior knowing that this would be an audience far larger than his measly cable news viewers. Perhaps fifty times larger. And despite his unprofessional demeanor, he didn't do anything that could be described as scandalously controversial.
The real problem with doing an interview on Fox is that it will be sliced and diced after the fact. Fox anchors and analysts will feature every minuscule sound bite that they think they can twist into a gaffe. And they will pretend that his cogent and thoughtful responses don't exist.
Therefore, expect the exchange regarding the Muslim Brotherhood to get marquee billing tomorrow. While Obama in no way expressed support for the group, he moderated his answer to be certain that he could not be accused of meddling in the internal affairs of the Egyptian people. His purpose was to stand up for democracy and demonstrate faith in its ability to produce a positive outcome. But the professional Obama bashers on Fox will declare that he was not sufficiently disdainful of the organization. And they will declare it over and over again.
If you need any evidence of how Fox plans to report on this interview, just take a look at how Fox Nation is already framing it. Their "Pic of the Day" is a snapshot from the interview with a caption that says only "No Tie?" Apparently that's the most important thing that the Fox Nationalists derived from the interview. O'Reilly must be so proud. And just to tie a bow around the vile community that Fox cultivates, here is what they are saying about him in the comments section:
coinguy1945: Wha a pathetic looser Omammy is an illegal nigger that need to be assaniated by a good patriot.
Bill O'Reilly is one of the biggest critics of hostile comments on blogs. He went so far as to say that Marcos Moulitsas (of DailyKos) and Arianna Huffington (of the Huffington Post) are as bad as Nazis because he found some objectionable comments on their sites. I don't expect him to be similarly outraged by this cretin's comment, which he was so proud of he made it twice.
Notice that the second time he even asked for "the orders" to do his dirty deed. I think he meant that for Glenn Beck.
