HA!!! ~ great answer, Mr President! ~ ~ Sooz

O’Reilly vs. Obama
02/03/14 08:52 AM
By Steve Benen


President Obama doesn’t sit down for many cable-news interviews, so Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly was the beneficiary of a rare opportunity: a one-on-one White House interview with the president to be aired shortly before the Super Bowl. If mainstream viewers tuned in, hoping to see Obama’s answers on the major issues of the day, they were probably disappointed.

Literally a few seconds into the interview, O’Reilly told the president, “I want to get some things on the record.” And so he did – over the course of 10 minutes, O’Reilly, in this order, pushed for Kathleen Sebelius’ ouster, talked up the 2012 attack in Benghazi, spent time on the non-existent IRS controversy, and read a question from a viewer: “Mr. President, why do you feel it’s necessary to fundamentally transform the nation that has afforded you so much opportunity and success?”

And then the host asked for a Super Bowl prediction.

This, however, was the part that stood out most, at least for me.


This is what happens when someone gets stuck in an impenetrable bubble.

The IRS story came and went quite a while ago, so let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane for those who may not remember why the question was so misguided.

On May 30, 2013, O’Reilly told his viewers that there may be a “smoking gun” in the IRS controversy: former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, the host said, visited the White House 157 times between 2009 and 2012. This proved … something nefarious. O’Reilly didn’t say what, exactly, the problem was, but the statistic was supposed to be damning of evidence of something.

A day later, The Atlantic’s Garance Franke-Ruta discovered that the “smoking gun” was shooting blanks: Shulman had been cleared for a series of routine White House gatherings, but only attended 11 events over the course of four years. The “157 times” story wasn’t all that interesting on its own, and upon closer inspection, it wasn’t true, either.

And at the time, it seemed like a mild embarrassment for O’Reilly, but these things happen. He reported a claim on May 30, which was debunked on May 31, which meant the Fox News host would have to simply move on to something else.

Except, he didn’t. Even after the “157 times” story had been discredited, O’Reilly kept repeating it, over and over again, apparently unaware of the fact that it’s wrong.

Let’s say O’Reilly deserved the benefit of the doubt. He pushed a bogus claim in May, but let’s say he made an honest mistake and didn’t realize it was wrong at the time. Let’s also say O’Reilly and his staff were really busy in May and June, and missed the reports fact-checking the story when they continued to push it days later.

If we take this overly generous approach, it might excuse O’Reilly’s mistaken reporting from last summer. But how then does one explain why the Fox News host is still making the exact same error – in pre-written questions prepared for a pre-Super Bowl interview from the White House – seven months later?

After a lengthy series of misguided questions about manufactured controversies, Obama eventually told the host, “These kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part because you and your TV station will promote them.”

In light of the Doug Shulman flub, Obama had a point.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/oreilly-vs-obama#break

There is NO CONTEST in my own mind as to who the "weasel" and "beneath contempt" really IS ~ ~ Sooz

TPM LIVEWIRE
O'Reilly Unloads On 'Weasel,' 'Beneath Contempt' WaPo Columnist Dana Milbank
Tom Kludt – February 5, 2014, 7:34 AM EST

Bill O'Reilly is pretty defensive about his Super Bowl interview with President Obama.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank learned as much on Tuesday. Milbank dared to write a critical piece on the nationally televised interview, and he unleashed O'Reilly's famous temper.

"He's a weasel, in my opinion. Beneath contempt," O'Reilly told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

O'Reilly said that Milbank shouldn't expect an invitation to the "No Spin Zone" anytime soon partly because "the audience despises him."

But O'Reilly couldn't care less about Milbank.

"I care that the Washington Post employs him," O'Reilly said. "That's what I care about. Whatever he says, doesn't bother me because I know where it's coming from. But the fact that the Washington Post would employ a guy like that — I mean, it's really disturbing."

Really, it's not about Milbank.

"But I’m not on a jihad against Milbank. I’m on a jihad, a holy war, against declining standards of journalism. The Washington Post editors — if they watched the interview, which, God knows if they did or not — had to know that Milbank was lying," O'Reilly continued.

"And they had to know that he was lying for a reason, that he’s a far-left zealot. It’s okay to be a liberal columnist, but once you cross the line into lying to promote what you want, then the paper’s got to take action.”

Milbank wrote that O'Reilly "devoted nearly 40 percent of [the interview] to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, 30 percent to the Obamacare rollout and 20 percent to IRS targeting." He counted 42 times that O'Reilly interrupted Obama and wrote that the pundit was "hostile" to the President.

Hewitt later invited Milbank on the show, and the columnist questioned O'Reilly's assertion that he lied.

"And look, we can have a difference of opinion about the merits of the interview, of ideology, of politics, but if he’s saying there’s something factually wrong, I’d like to know what it is so that I can correct it," he told Hewitt.

But O'Reilly hasn't responded well to even the faintest criticism of his interview. On Tuesday, he blasted the Associated Press for its characterization of the interview.

"The Associated Press, their headline of the interview was: ‘President Obama Defends Himself from Republican Charges,'" O'Reilly said on "Fox and Friends." "These aren't questions that all Americans should be interested in? No. Just Republicans should be."

Obama himself made note of O'Reilly's choice of questions, arguing that Fox's top host is "absolutely" unfair in his coverage.

h/t Mediaite

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bill-oreilly-super-bowl-obama-dana-milbank-weasel

RightWingNuttery is no longer flavour of the month and it's driving O'Reilly and his ilk nuts.

And is O'Reilly really a newsman?

O'Reilly always wants to control the discussion and be the center of it. In interviewing the President, he really should allow some time for responses without his constant interruptions. I think Obama gracefully addressed that.

O'Reilly used to be worse with Obama. if you want to see something really f'ing annoying, go back a few years. he would not let him get in 10 words. i don't know how Obama puts up with it.

I think it's rather rich that O'Reilly is complaining about lying and journalistic integrity. Both he and the organization he works for pride themselves on their bias.