Bill O’Reilly was full of praise for President Obama’s changes to immigration policy tonight. He hailed it as both a fair, humane measure and a politically brilliant one. He devoted his Talking Points editorial segment that opens most O’Reilly Factor shows to the subject. And if he hadn’t followed that up with virulent immigrant-basher and birther Lou Dobbs, I’d have nothing to complain about.
O’Reilly called Obama’s decision “a very clever political move” as “many Hispanic-Americans will support the move and the President needs those votes.” O’Reilly also noted that it “puts Mitt Romney on the defensive. Will he support the immigration change or will he be perceived as unyielding, a mean guy?”
He continued, “As for the policy, how can you blame kids when they’re dragged to the USA from wherever? If you’re a fair person, you can’t. It’s not the child’s fault the immigration laws are broken. It’s the parents who did it. Thus the new policy is humane.”
O’Reilly called it “debatable” as to whether the changes would “make American stronger by adding motivated people to the workforce,” as Obama had claimed. But, O'Reilly added, “the fairness issue is not.”
And if all that were not enough to make you think you might have been watching some other channel, O’Reilly concluded by taking a swipe at Neil Munro, the reporter for the conservative Daily Caller, who had heckled Obama during his statement. “Mr. Munro was absolutely wrong in interfering with the president’s statement. As Talking Points always says, you must respect the office of the presidency even if you don’t like the person in it. Mr. Obama was correct in calling Munro out.”
Wow. But perhaps to make up for so much Obama approval, O’Reilly trotted out Dobbs. Let's just say he (predictably) saw the situation differently. It was not unlike O’Reilly’s move to consult Glenn Beck about President Obama’s outreach to African Americans.
I’ll get video and post about the Dobbs discussion tomorrow.
The first video below is from FoxNews.com. Interestingly, Fox cut off the video when O’Reilly began to take down Munro. Mediaite has that part (but cut off the beginning).