Apparently, Jon Stewart touched a nerve last night with his devastating takedown of Bill O’Reilly’s Super Bowl interview with President Obama. So tonight, O’Reilly fired back with a Talking Points Memo called, “Making Jon Stewart Understand America.” Unfortunately for O’Reilly, I think he only made himself look out of touch.
The gist of Stewart’s criticism of the interview was that O’Reilly merely reached “wholescale into the full Fox scandal grab bag” and “play(ed) the hits” of Benghazi, IRS and ObamaCare rather than try to engage in a substantive dialogue with the president.
Or, as O’Reilly put it, “The liberal spin is the interview dealt with phony issues, stuff trumped up by the Fox News Channel.”
O’Reilly defended his trifecta of Fox “scandals” with the following:
Now, I know and you probably know too that these issues aren’t important to Jon Stewart or even to the president. They don’t see them as vital because they don’t pertain to social justice or global warming. So if I ask about those issues, I’m a doofus, a scandal monger. That’s the spin.
Now, I’m gonna speak very slowly so Stewart and his crew can take some notes. Number one, there are serious charges that the Obama administration would not tell the truth about Libya because of the upcoming presidential election. Those charges have not been proven but they’re in play.
I hate to break it to you, Bill, but if, after more than a year of beating the Benghazi drum, you still have no proof that anything untoward happened, maybe you should give it a rest until you do.
Next subject, please:
Number 2, if the Internal Revenue Service is abusing its vast power, every American should be concerned. There has been little done by the Obama administration to uncover possible abuse of power.
Even you, O'Reilly, are admitting here that there's not enough for everyone to be concerned. President Obama told you in your interview that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption.” If your network is so suspicious, why haven’t you guys uncovered anything definitive? Put up or shut up, already!
And finally, the American people are being forced to accept ObamaCare. And right now, despite billions of dollars spent, it’s still chaotic.
I believe that might be an important issue.
Sorry, Bill, the American people are not “being forced to accept ObamaCare.” They voted for it. It was a major issue in the last presidential campaign. Mitt Romney promised, “Day one. Job one. Repeal ObamaCare.” Yet Obama was handily re-elected. That was after the bill was passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court. Even now, the public does not want the law repealed.
O’Reilly followed up his Talking Points with a discussion with regulars Kirsten Powers (Democrat) and Kate Obenshain (Republican). They each assured him he was right to press President Obama on the subjects.
But in poll after poll, when the public is asked about the country's important problems and what they think should be national priorities, it’s always the economy or jobs at the top of the list. Benghazi is nowhere to be found. The “IRS” is sometimes listed (with very few votes), but it’s not at all clear that the respondents are thinking of the so-called IRS scandal and not the tax system in general.
So when O’Reilly called out, “Are you hearing me out there in left-wing fantasy land?” I think we can answer, “Yes, loud and clear!” But I don’t think we’re the ones who are not listening to America.
Below is tonight’s Talking Points segment. Underneath that is last night’s Daily Show segment.
“Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly called Dana Milbank “a weasel” and a liar after the Washington Post columnist penned an essay criticizng O’Reilly’s pre-Super Bowl interview with President Obama.
In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday, O’Reilly said Milbank “is a weasel in my opinion, beneath contempt.”
“The fact that the Washington Post would employ a guy like that — it’s really disturbing,” O’Reilly said. “If the Washington Post editors watched the interview… they had to know that Milbank was lying, and they had to know he was lying for a reason, that he’s a far-left zealot.”
“It’s OK to be a liberal columnist, but once you cross the line into lying… the paper’s got to take action,” O’Reilly said. (His remarks came moments after he told Hewitt, “I never attack anyone personally.”)"
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/02/oreilly-wapos-dana-milbank-a-weasel-182705.html
“O’Reilly told Rivera that anyone who was bothered by that interview at all “is annoyed because of ideology,” and made this rather bold claim about how well it actually went down.”
“I’m going to predict that that interview I did is going to go down in journalistic history as what should be done… It takes a certain skill to pose questions in a factual way and be persistent without being disrespectful.”
He actually sees himself as a journalist?! And he dares to accuse Jon Stewart/the left of living in a fantasyland? Bwaaah!
http://www.mediaite.com/online/oreilly-super-bowl-obama-interview-will-go-down-in-journalistic-history/
Bullies don’t like it when people show them up!
Wait here Bill while I get my violin.
No, Mr O’Reilly, that’s not it at all. What it IS, however, is that “the truth is the interview dealt with phony issues, stuff trumped up by the FoxNoise Channel.”
Gee. Who knew that “truth” could be defined as “liberal spin?” But, Mr O’Reilly, that’s the
All BOR’s response to Stewart proves is that: 1) BOR is very thin-skinned/overly-defensive and incapable of admitting the truth even when shoved right in his face and 2) that BOR is far more interested is pushing the rhetoric of the right/GOP than he is talking about the real issues that the people are truly concerned about in their daily lives. BOR did ask about healthcare (a concern of the folks) but BOR came at it from the point of view of does Obama think his saying you can keep your healthcare is the “biggest mistake” of your Presidency instead of actually discussing ACA. Geez.
Milbank has an article yesterday noting that, in the pre-Super Bowl interview, BOR, “the Fox News host and purveyor of anti-Obama sentiment was given 10 minutes to question the man he decries to millions nightly. O’Reilly devoted nearly 40 percent of his time to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, 30 percent to the Obamacare rollout and 20 percent to IRS targeting.” Milbank then goes on to provide more critique about how BOR handled the interview.
http://www.journalnow.com/opinion/columnists/article_3092dd2a-8e85-11e3-bb53-0017a43b2370.html?mode=jqm
Use the same talking points like Billy and insert every U.K. scandal involving Ruthless Rupy and his boy, James.
These frauds like to discuss other people’s scandals, so let’s bring up their own major scandals. We could bring up Billy’s harassment of his ex-wife and then-boyfriend, if he wants to get nasty about it.
Or, his meltdown on “Inside Edition.”
Read our lips, Bildo: WE DON’T CARE!
We DO care about —
The economy
Food stamp cuts
Immigration reform
Syria
Safety of Americans at the Olympics
Jobs
Voters rights
Congressional reform
Anything but the “scandals” you guys keep harping on