In case you missed it, President Obama appeared on Funny Or Die’s “Between Two Ferns” mock talk show with Zach Galifianakis today. The video went viral and reportedly spiked traffic to HealthCare.gov, which was the purpose behind Obama’s appearance. So, naturally, Fox News had to go on the attack.
Media Matters has a good roundup of the indignation. But I think Bill O’Reilly has to take the cake for making the right-wing complainers look old and out of touch with his argument that Abe Lincoln would not have done gone on Funny or Die. Well, duh!
Perhaps even worse, O’Reilly suggested that Obama's appearance would diminish him in the eyes of Vladimir Putin, as if Putin should now be Obama’s guiding compass:
For a president under intense scrutiny to do a comedy show raises some questions. First of all, I don’t really have a problem with it in general but I think the timing hurts Mr. Obama. The economy continues to be problematic and Putin is clearly testing the president. It looks like Putin believes the president is a lightweight. Will a comedy video counter that? Just asking.
Here’s the most important thing. The Affordable Health Care Act (sic) is dubious to say the least. And using a comedic website to enroll people? It’s a little bit desperate, don’t you think? I mean, I’m all for PR and if (White House Press Secretary) Carney wanted to go on Funny or Die? Fine. But the president of the United States?
All I can tell you is Abe Lincoln would not have done it.
There comes a point when serious times call for serious action. We’re a divided nation which Talking Points believes is in decline. Mr. Obama’s quick, has a good sense of humor. Those are assets. But he needs to be aware, he needs to be aware of how his enemies perceive him because I believe the testing of America is just getting started.
Isn’t it funny, though, with all the concern about America appearing weak in the eyes of Putin, nobody on Fox ever seems to think that their non-stop tearing down of our president over any and everything might be part of the problem? I mean, don't they ever worry about how America's enemies perceive them? Sadly, the answer appears to be no.
By the way, Richard Nixon went on Laugh-In when he was running for president and that was in the middle of an actual war. Fox News wasn’t around then to compare the coverage. But I think we can guess how it would have gone.
Video below of Obama on Funny Or Die, O’Reilly’s Talking Points and Nixon on Laugh-In.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4LRSkUIp3M
His favorite sport was wrestling, after all.
Secondly, I hope Zach auctions off the interview notes to charity! That would be hilarious, especially if he doodled some small pictures or words on them!
I would laugh if Zach went around asking everyone he meets if they saw the interview, as O’Reilly has done for weeks!
Putin’s Crimea invasion, of course, is about Russian power and nationalism. The idea that it is meant to ‘test Obama’ (who has been in office for 5 years now!) is a completely ridiculous and narcissistic analysis. Apparently O’Reilly thinks that everything that happens in the world has the USA at its epicenter.
If O’Reilly wants a strong president who will stand up to Putin, then he needs to support that president, but that will never happen. So it appears O’Reilly wants Putin to succeed.
Exactly, Ellen. The talking heads on the right/at FOX “news” including BOR (who hilariously fancies himself to be quite the “fair & balanced” analyst) insist on attacking their own President while providing macho praise and a kind of bizarre encouragement for Putin to challenge Obama. Putin no doubt feels rather empowered by the comments/attention granted to him by the Obama haters and is grateful for the very public tearing down they are giving their own “lightweight, weak, feckless” President. Pffft.
And to BOR’s quip that Lincoln would have never done “Funny or Die”, yeah, it just further confirms that BOR is out-of-touch and that he doesn’t actually watch “Funny or Die”. BOR has old-fashioned, “traditional” ideas about what a President should do/not do (when they are Dems, of course – did BOR go off on Bush for demeaning the Presidency and those who died in war with his comedic gem, the Oval Office WMD search? Um, yeah, I don’t think he did).
However, upon second thought, maybe BOR is wrong – if Lincoln were Prez today, maybe he would have done the show as, in several books/articles that I’ve read about Lincoln, it’s been mentioned that Lincoln had a wicked, biting wit/sense of humor. He might have enjoyed mixing it up with Zach for a good cause.
This was a classic!!!
B-b-but I thought we didn’t give a sh*t what the rest of the world thought of us, BillO.
Oh wait, I forgot: that’s only when a a white repub the rest of the world hates is in the WH . . .
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The suits don’t care for this old Pooka. They keep him because of ratings, otherwise they would have replaced him with a younger female host.
