Sep 04 2008
Obama Get’s Rolled By O’Reilly
I disagree with O’Reilly on tons of items (he has bloviating nonsense down). For example, O’Reilly thinks Iraq was a mistake, but clearly the Arab Muslim street would not have risen up against al-Qaeda until the war raged at their doorstep and they had to expose their murderous heart to the Arab Street. Once you realize this had to happen to beat al-Qaeda, as many strategists realized years ago, then the only question is to force events to maximize our opportunity to control the situation and win.
The options, simply put, was to wait for al-Qaeda to topple Saudi Arabia or Egypt and then fight in the Arab Street, or to go in an knock out Saddam and fight it on better terms. Naive neophytes that inhabit the fantasy world on the left forget that what happened since 9-11 was THE BEST of all possible outcomes. All other paths were much, much worse and would have seen a strong al-Qaeda rising before we were forced to take them on. It is like what could have been the world’s history if people took out Hitler when his movement was just getting started, before he grabbed the controls of power of state.
Anyway, I digress. After watching Obama on O’Reilly something subtle came through in shocking clarity. O’Reilly completely controlled the situation. Obama was overwhelmed. It is easy to see how the Clinton’s were able to take over so much of the Democrat Convention prime time. Obama is weak, he likes to please, he wants acceptance, he wants recognition. O’Reilly rolled him the entire time.
We have three more nights to watch, but I don’t think it will look any better or different. The weak Obama many predicted was hidden behind the PR curtain, like the Wizard of Oz, seems to be a reality.
I watched the interview AJ, what I saw was that Bill set up the questions in such a way that Obama was practically fed the answer in the question, and needed only expand on what Bill said.
What do you mean by rolled? I don’t think Bill is very hard on interviews as he says he is going to be. Actually I think he is pathetic. The first question should have been why would you have voted against the war. Second, does it make any difference that you didn’t have to raise your hand and be counted as Hillary did, and why? Did you have a gut feeling or did you have access to intelligence? If he had asked questions like that we could have gotten a feeling about his thinking process.
Obama said he would never hesitate to use force if our national interests were threatened. Suppose he decides that our national interests are not threatened if Iran has a nuclear bomb because Iran is really far away, and Iran told him they would never attack America if we lifted the sanctions. Who knows?
Actually now that I think about it I learned nothing.
Kathie, Obama took directions from Bill without question. When Bill said ‘that’s the past, let’s stay on the present’ Obama obediently went off message and did as told.
I believe I said it was subtle, but it was there.
AJ,
Weird you should said that. The rap on the interview before and after was that Obama did well. I watched it and I thought he looked weak, unsure. He didn’t look Presidential.
A bit questionable about the entire interview. It was late last night after all the Sara hype was finished and I was reading Drudge or The Hill or something and it was revealed that all the top Fox heads have been in negotiations with Obama himself and the campaign for well over 4 months. Being tired I didn’t take it all in as I was p.ssed at O’Reilly to start with putting Obama on just prior to John McCain’s exceptance speech.
Obama did it to interrupt the “all” McCain coverage and interject himself on the most watch cable channel just prior to seeing John, AND O’Reilly bent over and obliged.
It was also revealed that ALL the questions to be asked where known ahead of time, what was off limits and what could be asked and how.
Research that and we’ll see how next week goes.
O’Reilly has been trying to get Obama on is show ever since he hit the national scene. Bill cares about ratings. I’m sure he felt his ratings would go up with Obama on. Obama probably used this as a condition for appearing. This was just a try at getting more conservative votes. Nothing more and nothing less. His base wouldn’t be caught dead watching Fox so anything he said would not get back to his bash. The problem is Bill. So many conservatives believe his wordis gospel and he waffles fack and forth so that no one really knows his opinions. And sometimes his opinions are over the top. I never watch him and could not bring myself to watch him last night. I knew he would soft peddle his questions just like he did with Kerry. He talks tough with regular people he has issues with but with but is ingratiating with presidential candidates.
aJ, are you saying that Bill’s stronger personality overwelmed Obama? If that is true think how he will react to Putin, Chavez and Imadinnerjacket. They will run over him like a mack truck.
Okay, as usual, I watched O’Reilly as I do every day without fail for at least 6 or more years. I agree with him about 90% of the time, he usually does very well questioning people. But let me give my opinion on this. He did okay with Obama, but considering that he had given Obama ALL the questions ahead of time, it reduced much of Obama’s uh, uh, uh, characteristics. He still did a bit of it, especially when he tried to dodge the question and substitute an answer to a question he wished had been asked. Bill did well at getting an answer to his question. Bill HAS to treat a presidential candidate with respect and in this, he bent over backwards. I guess because he’s been wanting him on for so long. But Bill said long ago that Obama would never come on his program until he started to feel like it was his only opportunity to win. I think Obama has reached that point with the Palin groundswell. I suspect that when Bill interviews Palin, he will be much tougher. For some reason, I think Bill feels as if Obama is better qualified to be Pres than Palin is to be VP. I certainly disagree, in fact I believe just the opposite. I think Palin is better qualified for the Pres than Obama is for the VP. The other thing O’Reilly said that he has said before and I vehemently disagree with him. He says the Iraq war was the wrong time or place for the war on terrorism. He hasn’t said, at least that I remember, when and where is the right time for the war on terrorism. I submit that with the absolutely total defeat of Al qaeda in Iraq and mostly now in Afghanistan, the war on terrorism is going to be much less severe and much less of it will be in the USA.
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AJ-
On first viewing (TiVo’ed — I refused to watch it on McCain’s night) I had the same reaction you did — Obama looked weak, compared to Bill O’Reilly — who, with apologies, is no Vladimir Putin.
On second viewing, when I was looking for just why I had that impression, he didn’t seem quite as weak. So, it may be a case of seeing what you bring to it. No idea how it will appear to an undecided voter…
I can’t wait to see the rest of the interview. (Though I’m far more eager to see how the polls read come Monday or Tuesday…)