Sunday night, before the Super Bowl, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly had a 15 minute live sit down with President Obama. I myself didn’t watch it live, too busy preparing items for a Super Bowl party that my family and I were attending. But I did review it later with the intent of going over the interview afterwards. But I decided to delay when I heard at the end of the interview there was going to be an additional 10 minutes that wouldn’t be shown live.
Here is my take, question by question, answer by answer (paraphrased A LOT for brevity). Before I get started, I know there have been complaints from the left blogs about O’Reilly interrupting President Obama something like 20 times. Get over it. O’Reilly has never liked bullcrap and he can smell it from a mile away. Plus, if he didn’t interrupt, Obama would have stood on the soapbox the entire 15 minutes. Like a lot of Presidents, Obama likes to hear the sound of his own voice. He is probably the worst though.
Q: Is Mubarak going to leave soon?
A: Egypt is not going to go back to what it was. Get all the groups together for an orderly transition.
While he did fumble around a bit on his answer I thought Obama gave a good politically-correct answer. We cannot tell Egypt what to do, they are a sovereign nation. We wouldn’t want China telling us what to do any more than the Egyptians want us telling them what to do.
O’Reilly had a follow up:
Q; The other problem is that Mubarak knows a lot of bad things about the US. I’m sure you are aware of that?
A: He’s been a good partner in the peace with Israel. Trying to suppress your own people can’t happen.
The trouble I have with his answer here is that the Administration’s position has been all over the map. First they did nothing (Like Iran), then they said Mubarak isn’t a dictator (good old crazy Uncle Joe), then they said the movement was freedom speaking, then they want the military to exert some control. So his answer, other than the part about Israel, was weak. Egypt has been a great partner in keeping the peace in the region. The other countries know there is no way they could take on Israel without Egypt, and even with Egypt, they’d still kick their butts stomped.
Q: The Muslim Brotherhood (MB)
A: The MB is one faction. There are strains of their ideology that are anti-US. There are others that want to come to the fore.
Q: But you don’t want the MB to gain control
A: What I want a representative government.
This was by far his weakest answer. All he had to say was, yes the Muslim Brotherhood is not a good thing for the US or for the region’s stability. They are a proven terrorist organization who gave birth to Hamas. They are virulently anti-Israel. They wish to bring Sharia law, and all of the law’s rules against women, gays, and other minorities, to the region. He did recognize the MB is well organized. I think when you look into all the other leftist and progressive organizations aligned with the MB (Code Pink, AFL-CIO, etc), he had to be careful not to further push these groups away.
Q: New Health Care law is unconstitutional. Are you prepared for this law to go down?
A: I think the FL judge was wrong, 12 others judges that threw out the cases
Q: When it goes to the SCOTUS, are you prepared for the law to go down?
A: Goes through the appeals process. I don’t want to spend the next 2 years
Q: Are you prepared if it gets thrown out?
A: Here’s what I am not prepared to do. I am not prepared to go back to a day when those with pre-existing conditions are denied health care.
When he pointed that 12 other judges threw out the cases, he was neglecting to tell the whole story. The FL judge threw out the whole law based on the severability of the purchase mandate. The other courts did not take up that issue. By highlighting the appeals process I think he has laid out the Administration’s plans for how they are going to battle these lawsuits. Since it can take up to 4 years for the entire appeals process to work before it reaches the SCOTUS, the tactic might be just to wait it all out. Maybe Obama will get to appoint another Justice to the bench, tipping the balance in his favor. Maybe if enough of the law is put into place the Justice Department will argue that it would cost too much to dismantle the law.
Q: The WSJ writes: Obama is a determined man of the left, wishing to redistribute wealth
A: The WSJ editorial pages are right-wing, probably paint you as a left-wing guy
Q: Do you deny their assessment that you want to redistribute wealth?
A: Absolutely, I didn’t raise taxes once.
Q: The entitlements you champion do redistribute wealth, like health care.
A: There is no reason why if you get sick, you should go bankrupt. The notion that is a radical idea is not correct.
This exchange goes on for a little while with O’Reilly basically pointing out that Americans feel he is a redistribution kind of guy and Obama saying things that boil down to ‘it is all for the greater good’. If O’Reilly had wanted to, he could have pointed out a few examples of when Obama actually said redistribution of wealth is good (Joe the Plumber, and ‘at a certain point I think you have made enough money’). Obama even had a WTF (win the future) moment. Obama’s “WTF” was never brought up in the debate over health care 2 years ago although he sure tried to make it seem like they had been related since the beginning. I’m sure WTF (not win the future) was used a lot during the debate though.
Q: Are you moving to the center?
A: No. We had to take steps to save the country
Q: You haven’t moved to the center
A: I was never where people said I was. How to we out innovate, out educate, out build the rest of the world.
For Obama to deny that he has not moved to the center was a slip up that I don’t think he caught. I’d be willing to bet that his public affairs folks were slapping themselves on the head and saying, “why did he say that?” Of course he has not moved to the center to become more like Reagan despite what the leftist MSM says. The clues are in the opening of this interview. He still strongly believes in redistribution of wealth, still blames all of our ills on someone else, and still thinks the big government is the way to go.
Q: Worst part of the job
A: Jacket on Super Bowl Sunday. Being in the bubble. Can’t be spontaneous.
Good answer and most likely from the heart. It is a tough job no matter who you are. And it has to be doubly so for a community organizing one-third of a term Senator. In all my years of following politics, the only person I can remember that wore the Presidency well was Reagan. The other had their issues. Carter looked like he was completely lost. Bush the first almost seemed glad when he lost to Clinton. Clinton had no clue how important appearances were, treating the Office of the President just as a way to get girls. Bush the second always looked uncomfortable, like he didn’t really want to be there, but did the job because he was asked.
Q: What is it about the job that has surprised you the most: that you weren’t prepared for?
A: Every decision that comes to my desk is something that no one else has been able to solve. The easy stuff is solved elsewhere.
Q: Wave after wave of complicated problems.
A: Best approach and the best answer for the American people and you know that you don’t have perfect information.
For me this was kind of a DOH moment. I have never been in a position as high as the President, but I do know that the people who have worked for me didn’t come to me for answers when they could solve the problem at their level. If they were coming to me, it meant they had tried and couldn’t come up with a solution or a fix for an issue. I think this goes back to his lack of experience. He has never really been in a position of being in charge. Yes he was a community organizer, but really, come on, what kinds of decisions were made there? And he did the state and US Senator gig. But again, not a position of being in charge. He has never had a “The Buck Stops Here” job until now and the Office of the President isn’t exactly the place for on-the-job training.
Q: Do you think you have changed since you became President?
A: I think if you ask Michelle or my closest friends I think they would say I am basically the same guy.
I’m not going to bother with this exchange other than to say it is not surprising that his friends would say he has become more guarded. The Presidency is a tremendously challenging job and there is no way it cannot have an impact on your life.
Q: Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?
A: The Folks that hate you don’t know you.
He says that he has a thick skin and he had developed it before he took the office. I would have to say that I’m not sure I believe that he had a thick skin before he got here. Some of the exchanges he had with Republicans, especially during the health care debate, were a little testy. It was almost like he felt those opposed were attacking him on a personal level. Just some of the things I read and heard from him made it seem like he was losing his patience with folks and he felt like he should be immune from all of that. Here also was a chance to nip more of the civility problem in the bud. He could have said something like, “I know the very vast majority of the folks who disagree with me don’t hate me personally. They may not like my leftist politics, but they don’t hate me personally.” Or words to that effect. I don’t personally hate President Obama. I don’t like his leftist politics and I don’t want him taking us any further towards his socialist utopia. I am sure he is a nice person, seems devoted to his wife and kids, and has a decent sense of humor. He has to have a sense of humor to put up with Joe Biden
Not going to bother with exchange regarding the game.
I will cover the 10 minutes not shown live on my next post. Time for me to hit the sack.
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