President Barack Obama has been called many things by many people who don’t know him and many who have never met him. He has also been accused of many things by seemingly crazy people. He has been called a socialist by some conservative politicians. He is viewed as a foreigner by people known as birthers. A large number of Americans say that they think that he is a Muslim—even a secret Muslim. Obama has been portrayed at the same time in protest crowds as Hitler and Stalin. He has been accused of wanting to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor (read "black"). His health care plan has been described as a kind of reparations to black people for slavery. One well-known man even accused the president of having a deep-seated hatred for white people, though he has since retracted that statement. A cute delusionary woman fear-hustler portrays herself as being on the presidential level in knowledge and gravitas, only to hustle speaking fees from low-information voters. Low-information white people hate Obama, they say, because he is destroying America.
Barack Obama has consented to be interviewed by conservative commentators who are largely responsible for these negative views of him that have taken hold. He does this knowing how shabbily they will treat him and his office. Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, interviewed the president on Sunday, February 7, 2011. During the interview, O’Reilly sat on the edge of his chair like an eager, over-sugar-fed child with attention deficit disorder. He pummeled the president with disrespect and interruptions. At one point O’Reilly’s behavior remind me of the “smart-ass white boys” ambassador Andrew Young described in the administration of Jimmy Carter, who shut him out from Carter. Finally O’Reilly became so obnoxious he resembled a drunken St. Patrick’s Day reveler stumbling out of a mid-Manhattan Blarney Stone Pub looking for a fight.
He asked the president how it felt to be hated by so many, a feeling O’Reilly has gotten to know very well himself. The president’s answer was sober. He said that people who hate him don’t know him. What they really hate are those distorted characterizations of him floating around out there, the same characterizations which O’Reilly helps to construct and perpetuate. Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC said that O’Reilly interrupted the president 43 times during the interview—he counted them on air. It antagonized many Americans to see the president of the United States handled in this manner by a person whose journalism methods are deceptive and meaningless.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Andy Marsh
How does shit like this even get published at BC?
What a waste of my time even trying to read it!
2 - Christopher Rose
It is actually quite easy, Andy.
You click on that link top right under the search box, sign up, write an article and, hey presto, it is published. That way you could write your own shit!
3 - Andy Marsh
I don't think I need to sign up CR. But I get your point!
I may post soon....
4 - El Bicho
A better question is how comments like Andy's are allowed to stay. Why not offer a rebuttal to what Horace says that shows some thought?
5 - roger nowosielski
Andy does behave on occasions like Archie Bunker. Not one of his better days.
6 - Andy Marsh
Because I was too busy throwing up after reading it. Why bother? It's typical leftist BS!
Obama's done two decent interviews in 4 years and O'Reilly was the person who asked the questions...and I'm not even an O'Reilly fan!!! I suppose liberals would love to see an interview where the president is asked a question and allowed to prattle on and on and on and on without really answering...but according to the writer, he was "interuppted" while he was trying to answer...no, he was interrupted when he was trying NOT to answer the questions! I'm sure Chris Matthews would've done a better job in between the times he's stroking himself to get rid of that tingle running up his leg.
We can tell where the writers loyalties lie just by reading the article. Or better yet, just look at the rest of the stuff (I said stuff so CR wouldn't have to delete my real feeling on what he writes) that he's written! Who gives a rats ass what admitted socialist Larry O'Donnell thinks?
Even the Whitehouse said it believed it was a good interview...Hell! Even Morning Joe said it was a good interview!!!
Is this still BlogCRITICS? I was just wondering...
Oh yeah, that's right, we're supposed to be tuning down the rhetoric...I am! I'm tuning it down to about the same level as the union ASSHOLES in Wisconsin.
Have a nice day...you bunch of whiners!
7 - Andy Marsh
And Archie was from Queens, I'm a Jersey kid! Different animal!
8 - Clavos
A better question is how comments like Andy's are allowed to stay.
It wasn't a personal attack, EB.
Are you advocating censorship of speech you don't like?
9 - Tommy Mack
Truly, the Post Comment button can just easily not be a good friend. That's why the Preview Comment button is there, on the left.
10 - roger nowosielski
But truly, Andy himself owned up to the fact that his initial response, by way of expletive, was below (his) par. We both know he can do better. Regardless of what any of us thinks of Obama - and I'm certainly not his fan - or of the slant given by Mr. Mungin, Andy's original response was nothing but an ejaculation.
You may call it speech if you like; I don't. Still, he's got the right.
11 - Clavos
You may call it speech if you like
It's speech, and it's protected.
12 - roger nowosielski
I believe I said he's got the right.
13 - roger nowosielski
Besides, I was only trying to elevate Andy rather than appeal to his worst instincts.
14 - Boeke
Here's the height of Andy's thought process:
"I'm tuning it down to about the same level as the union ASSHOLES in Wisconsin.
Have a nice day...you bunch of whiners!"
Judge for yourselves.
15 - Glenn Contrarian
Horace -
I strongly agree with you. The loony-tunes Rightists on here won't allow themselves to recognize the virtues of graciousness and patience. In all honesty, President Obama's patience reminds me of how many Asians I know refuse to publicly lose their tempers and criticize obliquely rather than use straightforward attacks as I would myself. That's one of the reasons I like him so much - because I feel I understand him better than most.
16 - Horace Mungin
Finally a comment on the Substance of my article - thank you Glenn.
17 - roger nowosielski
I do concur, Glenn, with a proviso though. It's part of being in office, don't you think? So who are we contrasting now President Obama with? Bill O'Reilly? Certainly not! What other office holder comes to mind? Now, that would be a meaningful comparison.
Sorry, Horace, I'm not minimizing the force of your article, only posing a question
18 - handyguy
This article is very well written, at least until the 'reciprocity of Universal Laws' stuff starts. Lost me there.
I didn't object to the O'Reilly interview as much as some others have. And Obama deftly handled the 'rude' interruptions.
I do wish, instead of denying that he wants to redistribute wealth, he had said, "Hell yeah, I'm undoing the redistribution of wealth that has robbed the middle class and vastly enriched the wealthy since at least 1981." Might have caused a political tsunami, but it needs to be said.
19 - Andy Marsh
Wouldn't previewing comments be the same thing as thinking before you speak?
Sorry, I don't roll that way!
I hear enough whining about Fox every time I turn on MSNBC, why do I need to read it here?
Nice Boeke, you pick the last line of a fairly long comment, long by my standards, and say that's the extent of my thought process. Apparently, you have a little issue with retaining what you read. If you didn't, then you might have seen a little more of my "thought processes".
20 - Clavos
Boeke sees nothing but what he wants to see -- that which fits in his preconceived Weltanschaung and nothing more.
He is exactly what he accuses me of being.
21 - Glenn Contrarian
Andy -
Fox News makes more (and more egregious) errors than all other major news networks put together...and it is glaring obvious that some of those 'mistakes' are intentional.
I'm sure you won't do it, but if you'd take the time to go to mediamatters.org, you'd find a list of several thousand errors, obfuscations, and outright lies told by Fox News. And these aren't made-up - mediamatters shows the proof in every single accusation they make.
22 - Andy Marsh
Glenn - I don't watch Fox exclusively. I actually only watch it one hour a day, the 6 o'clock one to be exact. I know how the folks on Morning Joe felt about the interview because I watch it EVERY DAY. Well, not every day, no weekends.
Lemme 'splain it to you...
I used to be a Fox fan. I used to watch O'Reilly every night. I even went to a live show back when I lived in AZ. Got on TV a bunch of times. They liked the longhaired jeans wearin' guy in their audience I guess. His final talking point was actually about the question I asked him before the show dealing with his SVU tax that he and Arrianna Huffington always spewed about, before she became a crazy liberal. He stopped spewing it after I pointed out to him that his house was 3 times the size of mine and maybe he should be paying that same kind of tax there. Later, I felt, he got too big for his britches, so to speak, and I can't stomach him much any more.
I watch local news at 5, because Beck spews way to much religious BS for me. I'm a reformed catholic who spent way to many years in catholic school. I've had all the religion I can stomach for one lifetime.
I do watch FoxNews at 6. I do think that Charles Krauthammer is worth listening to.
After that, I chill, watch movies, listen to music, play with the dogs, or my granddaughter if she's here.
I've honestly tried to listen to Olbermann, Maddow, Schultz and O'Donnell, but they really get me yelling at the TV and I like having low blood pressure. I'd like to keep it that way. My pop has someone else's heart in his chest and I had mine whacked open in 91. No fun!
During the day, when I'm not here fighting with you guys or folks on FB, I try and hit a lot of different websites for my news. I even read some of the stuff here, including the arguments. Even when I wasn't commenting, I still came back from time to time to see what you all were up to...
I'm not the closed minded person some here think I am. I don't give a rats ass about same sex marriage, an opinion that was changed here at BC BTW, I don't care about abortion, unless I was involved in the creation. I'm for the legalization and taxation of marijuanna. I think it could really solve a lot of our countries economic woes, actually.
I'm not a fan of unions. My pop was an independant long haul trucker for a lot of years and came home with bullet holes in his truck back in the 70's. EVERYTHING in the northeast and in Cali costs more and I believe that's directly related to unions. They're a good thing for the people in the union, but they suck for the rest of us.
These opinions don't come from watching Fox. They come from living for extended periods of time in 7 different states and visiting 33 different countries. Yeah, yeah, somehow, when you visit places while you're in the military you're shielded from the real goings on in those countries...or so a few here have hinted. Like I never wandered into the seedier parts of town while I was in the navy! I never wandered out of them!
I believe in safety nets, like unemployment insurance, medicaid and medicare. I think SS should be means tested.
I'll never vote for Palin or Rommney. I think they both suck.
And lastly, I think our country elected an unqualified, community organizer, president. We're heading down the crapper because our govt has become an ugly monster that feeds on dollars and our newly elected president wants to grow it even bigger.
That's me...I'm a nice guy...the nicest I know actually! Not the nicest person, that'd be my youngest daughter, just the nicest guy.
Any questions?
23 - Joseph Cotto
I read the entire rant masquerading as legitimate political commentary. Despite its contents being fit for nothing more than a particularly bad post on DailyKos, it proved something to me once and for all. When one is in doubt of the quality of his or her writing, he or she will usually apply obscenities and notions of false victimhood in order to mask its vapid nature.
For anyone else considering taking this course of action, allow me to tell you in advance that it simply will not work. The thing that passes for an "article" above should be proof enough.
24 - El Bicho
"It wasn't a personal attack, EB."
That might explain why I never said it was.
"Are you advocating censorship of speech you don't like?"
Nope. Just declaring Andy's first response is more of a waste of time and space than Horace's article and I haven't read Horace's article. If he only wants articles he agrees with, he's at the wrong site.
25 - Clavos
That's right, EB, you didn't say that Andy's comment was a personal attack, but you did call for it to be removed (i.e. censored) by saying:
A better question is how comments like Andy's are allowed to stay.
Which is what led me to point out that there was no personal attack involved.
You say that you are not advocating censorship, but what is removal of a comment if not censorship? Even if the reason for said removal is because the comment in your words, "...is more of a waste of time and space than Horace's article..." the result of removal is the comment gets censored.
Fortunately for all of us (and the site), the Comments Editors are much more tolerant than you.