Obama on FOX: 11 Minutes I’ll Never Get Back

posted at 9:46 am on March 18, 2010 by Howard Portnoy
[ Healthcare ]   

Last night in case you missed it (in which case, consider yourself lucky), Barack Obama appeared on FOX News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier.” Yes, this is the same FOX News that Obama and his cohorts dismissed as a non-news organization. That would seem to make the president look like something of a sap, first deligitimizing a network that tells the truth about him, then deigning to appear on the same to sell his corrupt and corrupting health care plan. I’m sure as justification for appearing on FOX News, Obama would point out that he has made numerous appearances on TV for non-news purposes. He spent about a half hour yesterday on ESPN discussing his picks for March Madness and is the first ever sitting president to appear on late night comedy TV.

I was able to endure exactly 11 minutes of the spectacle before my blood began to boil and I switched channels. So what did Bret and the president talk about? Nothing in the time I watched. Baier attempted to conduct an interview, and the great speechifier spent his time before the cameras talking over Baier, attempting to silence him, and stonewalling any time the questions cut ice—which was almost continuously.

When Baier challenged him on the crass machinations Congress is contemplating to pass health care by any means, which Obama himself decried back when he was a senator, Obama proudly displayed his Allinskyite pedigree, explaining that the ends in this case justify the means.

When Baier mentioned having received 1,800 emails from viewers anxious about the devious process underlying the House’s actions, Obama went into schoolyard-retort mode, noting that he receives lots of emails, too (nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah), all of them from people who are eating their left arm for dinner so they can pay for health insurance. Even if this were true, it misses the point badly. Then again, Obama long ago put the lie to the claims by various acolytes that he’s “scary smart.” Scary, no question. As to how bright he is, I’ll let you know after he completes grade 5 math, which will help him avoid making statements like the following, uttered Tuesday in Ohio: “Your employer, it’s estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent, which means they could give you a raise.”

I do know that he’s contentious. After shouting Baier down repeatedly for asking legitimate questions that most Americans, let alone FOX viewers, would like answered, Obama had the temerity to tell Baier how frustrating he found the interview.

The biggest question of all was why he entered the lion’s den in the first place. Evidently, Obama still believes ironically that he is in possession of some gift—that he has the power to talk his way out of any mess. Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics writes that Obama’s decision to do this interview was a mistake and that he appeared to be “coming from a position of weakness and desperation, rather than strength and confidence.” Not terribly surprising, considering what an awful bill this is or what an awful president Obama is.

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