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Home › Politics

Politics | 03/31/2009 8:20 am

O'Reilly Breaks With Rush on Potential Obama Failure

By The Staff at wowOwow.com
© Getty Images

Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh don’t see eye to eye on Barack Obama.

The latter made waves when he insisted he wants the "socialist" president to fail — and O’Reilly disagrees completely, which sort of comes as a surprise considering his unabashed right-wing leanings.

In an interview with B&C Mobile celebrating his 100th consecutive week as cable news’s No. 1 show, O’Reilly insists he wants the president to do well, but does point out he’s not gung ho about all of Mr. Obama’s policies:

B&C: Do you want Obama to fail?

O’Reilly: No. We want him to succeed. We want to persuade him that perhaps some of his policies are not going to help him succeed.

B&C: What about all this talk of socialism? Isn’t that a little premature, since this bailout was started by the Bush administration?

O’Reilly: I’ve never bought into the fact that Barack Obama is a socialist. I think he’s a classic liberal that believes that big government can solve the problems of society, and he wants to redistribute income. I don’t think he’s a socialist. I don’t think he wants to seize people’s property. But I do think he’s a classic committed liberal.

Later in the interview, O’Reilly took a shot at NBC, which he describes as "corrupt from top to bottom." Just yesterday O’Reilly described the network’s news channel, MSNBC, as hateful. 

Read the entire interview here.

Read more about: Barack Obama, Bill O'Reilly, Feuds, Fox News, Media, MSNBC, NBC, News, Rush Limbaugh

129 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Libra Lady
Bill O always has spoke quite highly of obama ever since his interview with him….and he mentions it quite often in his nightly show!!! 
By Libra Lady on 03/31/2009 8:33 am
DeBúrca obj
Rush Limbaugh’s over the top comments have caused many people you would otherwise think of as Right Wing Republican, to not only appear more centrist, but to actually say how uncomfortable they are with Limbaugh’s statements. I think many know how it is hurting the Party, and I hope they also realize how it is hurting the country too.
By DeBúrca obj on 03/31/2009 8:39 am
Rudi G.

Now the question is how long it will take for Billo to call Rush’s show groveling for forgiveness like Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), Gov. Bobby Jindal and RNC Chair Michael Steele have done.

By Rudi G. on 03/31/2009 12:55 pm
DeBúrca obj
I want to see the video of that when it happens!
By DeBúrca obj on 03/31/2009 2:58 pm
Rudi G.

Oh, and, DeBúrca, this is hilarious. Olbermann caught O’Reilly in one of Billo’s infamous self-aggrandizing lies:

OLBERMANN: First, the funniest, most embarrassing O‘Reilly mistake. Ms. Guthrie [of B&C], “congratulations on 100 consecutive months as the top rated on cable news. That‘s quite an accomplishment in this day and age.”

Bill-O: “I don‘t think it has ever been done in any kind of TV milieu. We had our people research all programs going back to the ‘50s like “Gun Smoke” and things like that. Nobody has ever stayed on top this long.”

OLBERMANN: See, you need new people. “The Today Show” has been in first place for 694 consecutive weeks, as of last Friday, which calculates out to 166 consecutive months, every one of them since May 1995. “Meet the Press” has been in first place for 131 consecutive months, ever since May of 1988.

Bill, you are not only not the longest running top rated program ever in any kind of TV milieu, you are not even the second current longest running top rated program this week. How embarrassing for you. How embarrassing nobody at Fox knows enough about television to tell you this obvious fact. 

By Rudi G. on 03/31/2009 2:07 pm
Libra Lady
Poor keithy….he is sooooo jealous….he just can’t stand it….I love how it gets his goat…..keep talking keithy…..the more you advertise for Bill…the more your viewers switch over to FOX NEWS!!!!  I just love it!!!!  You can’t make this stuff up!!!!
By Libra Lady on 03/31/2009 2:20 pm
Rudi G.

Happy to oblige. Here’s more of Keith on O’Reilly’s B&C interview:

 Here are two embarrassing admissions that pertain to the president and ratings, and what Bill-O thinks of his colleagues at Fox. "I think that the ratings over the past three months prove beyond any doubt that many Americans are uneasy with the direction of the country. Sixty two million Americans voted against Barack Obama. Some of these people are concerned."

Apparently not that many; 62 million people voted against Obama. Since the election — since October 31st of last year, O‘Reilly‘s audience is up, let me get the number, oh, I‘m sorry. Since October 31st of lastyear, O‘Reilly‘s audience is down 568,000 viewers a night, down. Gosh, Bill, using your logic, doesn‘t that mean more people are uneasy with the direction of your show than the direction of the country?

"My program is the least skeptical of the so-called conservative programs. We give the president the benefit of the doubt. And we never cheap shot him."

Uh-oh. By implication, Bill is saying the other conservative shows do cheap shot him? So Bill, does Sean Hannity cheap shot Obama?  Glenn Beck? Bill, who will never go deaf listening to colleagues tell him he is a team player, didn‘t think this part ofthe interview through. Did he?

By Rudi G. on 03/31/2009 2:36 pm
Libra Lady
Yawn…not interested…just scrolled by it….no thanks!!!
By Libra Lady on 03/31/2009 2:45 pm
Rudi G.
Wait, there’s more:
OLBERMANN: [Imitating Ted Baxter as O’Reilly, quoting from the B&C interview:] "NBC is corrupt top to bottom. They say, oh, it is only MSNBC. No, it‘s not.  It is across the board.  What they did to the Branchini family was disgraceful.  Every media outlet in the country should come in on that."

The Branchini family?  You mean Alexa Branchini of It Happened to Alexa Foundation? What on Earth are you talking about?  Miss Guthrie, "What did they do?" Bill-O, "They attacked a foundation that helps rape victims and their families for having me MC a charitable event."

We didn‘t attack them.  We attacked you for having had the hypocrisy to attend a fund raiser for rape victim after you twice came out and blamed rape victims for their own victimization and, in one case, death.

Ms. Guthrie, "NBC has denied that they had anything to do with that."

Bill-O, "that‘s a lie.  NBC‘s air drove all of that. The Internet cannot get traction unless it has an outlet, a national outlet.  NBC provided that. I hope you‘re understanding this. There aren‘t two sides to this story. There‘s what happened and the NBC lie about what happened.  That is it."

Let me see if I‘m correctly summarizing your evidence of what you previously described as a well-financed cabal to smear you about this.  One, you called the raped and murdered Jennifer Moore moronic and you described how her drunkenness and scanty attire led to her horrible death. Two, you said the raped and molested teenager Sean Hornbeck enjoyed parts of his captivity more than he had life with his family.

Three, in a bitter irony, you wound up headlining a fund raiser for rape victims, a fact promoted by the support group. Four, the irony was noted on several websites. Five, we raised it here.  Six, Amanda Terkel wrote about it at ThinkProgress.org. Seven, you sent an employee to follow her and stalk her in a car for two hours. 

Therefore, eight, this is a conspiracy against you.

Bill, a rhetorical question, in private, has any doctor ever used the word "megalomania" to you?
By Rudi G. on 03/31/2009 3:00 pm
Frannie Em

Well Rudi

You are right, O’Reilly is egotistical and bombastic and struts around like he made a touchdown, but when was the last time Olbermann was on top?  I wonder if he has a mancrush on O’Reilly?  If Olbermann was not so obsessed and leave O’Reilly out of the picture, maybe he could focus better and move towards number 1.  Don’t you think there is just a little bit of jealousy? I mean why so obsessed over someone at Fox News if you think you are so much better?  No one will notice his strut?

By Frannie Em on 03/31/2009 4:52 pm
Rudi G.
Olbermann’s ratings are going up. Orally’s are going down.
By Rudi G. on 03/31/2009 4:55 pm
Libra Lady
dream on suzanne…dream on…oh…I scrolled through the above….you are wasting your cut and pasting on me!!!  wink wink…what a hoot you are girly
By Libra Lady on 03/31/2009 6:34 pm
Z ****
Suzanne…….don’t worry about wasting your time on Libra Lady — that’s a given when you post here.  =)
By Z **** on 04/01/2009 6:44 am
DeBúrca obj
Yes LL, everybody’s jealous… we’re jealous of Palin, Olberman is jealous of O’Reilly… a little rationalization to get you through the day.
By DeBúrca obj on 03/31/2009 2:59 pm
S.J. Morgan

You are right Libra….. he might as well call his show the FOX Watch…as he spends alot of time trying to dipute anything and everything they say or do!

Does he ever have an original thought???

By S.J. Morgan on 03/31/2009 6:19 pm
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