First of all, Obama did a great job of staying professional in this interview. Cynics are dogs, however, if you've seen Bill O'Reilly's show, this interview seems more generous than usual. The President gives full answers (as full as one can give in a 14 minute interview), O'Reilly even uses a citation (WSJ editorial) rather than saying, "We all know that..." or "Some say..."
That being said, I hope people realize that O'Reilly went into this interview planning to be nicer than usual. This is one of the games that Fox news plays. They will bash someone unmercifully for months on shows with the most rabid conservative viewership, and then for the Super Bowl O'Reilly plays is relatively friendly to appeal towards the middle he keeps describing.
With loads of logical fallacies to detect, here is a rather good example of political discourse in America. I like to think it isn't all too different from Athens.
I think it's easy to see the Red Hearing distraction when Bill O'Reilly decided to switch the topic of discussion from the Affordable Care Act, where Bill looked like quite a fool due to his ignorance on how appeals courts work, to the Super Bowl. It seems that no matter what Obama says or does, O'Reilly has to refute it in some illogical fashion even if the President was to compliment the man on his ability to attract such a large audience.
ReplyDelete