If you’re the president, you can use the army and navy to slap her back.
It’s in the constitution - article 2, section 2.
Politifact is actually tracking it as a campaign promise (a Stalled one, at the moment).
And I’d be more bothered if Obama was wearing a tie and O’Reilly wasn’t. Obama was watching the Superbowl. O’Reilly was interviewing the President. Both were dressed appropriately.
Also, there’s the fact that Obama is willing to go toe to toe on national television with a harsh media critic of his…more than can be said of a certain failed vice-presidential nominee who shall remain unnamed.
Thanks. For some reason, that contrast between Obama and McCain made a real impression on me.
Anyway, I watched the interview last night – WTF was that football stuff about? Why was Bill on his case about whether he knew football? “You’re a basketball guy, right?” – the guy can’t know two sports? Bizarre.
I did like how Obama laughed in O’Reilly’s face, though. Also, they hid the teleprompters really well, I thought.
Leave James Stockdale alone!
He’s black, so it must be basketball he knows.
To be fair to O’Reilly (painful as it may be) it’s basketball that Obama plays (although after getting 12 stitches following a court collision last November he may have eased off a bit).
Yeah, but just because he plays basketball doesn’t mean he doesn’t know any other sport. In fact, I think that most people who are active in one sport are interested in other sports. I doubt O’Reilly plays anything.
There’s also a transcript of the interview here. Frankly, I was annoyed at how many times Bill O’Reilly interrupted the president, and I wondered what Fox News would have said if, for example, Keith Olbermann had done so while interviewing George W Bush while he was in office. (I think they would have called him disrespectful and rude.)
And I was amused when O’Reilly asked the president, “But the entitlements that you championed do redistribute wealth in the sense that they provide insurance coverage for 40 million people that don’t have it.” How is it a bad thing that we provide health insurance coverage for forty million people who don’t have it now?
Oh, I’m not disputing that at all. I’m just saying the O’Reilly’s perception of Obama as a “basketball person” may not have been specifically racial in original.
Afraid he’s going to be mistaken for Ahmadinejad?
I don’t understand your objection. The person not wearing the tie is “the head of state of the most powerful nation in the world.” And it’s an informal interview. Last year, the president didn’t even wear a jacket when being interviewed by Katie Couric.
Oh, I didn’t take it as racist, just dimwitted reasoning. He plays basketabll, therefore he’s a “basketball guy” and knows nothing of other sports.
If he’d done any homework at all, knowing that this was a pre-Superbowl interview, he would know that Obama has publicly expressed a keen interest in football and baseball (White Sox fan) as well as basketball.
[Off-topic]I know that Social Security and Medicare are entitlements, which I think means that they don’t have to be part of the annual appropriations process, unlike Defense, Foreign Aid, the EPA, and so on. Does the health care reform law actually create a new entitlement? Am I wrong about the definition of entitlements?[/Off-topic]
I am not a political expert, but I think the reason that Social Security and Medicare aren’t part of the appropriations process is because they’re funded by their own taxes.
Thanks. Sorry for the hijack. Back on topic – O’Reilly is a bozo.
Actually, Obama interrupted O’Reilly by starting to answer questions before he finished answering them.
Oh, come now. It boils down to this: who’s gonna pay for it? And the answer is that the U. S. government is going to force Peter to pay for Paul’s health insurance, and that is just wrong. Regardless of how many times they have done it before, such as the boondoggle of Medicare. Our economy simply can’t handle it.
The government is going to pay for it anyway. This is just a way to lower the ultimate cost and shift the burden a little from the working class to the parasitic, tax-dodging overclass.
Yes, that is what I meant. Sloppy word choice at 3am.
Well then that’s not helping my opinion of him. And I’m not real sure how a major planned televised interview isn’t formal.
I’m generally a supporter of Obama and his politics, but I find it a little disconcerting when I’m dressed better than the president on many occasions. And when his interviewer is better dressed. Hell, even the host of America’s Funniest Home videos that’s on TV right now is wearing a tie.
BTW, this was a politically neutral observation. I’d be just as annoyed if it was Bush.
Who gives a shit about a tie? Are you serious? Do you know who DID wear a tie? HITLER!