The Right is crowing about Bret Baier’s interview of President Obama on Fox News. It was contentious to the point of being hostile, according to most accounts. Baier repeatedly interrupted the President, John Perr writes at Crooks and Liars. But earlier in his “career” Baier compared George W. Bush to Abraham Lincoln and declared that “The country essentially hated him [Lincoln] when he was leaving office.” Um, no.
Some of you might remember that the Lincoln-like Mr. Bush in 2007 was interviewed by an Irish reporter, Carole Coleman, and was so enraged that Coleman pushed him for more complete answers that he complained to the Irish government and managed to ban the interview from U.S. television. The White House also canceled another interview that had been scheduled between Coleman and First Lady Laura Bush.
By contrast, the Baier interview of Obama has been described as an “interrupt-a-thon.” Katie Connolly wrote,
Baier focused his questions on process, hardly a surprise given that’s what the public debate is largely over right now. Obama did his best to circumvent and focus on policy—which, after all, is the point of the bill. That dynamic wasn’t unexpected. What was unusual—and at times downright jarring—was Baier’s repeated interruptions. He tried time and again to pin the president down, but Obama was having none of it. “I think this conversation ends up being a little frustrating … because the focus entirely is on Washington process. And yes, I have said it, that is an ugly process. It was ugly when Republicans were in charge, it was ugly when Democrats were in charge,” he told Baier.
Scroll down to see just a snip of the Baier interview of Obama. Baier clearly was belligerent; Coleman was politeness itself in comparison (see below).
NOBODY PUSHES GEORGIE INTO A CORNER!!!
If you look at the Cable “News†Ratings you’ll see Bair’s nightly news program is consistently behind the more popular FAUX “opinion” shows, in fact it regularly rates at the bottom of FAUX’s late afternoon / evening programming. In short it just aint racist and hateful enough for the average dimwitted FAUX viewer. So wisely the programming masters at FAUX saw this interview as a great opportunity to burnish Bair’s “I hate the colored fellow too” credentials. It all about ratings at FAUX as long as they win then the truth and standard journalistic decorum are merely inconvenient details.
I made it through 48 seconds. Abu Graibh was exactly representative of American intentions. BTW, in 48 seconds, she would have interrupted at least three times if the Faux model were being followed.
At the 32 second mark, Brett Baier tipped his hand to show his hostility..” Do you support this Slaughter rule, the deem and pass rule?” There is no reason to refer to it as the Slaughter rule unless it’s only to project an established bias. Obama should have called him out at that point and put him on the defensive so that he might conduct an honest and impartial interview.
I mostly thought that Baier was rude and had no intention of conducting a well-tempered interview. I thought Obama was Grace under Pressure as he always seems to be.
Could you imagine what would have happened to an AMERICAN reporter who treated Bush in 2003 or 2004 like this guy treated Obama?
The poor SOB would just be getting home from some site to which he had been renditioned. He’d be carrying his former, withered ball sack and organ, in one hand, one dried-up eye in the other, and be gibbering like a madman from the 2000 (in honor of the year Shrub got elected) water-boardings.
And Karl Rove would have a DVD of every single second of it for his personal consumption. KY-Jelly, wet-suit and flippers would have been paid for by taxpayers, of course…
I think it bears repeating that, for all his real or imagined mistakes, Obama invariably behaves like a grown-up. Often, it’s a stark contrast to the person he’s speaking to. With Bush it was the opposite; he could’ve been interviewed by Koko the Gorilla and he would’ve looked like an idiot. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Fox interview helps Obama quite a bit, as it continues to resonate beyond the usual Fox demographic.
I’m trying to think of someone on the left who mirrors the assholishness of Baier and Fox News, who might in some alternative universe have interviewed Bush the same way. But it never happened – the Dauphin made sure he never even saw protestors, let alone having to respond to anyone who wasn’t a fawning courtier. And his supporters loved him for the arrogant bullying ethic underlying his imperial isolation.
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This is the moneyline from this post:
“The country essentially hated him [Lincoln] when he was leaving office.â€
Uhm, if I remember correctly, Lincoln didn’t leave the office. He was carried out – of Ford’s Theatre.
And Baier’s Great-grandfather was probably the only one there to give Ol’ John Wilkes his last standing “O!”
c u n d gulag — and the country — the non-confederate parts, anyway — essentially adored him in his final days, which made his assassination the great shock that reverberates to this day.
I have to admit that I am still worried for Obama on this score. There is simply too much encouraged disrespect, derision and racism for it not to inspire some fool to act on anger and prejudice. When you have teabaggers acting as though their taxes have been raised, their amorphous freedoms have been taken and their country has been stolen, they will add up to tragedy. I keep looking at the guy and thinking that he is trying to govern as he would expect any president to govern, when there is really a singularly poisonous opposition that is founded on opposition and thinks no further than opposition and is satisfied with opposition.
Baier didn’t say, “Shut up, boy,” to Obama, but I still ‘heard’ him saying it throughout the entire interview. If you didn’t ‘hear’ it, put a white president in that seat.