Barack Obama Renders Bill O’Reilly a Non-Factor
For all of the bluster and intimidation tactics, the cool/relax of Sen. Barack Obama in his interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly on tonight’s “The O’Reilly Factor” proved a whole new side of Obama’s campaign, and a general futility on O’Reilly’s part.
O’Reilly tried to cut him off several times, he tried to box him in on pumped up issues of terrorism and foreign unrest, but Obama is a student of the Republican playbook, and it shined through in the interview.
The most strking element of the interview was Obama’s admission that the military surge in Iraq was “successful beyond our wildest dreams.” That statement could rub some liberal supporters the wrong way, but his classification of success as a reduction in violence was a good recovery. Obama wwent onto to say that while the surge has reduced violence, it has not encouraged Iraq’s independence from American military presence or American financial support, critical aspects of the American exit strategy.
Obama masterfully countered O’Reilly’s attempts at lumping religious and geographic sects together as targets in the “war on terror,” reaffirmed his commitment to national security and his support of the military forces, and even got a little snippy on ol’ Bill, on O’Reilly’s premise of diplomacy hypothetically failing, a scenario to which Obama tersely responded, “Everything is hypothetical.”
Too smooth. Can’t wait for part two. But here’s part one in case you missed it.
