Tone Deaf…
Mediaite’s Colby Hall writes about Bill O’Reilly doing a very good impression of being tone deaf…
O’Reilly pointed out that other conservative commentators noted that it took three days for Obama to address the nation after the “underwear bomber” failed on Chrstmas day, and it took only three hours for Obama to address the Haiti disaster. Perhaps its worth noting that nobody died in the failed attack on Northwest 253, and estimates of death in Haiti range from tens to hundreds of thousands?
To O’Reilly’s credit he pointed viewers to his favored charitable organization in Haiti – The Haitian Health Foundation.
O’Reilly is going to get slagged for this and deservedly so. Whatever technical points he was trying to make, the utility for such antiseptic discussion is better suited for a time greater than a day after thousands of people were hurt or killed.
January 13, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Well, Spud said in much simpler terms what I’ve been trying to say all night. Thank you.
January 13, 2010 at 9:54 pm
I don’t know whether it makes a difference or not but after he noted what conservative commentators were saying, he went on to say that he thought Obama was right to react as quickly as he did regarding Haiti due to the seriousness of the situation. I was a bit surprised that Colby Hall quoted O’Reilly talking about what other commenters were saying, but not what O said about it himself.
January 13, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Makes a difference to me, J$. Good to hear; that sounds more like O’Reilly.
January 13, 2010 at 10:23 pm
I gathered that O’Reilly’s overall point was that President Obama, with his almost immediate response to the earthquake, demonstrated his capability to act quickly on something he deems worthy. By contrast, Mr. Obama also demonstrated that defending against terrorist attack hasn’t been very high on his list of priorities.
Also on O’Reilly’s show last week, Karl Rove offered up what he claimed to be a third-hand account that indicates the President “gets” it now. Rove said that he heard from a “reliable source” (probably a friend working in this White House) that President Obama drilled AG Holder about why he put this crotch bomber guy into the civilian court system, and slammed him for not being able to provide a reasonable defence of his legal decision.
So at least O’Reilly is offering up both sides for consideration.
January 14, 2010 at 5:12 am
The point about the time it took for the President to speak about what happened wasn’t a big deal.
What I thought was a bit inappropriate was his going after “liberalism” and the “nanny state.” I am not familiar with Haitian politics, but I don’t think that is an issue at the moment – whether Haiti is a socialist’s dream or a capitalist bastion, the country still has scores of people dead and Haiti’s political system should not be a concern right now.
January 14, 2010 at 5:23 am
This seems like an apples & oranges situation to me.
A fairer comparison would be Obama’s response to Haiti vs Bush’s response in Katrina or the Asian tsunami. You can also compare Obama’s response to the underwear bomber to Bush’s response to the shoe-bomber or the anthrax attack.
If Obama had waited a day or so to respond to the Haitian earthquake, do you seriously think O’Reilly, Rush and the other right wingers would be congratulating Obama for his reserve? I don,t think so. It’s just as if he had responded to the underwear bomber within a few hours; the right would say he was speaking without knowing all the facts.
That being said; what did you expect; praise?
January 14, 2010 at 6:41 am
I gathered that O’Reilly’s overall point was that President Obama, with his almost immediate response to the earthquake, demonstrated his capability to act quickly on something he deems worthy. By contrast, Mr. Obama also demonstrated that defending against terrorist attack hasn’t been very high on his list of priorities.
Because running around screaming with your hair on fire has always been an effective tool to use against terrorists.
The goal of terrorists is to TERRORIZE. Not the people they directly target, but society at large. By refusing to get all hysterical about the panty bomber, Obama denied him his aim – a terrified and cowering American populace.
January 14, 2010 at 8:06 am
And of course no one is going to go after Olbermann when he used the devastating Haiti Earthquake for the need of Healthcare reform in this country…
January 14, 2010 at 8:23 am
Zone: I missed that, but would agree that it’s a tenuous and ill-advised connection, but it doesn’t reach to the level of politicizing the President’s pronouncements about the tragedy as grandstanding for black people. Levels, brother.
January 14, 2010 at 11:57 am
On ‘Morning Joe’ Scarborough made the point that the President did well pulling together resources for the relief effort and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski responded with something like, “That’s because this is real easy to do.” I thought that was amusing.
January 14, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Limbaugh was pointing out the obvious. He quoted what Rahm Emanuel said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think could not do before. This is an opportunity.”
January 14, 2010 at 1:55 pm
There’s plenty of obvious things to be pointed out that can wait for a more ‘normal’ news cycle. It doesn’t matter to self-absorbed a-holes like Rush.