You don’t get pat on the backs at Fox News unless you act like a rude jerk.

I guess that should be “pats on the back.” Oops!!!!!!!!!!

Bret did what he should have done. Obama would NOT answer a simple question and would try to filibuster on unrelated topics, probably in an effort to run out the time. He got Obama to admit what we already knew, that he didn’t know or wouldn’t say what’s in the bill. Great job, Bret!

ps, you should know alot about rude jerks, S2U

Baier is a prime example of the lie that is Fox News. He pretends and sets himself up as an impartial journalist, yet is sent to do hatchet jobs for conservatives (like this interview), and routinely night after night holds a biased newscast with a panel discussion featuring right wingers and far-right wingers. Difference between news and opinion my butt.

For another take:

“As much credit as I give Obama for taking his healthcare message to Fox News and staying on point, I also praise Baier for being thoroughly prepared and hitting a very difficult tone of being appropriately aggressive without being hectoring or rude,” wrote David Zurawik, media critic from the Baltimore Sun Wednesday. “Think of it as the antidote to NBC anchorman Brian Williams’ bow to Obama in his prime-time White House special last year”

Baier was asking the hard questions of a journalist, while Obama was already directing his answers to the historians — trying to craft their narrative for them. Baier was impressive, nevertheless, in pushing the president on the special deals that were cut for such states as Louisiana, Florida and Nebraska — and the near-total lack of transparency about them.

When the president insisted that “everybody knows” which deals will be in and which will be out in the legislation that Democratic leadership seems likely to try and pass in the House without an actual vote, Baier started going through the states one by one and asking Obama, “In or out?” And the president himself couldn’t answer with any precision on at least two states. [...]

Still as a journalist and media critic, I salute Baier for putting the president to the test and respectfully challenging him on his contradictions and reversals — and the subsequent flaws in the legislation he hopes to see on his desk in a matter of days.

Since Fox News is the only right leaning news network, it seems like the left would just watch one of the others. Why keep watching something that’s so upsetting?

My lord, some of the most contentious, loud, interrupting interviews and exchanges in the history of journalism have been between reporters and Republican presidents!

This sense of reverence that people like Lawrence O’Donnell and Larry King suddenly for the office of the presidency is convenient to say the least.

Oh, come on, Cecelia. When was anyone on the left ever rude to Bush?

Cecilia, which one(s) are you referring to?

Writer, I hope they watch FNC every day..

Baier obviously felt he should apologize and did, but damned if some the response to this aspect of the interview isn’t hyperbolic to say the least.

tjl, ABC News has done whole retrospectives based upon nothing but the glory days of yore when Sam Donaldson yelled at Nixon and Reagan during press conferences.

Dan Rather walked off the air during an interview with the elder Bush!

Does Dan Rather running that false story about Bush’s guard service count as being rude?

I don’t think Bret was rude. Or, at the very least, he was no more rude than Obama. Refusing to answer a question by filibustering is rude, even when it’s done with a smile. You should either answer the question, or say, I’m not going to answer it/can’t answer and here’s why. The “rudest” moment in the interview was when Obama got snippy because he obviously didn’t know the answer to Bret’s question about what’s in and what’s out of the bill.

And it’s not fair to say those are just “process” questions. When special favors are put into legislation in order to turn a no vote into a yes, that’s substance.

tjl,
Here is a link to Olberbite blaming Bush for 9/11.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/02/13/olbermann-3000-people-died-9-11-because-george-w-bush

I could keep them coming ALL day so let me know if you’d like more!

Here’s a quote from Howard Fineman of “news”week:

At one point, Fineman even made it sound as if President Bush had been obsessed with leaving office before the next terrorist attack just so he could “claim he kept us safe,” as if he were more worried about his legacy than keeping America safe in the long term. Fineman said: “And George Bush, even George Bush said that, you know, we could be attacked tomorrow. He didn`t like to talk about it. I knew him well and knew that he was counting the minutes and the days until he got out of there and could claim he kept us safe.”

Apparently Steve Karakauer didn’t see the spin his colleague Colby tried to put on the interview. it was somthing straight out of Media Matters.

Brett did his job…nothing more..nothing less. Bammie is not used to anything other than having his butt kissed by the media. His reaction was priceless.

it’s not surprising how the rest of the media is portraying it. Serious, did you expect anything else?

Thanks Cecilia.

Michelle, apples and oranges. Did Keith Olbermann say that to Bush’s face in an interview? I’m not defending Keith, but I can just as easily send you quotes from either side. Criticisms are a whole different story.

Give me a few and I’ll send you some of those.

Barney, you are simply spouting talking points. It’s almost as if you wrote that response prior to the interview being aired. Nothing you wrote makes any sense.

What’s wrong with calling it s “spirited” interview? And Brett himself apologized for the “interruptions,” so pointing those out is not a whacky, fringey thing to do. I’m just not sure what you are attacking here.

Baier apologized for interrupting, so its not outrageous to point out the fact that he interrupted a lot.

What is outrageous rhetoric is this suggesting that he was uniquely aggressive or rude.

It’s the usual FNC narrative that will go nicely along with the one that many in the media are currently formulating about it being FNC’s fault if Obamacare fails to pass.

Fox will never win with the left. If they don’t present Obama’s side, they’re biased. If they have Obama on, they’re not nice enough to him. A no win situation.

tjl,
This isn’t an actual interview with Bush, just a hypothetical one, but I couldn’t pass it up:

■ Mike Wallace: Only a “[Expletive] Up” America Could Elect Bush. CBS’s Mike Wallace, of 60 Minutes fame, ridiculed President Bush’s qualifications for office when asked by the Boston Globe what questions he’d pose to Bush if he got the chance. Wallace said he’d want to ask if Bush thinks his election “has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?” The Boston Globe’s headline over the q and a session conducted by Suzanne Ryan and run in Thursday’s Arts and Entertainment section: “At 87, Wallace still tells it like it is.” Ryan had asked Wallace: “President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance?” Wallace, on a media tour to promote his memoir, Between You and Me, began his answer: “What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious.”

much for to come, so stayed tuned!

tjl,
K this is an interview with Bush Sr., but it still applies:

“You and the President were being party to sending missiles to the Ayatollah of Iran. Can you explain how — you were supposed to be the — you are — you’re an anti-terrorist expert! Iran was officially a terrorist state….The question is — but — you made us hypocrites in the face of the world!…How could you sign on to such a policy?!”

— During a live interview with Vice President George H.W Bush on the CBS Evening News, January 25, 1988.
|

More to come!

tjl,
To Bush’s press secretary:

“Is it fair to say that the White House…at the end of the day thought that to make progress, the benefit for these 11.9 million children should go in order to, in part, save the dividend benefit for investors?…I just want to make sure that you are saying that the White House agreed to make the choice to leave these children behind.”
– ABC’s Terry Moran to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, referring to efforts to extend the child tax credit to non-income taxpayers, at a May 29 press briefing. [39]

more to come

Here’s Bret Baier discussing the interview and why he interrupted the president.

http://homepage.mac.com/mkoldys/blog/jdp.html

lmao! Most everyone may have left this string but this back and forth is so amusing because it does NOTHING. No ideas are discussed. No minds have been changed. Just one side pulling out “evidence” of their points while the other does the same. It seems a bit futile to me.

Anyone interested in the fact that the federal government is about to take the biggest slice of the free market they have ever tried to do in the past? Anyone interested in discussing the fact that this ISN’T about health care nor is it about how well or badly obama did in the Fox interview. It is about the fact that IF it is true that the president is as clueless as he is portraying, THAT scares the hell out of me. Reason demands that based on observation obama is NOT clueless but very beguiling and shrewd. He accepts looking like an idiot in the interview because he CANNOT allow his image to be sullied by how this bill was put together (unions in conjunction with Reid and Pelosi) in the first place and how corrupt the process has been in getting it to the current state it is in.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t about political parties. BOTH parties have contributed mightily to the corrupt nature of how business is done in Washington. As Reagan said, “Government is not the solution…it is the PROBLEM”. ALL OF OUR GOVERNMENT WITH VERY RARE EXCEPTIONS IS CORRUPT AND WILLING TO SELL THEIR SOULS TO GET AND KEEP AS MUCH POWER AS THEY CAN WHILE DUPING THE AMERICAN POPULATION INTO BELIEVING THAT WE MUST CHOOSE THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS IN ALMOST EVERY ELECTION SINCE DAY ONE.

Sorry for shouting but sometimes I just don’t understand why we are critiquing the quality of how the orchestra is playing WHILE THE WHOLE DANG SHIP IS SINKING!!!!

tjl,
I’ve got tons of pages to go through still, but have to get some work done. Let me know if you would like more because unlike the libs on this site, I back up what i say.

Dan Rather “interrupting” Bush the Senior:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy45grGpB6o

Once again, Fox delivers the goods, and MSNBC whines. I could hardly believe what I was hearing on Countdown: grumbles and complaints that a Fox News reporter was even allowed to ask questions of the President. Once again, the Left shows that their goal is not to have dialogue or debate, but to silence any opposition or questioning.

Oh come on, Obama knew what to expect, and Baier did not dissapoint. It was all cool. Good job all around.

It’s about time somebody actually interviewed the President…………….

The Bret Baier interview with Obama was the first where only softball questions were pitched. Baier only had 20 minutes to interview Obama and he had a slew of questions to ask so he had to make the most of his limited time. This was time for viewers to hear more answers from the President.

Obama probably thought that he would use the same tactics he has used successfully with his government scribes during his primetime pressers: Make your answers long and windy, go through the talking points and then say time is up.

In his primetime new conferences, he typically answers only 13 questions often saying very little or every word is so nuanced that what he says is basically meaningless.

Fortunately, Bret Baier understood these tactics and wouldn’t let Obama get away with it. Baier asked pointed questions that Obama simply couldn’t answer. Baier apologized to the President for the interruptions but kept the pressure on for more answers. This is what reporters are supposed to do.

I say, it is about time we had a real journalist interview this president and not a sycophant. No wonder FNC has a huge audience. They try to get the story pro and con and not just rewrite the Obama talking points.

valkyrie101, so I have to ask. Are you saying you think Obama helped himself in this interview? No sarcasm, I’m geniunely curious how you think he did.

>I say, it is about time we had a real journalist interview this president and not a sycophant. No wonder FNC has a huge audience. They try to get the story pro and con and not just rewrite the Obama talking points.

Did Fox News do anything like this with George W. Bush? The only President they had a tough interview with the last decade was Bill Clinton.

Brett Baier is now one of the many on Fox employee who will be audited this year by the IRS,
I bet Fox employees will have a record number of audits this year.
Clinton did the same thing to the media that upset him.

PureFreedom is right. I understand that O’Reilly eventually threatened legal action after he was audited for the third year in a row under Clinton. And Bill looks like a softie compared to the Chicago thugs now in power.

Bret did an excellent job! The only thing “unusual” about this interview was the fact that, unlike those Obama lap dogs over at MSNBC, CNN, et al, he was willing to challenge Obama.

I am not surprised that Obama was so “flustered,” he is not used to being asked to give specifics.

This is why Bret is one of my favorites!

President Obama won’t appear on FOX. WHINE-BLEAT-MOAN!

President Obama appeared on FOX. WHINE-BLEAT-MOAN!

I think that about covers it.

Fox won’t give Obama’s opinions any air time. They’re biased. Fox is having Obama on. They’re biased.

auto, when you’re around here long enough, you find that (White) Royal never misses a Fox News show. Although I think he watches mainly to critique what the women are wearing.

The Real Royal King says:
March 18, 2010 at 3:19 pm
President Obama won’t appear on FOX. WHINE-BLEAT-MOAN!

President Obama appeared on FOX. WHINE-BLEAT-MOAN!

I think that about covers it

I don’t feel that we are whining, at least I’m not. I just think it’s funny how the media is portraying the exchange. Instead of focusing on say how Obama confirmed that he didn’t know what the bill contains (or will contain), they are whining that Bret was rude even though he was just trying to get Obama to answer a question instead of filibustering on unrelated topics.

Perhaps from now on Obama should only speak to the WWE, where everything is choreographed. Fox News, you’re goin’ down, brother!

How about Obama interrupting Bret? How about Rather’s interview of Bush 41 which was a trap sprung and failed?

Bottom line, Obama wanted to make a speech, not be interviewed. Bret and Fox wanted to do “journalism”.

That’s not journalism. Baier was not asking questions that he actually wanted “answers” to. They were Republican talking points that make a desired statement of opinion in the first portion, with a dismissive query at the end desinged to ellicit an answer from the President to illuminate the desired Republican talking point.

–Cobra

Phil Bourekas writes:

“How about Obama interrupting Bret?”

Bret Baier holds WHAT title and position again? Bret Baier was elected to what office? Should everybody in a room stand up when Bret Baier walks in?

–Cobra

Bret Baier is simply another right-wing douchebag tool in the FAUX propaganda network shed. This interview was nothing but an utter waste of the President’s time.