Bill O’Reilly Is Sure The Oil Spill Means ‘Obama Has Lost The Pelican Vote’
An ABC News/Washington Post poll recently released shows that President Obama has lower approval ratings for his handling of the Gulf oil spill than President Bush had for his actions after Hurricane Katrina. It’s a bad place to be in the summer of a midterm election, as Bill O’Reilly noted last night, but while the President might still hope to bring back some swing voters, there is one population he is not going to convince to vote for him again: the pelicans.
During his “Barack and a Hard Place” segment last night, O’Reilly debated Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes on what the BP oil disaster means for the Obama administration, and whether it will be able to recover. The answers he got from both parties were inconclusive– “it could be the knockout blow” to the administration, but not necessarily– and based in different logic. Crowley suggested that, much in during the Iran hostage crisis of the Jimmy Carter administration, there was a “compounding negative effect” from the oil spill on Obama’s legacy. The results of the hostage crisis, Crowley continued, “fed into the perception that Jimmy Carter was incompetent,” just as the actions of the White House now in the Gulf reflect on their competence.
Colmes took a different route to arrive at the same destination, explaining what he described as a rift between “optics” and “metrics.” The President’s optics, he explained, were lacking in comparison to what Colmes believed his metrics were accomplishing. He gave as an example the fact that Obama noted he had visited the affected areas a month ago– this, Colmes argued, was a fact that should have been front and center in every major discussion.
Another major optics problem, the panel continued, was the spread of horrible photos from the Gulf that show pelicans covered in oil and dying. While Colmes argued that, in the end, the president doesn’t have the ability to simply shut off the oil spill. For this, O’Reilly suspects he may have lost his hold on the “pelican vote,” who seem displeased at being drenched in oil.
Video from last night’s Factor below:
