Bill O’Reilly & Panel Have Fiery Debate About Obama’s ‘Easter Pastor’

Bill O’Reilly led off his show tonight confused why President Obama chose to spend Easter Sunday at the Shiloh Baptist Church, where its pastor Reverend Wallace Charles Smith had a history of making controversial statements, including alleging Fox News is racist. O’Reilly was none too pleased with Obama for legitimizing the pastor and was reminded of the Jeremiah Wright controversy. However, Alan Colmes passionately argued O’Reilly was completely wrong.

Monica Crowley joined other conservative criticism of the pastor and Obama, but Crowley took it a step further, labeling Obama’s behavior to be “un-American.” Colmes responded that such a statement was “reprehensible.” O’Reilly didn’t want to go as far as Crowley though, and suggested this was just evidence of Obama displaying bad judgment:

“Barack Obama . . . is the poster guy for being able to succeed in a race-neutral society. If a half white, half black boy from a broken home can become President, that speaks well of America. . . . Then he goes and he sits in churches in front of people who run the country down.”

As voices grew louder by the end, Colmes bemoaned “guilt by association” attacks and concluded no conservatives are ever happy with Obama, since either he is attacked for not going to church often enough or now is attacked for going to the wrong church. Yet O’Reilly reiterated he just expects better judgment from Obama, especially given his controversial past with pastors.

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!