“you can’t be disrespectful”

Ryan Witt (Examiner.com): …. O’Reilly continually cut off the President in order to ask another question, redirect the interview, or simply make a statement. To many, O’Reilly’s actions were disrespectful to Obama and, more importantly, the office of President of the United States…..

…O’Reilly interrupted the President a total 22 times in a 15 minute interview. Many times O’Reilly did not interrupt to ask another question, but instead to insert a statement of his own. For instance, at one point after President Obama was explaining the justification behind the individual mandate in health care reform, O’Reilly stated “but you understand that a lot of Americans feel that you are a big government liberal who wants to intrude on their personal freedom.”  When President Obama tried to respond to that statement O’Reilly quickly cut him off again.

On average President Obama was given just 26 seconds to answer every question from O’Reilly. The maximum amount of time the President had to answer any question was 51 seconds. Often the President would be cut off within the first ten seconds of his answer … he asked the President whether he has changed since being elected … after Obama reflected for a second and began to answer O’Reilly interrupted after ten seconds to tell the President how others think he has changed.

…regardless of the party affiliation of the President or interviewer, the real question is  whether we really want to limit the Commander-in-Chief to a less than one minute response on the most important international crisis of the day. O’Reilly certainly did not interrupt former President Bush as often in a recent interview from last November.

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The Hill: It was “completely inappropriate” for Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly to ask President Obama about the people who “hate” him, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday.

Pelosi said O’Reilly’s question, during an interview before Sunday’s Super Bowl, made her wince upon hearing it again on Monday.

“Just seeing it again … I thought was a completely inappropriate question, of course beautifully handled by the president,” Pelosi told host Gayle King on the Oprah Radio network.

“To hear this used in the presence of the president of the United States — I think we all have to recognize that while we disagree with people, and may think that they are wrong,” the word “hate” should never be used, Pelosi said.

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Susan Milligan (USNews.com): Bill O’Reilly asked a very revealing question of President Obama during his pre-Super Bowl interview with the chief executive. But the revelation was about O’Reilly and modern media, and not the subject of the interview.

“Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?” Fox’s O’Reilly asked Obama.

….O’Reilly seemed almost disappointed by the answers — what did he expect, to make Obama cry? — but the exchanges, while saying little about the president’s real or imagined internal angst, said a great deal about the role of the media in exacerbating a hostile political environment. O’Reilly knows that. He is surely aware that people hate him (or more likely, hate what he says and represents), but I doubt it bothers him … it’s maddening to flame-throwers when their target doesn’t fight fire with more fire … he had to placate his viewers by presenting the nation as one divided between people who hate the president and those who don’t.

…. Obama’s behavior indicates he is unwilling to engage in petty political food fights, instead choosing to just do his job. The media might consider following suit.