President Obama gave a 15-minute live interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Super Bowl Sunday, in a conversation that ranged from Egypt to health care to football. It was Obama's first sit-down with frequent critic O'Reilly since September 2008, two months before Obama was elected president. In the high-stakes interview prior to the big game, who came out on top: Obama or O'Reilly? (See every time O'Reilly cut Obama off)
Obama won this round: "The president spun O'Reilly's questions like Ben Roethlisberger spirals a football," says Aaron Goldstein in The American Spectator. The president stayed on message, and O'Reilly only challenged him once, pressing him to forecast a Super Bowl winner. This sit-down would more properly have taken place "before a softball game," not the Super Bowl, since O'Reilly mostly "asked softball questions." Clearly, "Obama got what he wanted out of this interview."
"Thoughts on Obama-O'Reilly interview"
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Obama flopped: The president still hasn't learned any lessons from his midterm drubbing, and this interview proved it, says Christian Whiton in Fox News. Obama's answers were all "either delusional or disingenuous," and his repeated "well-trod talking points" showed that he's learned nothing from his November shellacking.
"O'Reilly Obama interview shows that president still hasn't changed course"
Call it a draw: "Both sides scored," says Beth Reinhard in National Journal. O'Reilly "repeatedly interrupted" and even "talked over" Obama, without the conversation turning confrontational, and Fox got an exclusive interview with the president before a "Super Bowl–sized audience." Obama, for his part, was funny and "looked unafraid to face a news network he once described as 'entirely devoted to attacking my administration.'"
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