Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 04:38 pm
On his Fox News program, Bill O’Reilly claimed that President Obama had nothing to do with saving the auto industry and he needs to be much more humble about success.
Here is the video from Media Matters:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
While talking about the Clint Eastwood Super Bowl ad and the saving of the auto industry, O’Reilly said, “Talking Points also believes that Presidents Bush and Obama did the right thing by propping up some major American corporations that were about to go under. That saved thousands of jobs and if the TARP program had not been authorized, worldwide panic would have been substantial. However, now, now it should be mandatory that all private companies that received taxpayer dollars pay them back. Chrysler should not be strutting around celebrating its recent success, while still owing the taxpayers more than a billion dollars. That’s simply wrong. Also President Obama should be much more humble in touting the success of an economic comeback because it was born on the backs of the working folks. He just ordered the checks sent out. American workers saved the economy, not Mr. Obama and Congress.”
Obama is responsible for saving thousands of jobs, but according to Bill O’Reilly, he doesn’t actually deserve any of the credit because it was the American workers who really saved the economy. But if the auto industry would have been allowed to fail, those workers wouldn’t have had jobs and thus not been able to save the economy.
Bill O’Reilly was twisting himself in knots trying to figure out a way not to give Obama any credit for saving the auto industry. Since facts weren’t on his side, Bill-O went with the most convenient all-purpose Obama smear on the Fox News shelf, the claim that President Obama is arrogant. President Obama was criticized up and down by Republicans like Mitt Romney for the bailout, but since it worked, they now have to find a way not to give the president any the credit for it.
It is the height of arrogance for TV talking head Bill O’Reilly to lecture the President Of The United States that he needs to be more humble, but this is what Obama has been dealing with from the right since he became the Democratic nominee in 2008. White Republicans consistently have placed themselves above the president and have demeaned and lectured him at every turn.
The idea that Obama lacks humbleness is another bit of racial code put out there by Fox News. (Translation: Don’t vote for the arrogant black man). Could you picture Bill-O lecturing a white Republican president that way? Yeah, me neither, but in the world of Fox News this level of disrespect is how they and their viewers commonly address America’s first African-American president.
Image: EW
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
