I generally enjoy listening to Bill O’Reilly, but with regard to his interview last week with President Obama, I find myself in strange agreement with O’Reilly’s detractors.
On balance, it was about as good an interview as you can expect for a live exchange in a limited time frame and in front of an audience with a limited attention span. One of the criticisms was that O’Reilly seemed rude and disrespectful by repeatedly interrupting the President. The following day on The O’Reilly Factor, he defended himself by noting that it was indeed a live interview limited to a short time span, and his interruptions were designed to keep the President on track and not let him “run out the clock”.
Fair enough, but his interruptions did seem repeated, noticeable and somewhat annoying. But the one part of the interview where O’Reilly really fared poorly was in the following exchange:
