Read Pinheads and Patriots Online
Authors: Bill O'Reilly
Pinheads and Patriots (11 page)
O'Reilly:
All right. I'm talking as an American now, not as a journalist.
Obama:
Go ahead, go ahead.
O'Reilly:
Okay? All right. So I don't know you. I never met you. This is the first time we've ever had a chat.
Obama:
Right.
O'Reilly:
Uh, actually, the second, when I pushed your guy out of the camera range.
Obama:
[
Laughs.
]
O'Reilly:
Remember that? Wasn't that fun?
Obama:
Oh.
O'Reilly:
He actually came over and, and, and said, he was very nice, we had, before theâ
Obama:
He said you were very nice as well.
O'Reilly:
Um, I'm sitting there and I'm an American. I'm sitting there in, uh, Bismarck, North Dakota. I'm sitting there in Coral Springs, Florida.
Obama
[
overlap
]: Right.
O'Reilly:
And I'm seeing Reverend Wright, I'm seeing Father Pfleger, who thinks Louis Farrakhan's a great guy. I'm seeing Bernadette Dohrn and Bill Ayers, Weather Underground radicals, who don't think they bond enough. I'm seeing MoveOn.org, who says “Betray-Us.” And I'm seeing you go to a Daily Kos convention, and this week Daily Kos came out and said that, um, Sarah Palin's Down syndrome baby was birthed by her fifteen-year-old, with no proof, that they put that on
there. And I'm going, Gee, that Barack Obama, he's got some pretty bad friends.
Obama:
All right, well, letâ
O'Reilly:
Am I wrong?
Obama:
You are wrong. Let, let, let's start from scratch. Number one, I know thousands of people, right? And so, understandably, people will pick out folks who they think they can criticize.
O'Reilly:
I don't know anybody like that. And I know thousands of people.
Obama:
No, no. No, noâ
O'Reilly:
I don't know anybody like that.
Obama:
But, no, I, hold on a second, let, let me, let me make my point now. The, uh, the Wright thing we've talked about. But the, uh, I joined a church, to worship God, and not a pastor. This whole notion that he was my spiritual mentor and all this stuff, this is something that I've conâuh, consistently discussed. I had not heard him make the offensive comments that ended up being looped on this show constantly. And I was offended by them, and ultimately wasâ
O'Reilly:
You'd never heard those comments.
Obama:
I hadn't heard those comments.
O'Reilly:
He was selling them in the lobby at the church.
Obama:
What can I tell you?
O'Reilly:
How many times, uh, did you go to church a month?
Obama:
You know, I'd probably go twice a month.
O'Reilly:
And he never said inflammatory stuffâ
Obama:
He didn't say, he didn't say stuff like that. All right? So, soâ
O'Reilly:
He said white people were bad.
Obama:
No. What he said was racism was bad. And thatâ
O'Reilly:
And not “White people are bad.”
Obama:
There, there was no, no doubt that what he said was, “Racism is bad.” But here's, here's my point. I mean, we've gone over this.
O'Reilly:
Okay.
Obama:
The fact is, the relationship was ruptured, I'm not a member of the church.
O'Reilly:
Right.
Obama:
In both his case and Father Pfleger's case, they've done great work in the community, and I worked in some very poor communities. And the fact of the matter is, is that they've built senior housing, they provided day care, and those were the, that's how I got to know these folks, because I was working in these neighborhoods, where, you know, there's some good and there's some bad. All right? So that, that's on that point. Now, on this Ayers thing, which you, you've been hyping, Bill, pretty good.
O'Reilly:
Not, not that much.
Obama:
But, you knowâbut here, here, here's the bottom line.
O'Reilly:
Yes.
Obama:
This guy did something despicable forty years ago.
O'Reilly:
He did something despicable last weekâsaid he didn't do enough bombing. That's last week.
Obama
[
overlap
]: What, whatâI haven't seen the guy in a year and half, but heâ
O'Reilly:
But you know he's on the Woods Foundation board.
Obama:
Let, let, let, let me makeâ
O'Reilly:
You know who he is there.
Obama:
Let me, let me finish my point, all right? Here's a guy that does something despicable when I'm eight years old.
O'Reilly:
Okay.
Obama:
All right? I come to Chicago. He's working with Mayor Richard Daly, not known to be a radical, right, on education issues, and he's a professor at the Department of Education, right?
Obama:
Yeah.
O'Reilly:
So he and I know each other, as a consequence of work he's doing on education. That is not an endorsement of his views. That's notâ
O'Reilly:
No, but you guys partnered up on a youth crime bill, remember that?
Obama:
And it was a good bill.
O'Reilly:
No, it wasn't. That bill said that if a youth commits a second violent felony, he does time in an adult prison. That's
two shots. You, you said no. You knew the South Side of Chicago.
Obama:
No. No, no, no.
O'Reilly:
You know how many people are harmed.
Obama:
No, but, but, but what happened withâlisten, you're absolutely right. My community gets hit by crime more than anyâ
O'Reilly:
And I'm right on that bill. You were wrong on that bill.
Obama:
I disagree with you on that bill. But that's, that's a policyâ
O'Reilly:
You don't want to sendâ
Obama:
No, no. Hold on. Hold on.
O'Reilly:
âkids who are hurting other people away?
Obama:
We're, we're, we're, we're getting, we're getting too far off field here.
O'Reilly:
Oh, that's important, though. You, you and Ayers were allied on that bill.
Obama:
No, no. Look, he didn't write that bill.
O'Reilly:
Nah, he was supporting it. And so were you!
Obama:
No. [
Laughs.
]
O'Reilly:
But you guys were together on it.
Obama:
No, no. Hold on a second. Now, now, now we're gettingâ
O'Reilly:
All right, if that's unfair, I'm sorry.
Obama:
That, that's pretty flimsy. Here, here's the point. All right? This guy is not part of my campaign, he's not someoneâ
O'Reilly:
Well, he's, he'sâ
Obama:
He's not some adâhe's not some adviser of mine. He is somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago, that I know.
O'Reilly:
And you were on a board at the Woods Foundation.
Obama:
Right. And, and, and, and who did something despicable forty years ago. But, but let me make the, let me make the broader point here, Bill. The problem that your viewers, your guys, your folks, the folks you champion, the problem you're going through, that, the problems they're going through, with trying to pay their bills, trying to keep their jobs, trying to move up in this world, their problem isn't Bill Ayers. It was Bill Ayers forty years ago, when he was blowing stuff up.
O'Reilly:
They want a President, they want a President whom they can identify with.
Obama:
They want a President that, thatâ
O'Reilly:
They want a President that they can identify with.
Obama:
And they, and they should be able to identify with me because my story is your story.
O'Reilly:
But your associations are not my associations.
Obama:
Your story, and the storyâbut, butâ
O'Reilly:
MoveOn, General Betray Us, the Daily Kos?
Obama:
I was offended by that. And I, and I said, I was offended by it.
O'Reilly:
But you, but you said good things about them. You showed up to the Kos convention.
Obama:
But, but look, Bill. Bill.
O'Reilly:
You don't get worse than these.
Obama:
Bill. Hold on a second. I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff, uh, said on Fox about me, that, that is [
chuckles
] flagrantly biased.
O'Reilly:
Correct the record. Correct the record.
Obama:
Well, but I still, I still don't mind coming on your show. Just because there are a whole bunch of things that may be said on this network that I completely disagree with, I don't sort of assume that you have to take responsibility for everything that is said on Fox News, any more than I would expect you to take responsibility for everything that's said on Daily Kos. Think about it. The, theâ
O'Reilly:
Well, the, that's a hateful thing. Fox News is not hateful.
Obama:
No, they're not, they're, they're, they'reâ[
Laughs.
]
O'Reilly:
Oh, it isn't. The, some of those guysâ
Obama
[
overlap
]: Bill. Theâ
O'Reilly:
âSome of our commentators might thinkâ
Obama
[
overlap
]: If, if, if, if you were watching Sean Hannity consistently, you, you wouldâ
O'Reilly:
He's a commentator, though.
Obama:
Well, that's all these bloggers are. I'm not making an excuse for 'em.
O'Reilly:
Oh, whoa. Hannity's never said he wantsâ
Obama:
They, they, they've goneâ
O'Reilly:
âDick Cheney to die of cancer.
Obama:
Hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on a second. All I'm saying is, these guys, they're giving me a hard time. You know, one, one of the times they gave me a hard timeâ
O'Reilly:
They're raising the kind of money for youâ¦[
inaudible
]
Obama
[
overlap
]: You know one of the times they gave me a hard time? Was when I went to campaign for Joe Lieberman. Now, Joe didn't mention that in his [
chuckles
] speechâ
O'Reilly:
They gave you a hard time about voting for the, uhâ
Obama:
So, so it's not, all I'm saying is, I expect to be held responsibile for the things I say and do. And one of the things that's happened in this campaign, and I think that you have the power to help correct the record on this, is not to put me in a position where every tangential relationshipâ
O'Reilly
[
overlap
]: It is, it is a pattern of behavior here.
Obama:
It, it, no, there, it is not a pattern of behavior. It is guilt, it is classic guilt by association. Andâ
O'Reilly
[
overlap
]: The pattern of behavior is that you feel very comfortable, for some reason, in Far Left precincts. That's the pattern of behavior.
Obama:
But I don'tâ
O'Reilly:
That I see.
Obama:
But I, Bill, I've got friends who are, who are on the Far Right.
O'Reilly:
Who?
Obama:
They're, I've got colleagues in the Senate.
O'Reilly:
Who? Give me a name.
Obama:
Wellâ
O'Reilly
[
overlap
]: [
Laughs.
] I always do that.
Obama:
Well, no, but, you know, but, butâ
O'Reilly:
I, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you.
Obama:
âbut here's what happens, if I give a name, then peopleâ
O'Reilly:
[
Laughs.
]
Obama:
âthen the next thing I'll know is, people will say, “They're comparing this one to that one.”
O'Reilly:
Do you know what I wanted to hear?
Obama:
“â¦To Bill Ayers, and I⦔
O'Reilly:
“I go hobnobbing with Rush Limbaugh.” That's what I wanted to hear there.
At the risk of being redundant, let me give this “associations” deal another shot. If you are a dope dealer who sells heroin and cocaine, you are an evil person. You are hurting people, and you know that what you peddle can lead to addiction and even death. But you don't care.
On the other hand, if you sell marijuana, you might see yourself as benign, as someone just providing a service, a harmless enjoyment to those who seek it. But the truth is, if you are in the drug world, selling hard or soft drugs, you will be exposed to many bad things. There is no avoiding the pernicious associations that permeate that culture.
There is an analogy here. Barack Obama's entire career has been nurtured by liberal people. Some of them are mainstream, just folks who believe that government has a moral duty to help the downtrodden by creating mandates that require a huge government apparatus and trillions of taxpayer dollars.
But some of the people with whom Mr. Obama has associated in the past are far more than left-wing ideologues. They are extremists. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers are crazy guys, people consumed with hatred toward their own country.
Barack Obama should have avoided these men, but he did not. To him, they were part of the Chicago liberal culture that was supporting his rise to power. The question is: How much sympathy does the President have toward the extremist point of view?
The record shows that he has appointed some hard-core radical people like Van Jones to government offices. So I think it's safe to say that radical Left beliefs do not offend the President. The Daily Kos is fine with him. George Soros has visited him in the White House on many occasions.
Those facts indicate that the President of the United States has no problem with radical Left thinkers and believers. The evidence shows that he listens to what they have to say. Whether or not he buys into the Soros view of
the world is a matter of conjecture. I don't think old Georgie would be dropping drone missiles on al-Qaeda terrorists, so that's something.
There's an old saying that applies here, however: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's Jeremiah Wright at the pulpit. Again, Mr. Obama claims that he just never knew how hateful and radical Wright really is.
Yeah, and I'm Whoopi Goldberg.
So let's cut through all the fog and clearly state the issue to be sure no one missed it the first time: President Obama is the most liberal chief executive ever to serve in the Oval Office.
Sorry, Jimmy Carter.