How President Obama Turned The Tables and Humiliated Roger Ailes and Faux News

 

It’s clear that Roger Ailes and Faux News had big plans for their Super Bowl interview with President Obama. They were going to use the biggest stage of the year to prove that the president is a failure. Instead, it was Obama who humiliated Faux News.
It was obvious from the first question that Faux News had a clear agenda for this interview with Obama. The interview got off to a horrible start when O’Really tried to zing Obama with the long since fixed ACA website.
This exchange set the tone:

OBAMA: — as I said, I don’t think anybody anticipated the degree of problems that you had on HealthCare.gov. The good news is that right away, we decided how are we going to fix it, it got fixed within a month and a half, it was up and running and now it’s working the way it’s supposed to and we’ve signed up three million people.
O’REALLY: I don’t know about that, because last week, there was an Associated Press call of people who actually went to the Web site and only 8 percent of them feel that it’s working well, working well.

It was typical. President Obama responded with a fact. The repugican ignored the fact, and talked about the way people feel. Right away President Obama put O’Really on his heels, and it was clear that the wingnut talking head was full of hot air and had no ammo. Things would only get worse for Faux News from this point forward. The question about why the president didn’t fire HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was supposed to make it appear to viewers that Obama doesn’t hold people accountable, but the president’s answer made the wingnut’s position look weak, and allowed Obama to continue to drive the message home that the ACA is working. It’s also at this point that O’Really lost control of the interview. President Obama was now driving the bus.
Obama destroyed O’Really’s whole line of Benghazi questions by pointing out that Faux News is keeping the conspiracy alive,

OBAMA: Bill, think about…
O’REALLY: That’s what they believe.
OBAMA: — and they believe it because folks like you are telling them that.
O’REALLY: No, I’m not telling them that.
(LAUGHTER)

It is always bad for Faux News when a talking head leaves the door open for a guest to talk about the misinformation that the network spreads. It is a disaster when it happens on national broadcast television during the Super Bowl pregame show.
The ultimate humiliation for Ailes and Faux News came when O’Really ventured into another favorite wingnut conspiracy theory, the IRS scandal.

O’REALLY: OK, so you don’t — you don’t recall seeing Shulman, because what some people are saying is that the IRS was used…
OBAMA: Yes.
O’REALLY: — at a — at a local level in Cincinnati, and maybe other places to go after…
OBAMA: Absolutely wrong.
O’REALLY: — to go after.
OBAMA: Absolutely wrong.
O’REALLY: But how do you know that, because we — we still don’t know what happened there?
OBAMA: Bill, we do — that’s not what happened. They — folks have, again, had multiple hearings on this. I mean these kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part because you and your TV station will promote them.

O’Really closed with a viewer letter about transforming America, that the president easily knocked down. He also admitted that he hadn’t been fair to the president by saying, “I think — I — you know, I know you think maybe we haven’t been fair, but I think your heart is in the right place.”
If you have read the book The Loudest Voice In The Room, this interview had Ailes’ fingerprints all over it, but the repugican propaganda master appears to be losing his touch. He has left behind the aura of frustrated wingnut everyman populism that Faux News was built on, and replaced it with far right conspiracy theories that mainstream America doesn’t believe in, or care about.
President Obama controlled this interview. The president put O’Really on the defensive, and used his conspiracy theory based questions to demonstrate that he and the Democratic Party represent the center of current American politics. An interview that was supposed to be ultimate Obama trap, ended up revealing why Faux News is a network that is only watched by about 2 million Americans.
Barack Obama blew up Roger Ailes’ plan, and humiliated Faux News. O’Really and Faux News will be puffing out their chests and claiming victory today, but this interview was a resounding humiliation for the interviewer, the network, and the old man in his bullet proof office who calling the shots.
Roger Ailes may run Rupert Murdoch’s wingnut 'news' channel, but it is President Obama who owns Faux News.