Television and radio talk show host Bill O’Reilly interviewed President Obama before the Super Bowl on Sunday. One day later, the big O’Reilly question appears to be, "Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?" he asked Obama.
The president’s first response was to laugh, as if to say, are you kidding? Then replied, “You know, the truth is that the people—and I’m sure previous presidents would say the same thing, whether it was Bush or Clinton or Reagan or anybody—the people who dislike you don’t know you.”
But O’Reilly persisted. “But they hate you.”
O’Reilly sounded like the was speaking for every living human on the planet, when in fact, Obama’s approval ratings are higher now than they have been in almost a year.
Still, President Obama came back with a diplomatic reply. "What they hate is whatever funhouse mirror image of you that's out there. They don't know you. And so, you don't take it personally."
The word ‘funhouse’ can be interpreted in many ways, but short of saying the Tea Party rhetoric about him was so off base it was not worth taking seriously, the answer got the message across.
Anti- Obama conservatives and tried to give the president a variety of labels from socialist to foreigner. One has to wonder if the conservative pundits tried to convince people that Obama was an alien invader from Mars wearing a human disguise if the same people who listen to them now would believe that one, too.
Case in point: PolitiFact reported that Michele Bachmann claimed that President Obama’s November trip to India was costing taxpayers $200 million a day. In fact, Bachmann never bothered to confirm the words she was spewing, which turned out to be false.
How does the saying go? If you repeat a lie often enough people actually start to believe it?
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