Bill O'Reilly took a swipe at Sarah Palin on his Monday show, comparing her to Barack Obama and saying that she is becoming less popular because she is avoiding tough questions.
O'Reilly brought Palin up while discussing the recent flap over the White House's decision not to send Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates onto "Fox News Sunday," even though the Secretaries of State and Defense went on "Meet the Press," "This Week" and "Face the Nation." Host Chris Wallace brought the issue up on air, criticizing the White House for its decision.
Speaking to weekly guest Bernie Goldberg, O'Reilly said that the decision by the White House not to go on Fox made no sense to him.
"I can't really figure this out," he said. "The Fox audience is divided on the Libyan action. There isn't any anti-Obama juggernaut on this network...I don't get why they want to stoke this up."
Goldberg said that he thought the move would hurt Obama politically with independents, because they would see him as ducking critical questions.
That's when O'Reilly brought Palin up. "The same thing is happening to Sarah Palin," he said. "Her favorability among Republicans and independents has dropped four points in a month. And the reason I think it's dropping is because she's not engaging directly. When I had her on this program, I asked her some specific questions she didn't want to answer. She wanted to give a speech, this that and the other thing."
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It's the second time O'Reilly has criticized Palin in the last few weeks. Earlier in March, he explained why he had interrupted Palin repeatedly during a testy interview.
"I don't want to have to interrupt Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or anybody," he said. "I asked Sarah Palin a direct question. [She] didn't answer it...and when I interrupted her, she was teed off about it."