Hillary Clinton To Face Bill O'Reilly On "The Factor"

The Clinton campaign confirms that Hillary is poised to break bread with Fox News' infotainer Bill O'Reilly. The appearance on Wednesday will be Clinton's first ever appearance on O'Reilly's show.

And, it could be potentially dangerous. If you cast your mind back to July of 2007, you might remember the birth pangs of O'Reilly's Luddite jihad against insufficiently moderated blog comments, which featured O'Reilly needlessly badgering Clinton communication director Howard Wolfson over the comment streams over at DailyKos. At the same time, O'Reilly's website had a comment from a veteran user that read: "If [Hillary] wins... my guns are loaded."

Still, seeing as how the Clinton campaign is increasingly at odds with all Democrats who are not currently white, working-class, and carrying a lunch pail to work at some failing mill in some economically depressed Rust Belt burg, she's likely to find a significant ally in O'Reilly, whose well-worn common man schtick belies the fact that he's a prissy millionaire fussbudget who's too cowardly to meet with the veterans he's disparaged. Chances are good they'll have a nice laugh over terrorists destroying the arugula chomping elites of San Francisco.

UPDATE: Via Johnny Dollar, here's O'Reilly talking about the interview this morning on The Radio Factor, promising that it's "not gonna be a gotcha interview," but rather a "face to face" discussion of "a lot of policy stuff."

MORE UPDATES: TalkingPointsMemo's Greg Sargent reports that Clinton will not "be taking on O'Reilly in some way, as Obama was criticized for not doing during his interview with Fox's Chris Wallace." A "senior advisor" states: "That's not the plan."

Also, MoveOn has offered the same criticism of Clinton that they gave Obama after the Illinois Senator failed to similarly challenge Fox News:

"With no plan to call out Fox's Republican agenda, Senator Clinton's appearance on 'The O'Reilly Factor' does nothing more than legitimize a network that will then use that credibility to smear Democrats and progressive ideas in 2008. She's pandering to a small audience that is not persuadable."

Comments

[hitmewitdarock]

I have enjoyed the interview thus far and I would like to see Obama do the same thing. No, I wont be voting for either candidate but it is nice to hear some tough questions getting answered for once. I think if Hillary can handle an O'reilly interview she just may have the skills to deal with Iran and this very difficult middle east situation we are involved in (whether we want to be involved or not). For once I am impressed with a Clinton for something other than sexual prowess.

[PNolan]

I remember faulting Senator Kerry for not doing more interviews with all the networks in 2004. Senator Obama was on Fox News Sunday the other day, and Michelle Obama was on CNN tonight. At least the Democratic candidates and their spouses are making the rounds this year.

[pagopago]

the average woman who makes rocky look like a pansy can't run a simple coffee machine:

http://wonkette.com/385913/funny-hillary-cannot-operate-simple-beverage-machine-at-gas-station

E L I T I S T ARE SERVED THEIR COFFEE, STUPID

[uheardme]

Soon, Bill will go on the Michael Savage show. Uh no thanks. She'll never get my vote.

[Wanjiru]

...HRC has pretty much fulfilled most GOP requirements so far...


...endorsed McCain over Obama, had beer shots with the boys, went duck hunting with her grandpa, ripped Sen Obama with Billo....


....all that's left is for her to drive an 18-wheeler to GWB's Crawford TX ranch and help him clear up the brush there...


Obama 2008!


.

[CompliantMedia]

Many of the 1/2 million viewers that watch his show are Independents and Democrats.

So I am not sure it is such a bad move.

If you watched the interview quite awhile back where he interviewed Rosie O'Donnell it was actually quite a civil discussion considering his long standing criticism of her. I don't think the fact that they are both Long Islanders of Irish extraction hurt the cause.

Now if it was Sean Hannity, that's a totally different story.

[skibum49]

Was just watching some teasers from a FOX program for this interview (for those that are not aware the interview has already happened and will be a videotape when its aired on Billo's program). Just as I suspected Billo seems to be spending his time serving up softballs for Hillary to hit out of the park about what she thinks about Obama's problems.

[izAriver]

No surprise there, huh? There is hope in that all of this will come back to bite the repugnican candidate in the ass. The numerous examples of mcshame flip-flopping and his outright contradictions (euphemism for lies) should be in the spotlight once the "liberal" media starts in on him. Oh wait, the "liberal" media seems to like mcshame? How does that work? Maybe because the media has never been liberal!

[Gamble]

How funny is it that Obamamaniacs (radical Obama voters) trash Clinton for appearing on Fox because she is "Rovian" and "appealing to the right".

When Obama goes on Fox it's because "he's uniting America" or "brave" or even this comedic gold "trying to reach middle America".

Some of you Obamamaniacs are hypocrites to the max.

Please don't take offense if you a Democrat first, Obama voter.

[indiethinker]

Hillary Clinton continues to revert back to her conservative Republican roots & true self. She embraces Rovian campaign tactics, she says she will "obliterate Iran", she laughs heartily as North Carolina's governor makes his "pansy" remark, she courts Richard Mellon Scaife & now Bill O'Reilly. Up next should be Rush Limbaugh (not that she needs to court him - he's already mobilized his listeners to vote for her) & then maybe an appearance with a Ku Klux Klan, white supremacist rep to lock in the racist vote in Indiana...

In fairness, I don't think Obama should have done the Fox interview with Chris Wallace either. Though he isn't as rabid as O'Reilly, it legitimizes this Republican attack machine posing as a news channel...

[mellene]

Now we know this will be her real chance to repudiate Obama to all of America and sidle up to the repubiicans who obeyed Limbaugh's Operation Chaos.

[AdamX]

Billo will be soft on her. Hillary knows that. The neocons want Hillary to win. They know that she does worse against McCain than Obama does - consistantly. If Hillary didn't think this would be good for her, she wouldn't go on. I will be amazed if Billo says even one bad word about her.

[izAriver]

That "thing" (and his alter-ego hannity) is toxic media mendacity at it's worst. It's disappointing that either democratic candidate agreed to appear on fox noise at all. Giving any sort of legitimacy to this right-wing propaganda tool (nice euphemism for lying c#@%s*#kers) doesn't seem helpful. Maybe the problem is that democrats are no different than repugnicans which would mean that America is in real trouble.
How about an independent ticket headed by Ron Paul? I don't agree with everything he says but he doesn't come across as some soulless bureaucrat.

[bobdob]

"And, it could be potentially dangerous."

Yeah. Dangerous. While they're putting the loofah to each others' backs, O'Reilly could try to slip her the sausage.

This is going to be a mutual circle jerk. O'Reilly is doing this to hurt Obama--not Hillary. He'll be feeding her pie from a silver spoon.

[kira181]

"...the Clinton campaign is increasingly at odds with all Democrats who are not currently white, working-class, and carrying a lunch pail to work at some failing mill in some economically depressed Rust Belt burg..."

Barbara Bush, is that you?

[zorrobozo]

Creep Central . . .