Conservative conspiracy theorists got their time with President Barack Obama on Sunday.
The annual pre-Super Bowl interview with the commander in chief fell on the shoulders of FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly this year. The pundit tabled questions on recent topics of interest, such as the National Security Agency’s domestic espionage scandal or the left’s push to renew federal emergency unemployment benefits, instead challenging the president on stories heavily covered in the FOX cycle.
Perhaps it was not unexpected that O’Reilly would bring up the administration’s response to the Affordable Care Act, notably the slow and bug-laden rollout of online exchanges.
“I think we all anticipated that there would be glitches,” Obama said. “I don’t think I, or anybody, anticipated the degree of the problems with the website. The good news is, right away, we decided how to fix it; it got fixed within a month and a half.”
“Was it the biggest mistake of your presidency to tell the nation over and over, if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance?” O’Reilly asked.
“Bill, you’ve got a long list of my mistakes,” Obama replied.
Perhaps unexpectedly, the interview segued to another perceived “mistake”: the Obama administration’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stephens. Not a week goes by that conservative politicians and the media they follow don’t question Obama’s initial response to the event — notably, the administration’s decision, or perceived lack thereof, to call the event a “terrorist attack.”
In the interview, Obama clarified that then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta informed him that an “attack on our compound” had taken place and that, at the time, officials did not “know yet who’s doing it.”
“Understand my definition, Bill — when someone’s attacking our compound, that’s an act of terror, which is how I characterized it the day after it happened,” Obama said.
“Your detractors believe that you did not tell the world it was a ‘terror attack’ because your campaign did not want that out,” O’Reilly charged.
“And they believe it, because folks like you are telling them that,” Obama replied. “You look at the videotape [of the attack], this is not some systematic, well-organized process.”
Constrained for time, O’Reilly moved off the Benghazi attack to address another conspiracy that has become fodder for conservative media: last year’s scandal in which the Internal Revenue Service singled out political organizations affiliated with the Tea Party that were seeking tax-exempt status. The agency admitted last year that it improperly focused on some groups that had applied for tax-exempt status during the last two election cycles.
“There were some bone-headed decisions,” Obama told O’Reilly, but he rejected charges that the scandal was laden with corruption.
“Not even mass corruption, not even a smidgen of corruption, I would say,” Obama asserted.
The 10-minute interview ended with Obama predicting the Super Bowl would end with a score of 24-21, though he did not say which team he thought would win. The Seattle Seahawks won the game hours later, defeating the Denver Broncos 43-8.
