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Juan Williams fills in tonight. |
| On The O'Reilly Factor...
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| All content taken from The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel. Each weeknight by 6 PM EST a preview of that evening's show will be posted and then updated with additional information the following weekday by noon EST.
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| Juan kicked off Wednesday's program by interrogating White House spokesman Bill Burton about President Obama's ambitious health care and energy proposals. Burton sidestepped Juan's question about whether the president will renege on his pledge not to raise taxes. "The president has been clear that is not what he prefers," Burton said, "so we are sitting down with Republicans and Democrats to try and find the best way forward. People know exactly where the president stands, and we want to get the best deal humanly possible for the American people. But no, we don't think right now is the best time to be raising taxes on the American people." Juan told Burton that President Obama's credibility is at stake: "During the campaign he said there would be absolutely no taxes on any family earning less than $250,000 dollars. This is a 'read my lips' moment." |
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| FNC analysts Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes entered the No Spin Zone to scrutinize Juan's interview in the Top Story. "What I heard Bill Burton say," Crowley began, "was that raising taxes is 'not the president's preference,' but he is setting the stage for taxing health benefits. If you're going to introduce a major new entitlement, you have to pay for it somehow. And the 'cap-and-trade' proposal is tantamount to the largest tax increase in world history. This is a power grab and a huge money grab for the federal government." But Colmes endorsed the administration's health and energy proposals: "If we don't think long term about these issues, we will never solve the problems. We should be using renewable energy and getting off our dependence on foreign oil; this will be beneficial to people with lower incomes." |
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Juan welcomed FNC media analyst Bernie Goldberg, who observed that most mainstream reporters heartily endorse the theory of man-induced global warming. "Journalists need to do a little reporting," Goldberg said, "and if they did some reporting, they would find that the number of skeptics is rising, and it includes some very prestigious scientists. And if they did some real reporting, they would find out that in the past ten years the world's temperatures may have gone down a little bit. The media gets a lot of these things wrong, but they have absolutely fallen into line with Al Gore's version of global warming." Juan reminded Goldberg that many other scientists support the theory of man-made global warming: "UN scientists have said air and ocean temperatures are rising. You're not saying the global warming scientists are wrong, you're just saying there are two sides to the story."
Returning for a second segment, Goldberg scrutinized the wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Jackson's life and death. "It's been way too much," Goldberg opined, "but it doesn't surprise me because we live in the 'United States of Entertainment' where celebrity trumps Iran, the economy, and just about everything. On cable news, 93% of the coverage has been about Michael Jackson. The line between news and entertainment has been obliterated - they haven't crossed the line, they have blown the mother up!" Juan was perplexed by the media's eagerness to cover the Jackson story "when we have the economy and Iran and Afghanistan." |
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| Juan introduced some of Bill's greatest hits from past Reality Check segments. One topic was the siege of teen star Miley Cyrus by swarms of photographers. The Factor's check: "Somebody is going to get hurt physically by these vicious paparazzi unless new laws are put into place to protect the privacy of Americans. The girl is 16, that is just disgusting and it should not be happening in America." Then there was rocker Gene Simmons, fully adorned in his signature face paint, suggesting that "O'Reilly should be the next judge on American Idol." The Factor's check: "Should I wear that makeup here tomorrow?" |
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| According to the latest Rasmussen poll, more Americans "strongly disapprove" of President Obama's job performance than "strongly approve." Juan welcomed Fox News contributor Michael Goodwin, who cited the Iran crisis as a turning point in the president's popularity. "Everybody could see on their television screens what was going on there," Goodwin stated, "and most Americans were more outraged than the president, who was a fence-sitter until he finally said he was 'outraged.' A lot of the public wondered what took him so long, and I think that was the turning point. It doesn't mean it's all-out war, it just means the love is over and I think a lot of the press will be more skeptical." Juan pointed to two other issues that are sending President Obama's poll numbers south: "One is the deficit, which could lead to higher taxes and inflation, and the other thing is that people are opposed to his position on Guantanamo Bay." |
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| On the heels of his admitted affair with an Argentine woman, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford now says he "crossed lines" with various other women. Juan welcomed Democratic strategist Alicia Menendez, who questioned the wisdom of Sanford's serial revelations. "This is a communication director's nightmare," Menendez declared. "I'm not sure what he's doing - it seems to be more about Mark Sanford working out personal issues, as though if he shares the voters of South Carolina will forgive him. I actually think it's backfired on him and I'm not sure why he is staying in office, especially when he has made such a point of wanting to heal his family." Juan agreed that Governor Sanford's damage control has only caused more damage: "This guy is hurting himself with this squalid performance, I just don't see any point to this." |
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