Obama, O’Riley and Geraldo

I didn’t watch O’Riley’s pre-Super Bowl interview with President Obama. Apparently Geraldo Rivera did. I got wind, after the fact, that Mr. Rivera condemned O’Riley for showing “disrespect” for the President.

Geraldo, like many other kool-aid drinkers has failed to understand that the Person of the President and the Office of the President are not strictly identical and are not automatically deserving of mutual respect! President Obama has governed from the shoe scared desk in the oval office with an I, Me and My mantra common to an authoritarian ruler. He ignores the separation of powers and is himself smugly disrespectful of anyone and anything that opposes his transformational agenda!

As I understand it, O’Riley was brave enough (and wise enough) to ask questions that most of the alphabet news anchors, reporters and Sunday talk show hosts noticeably avoid. Good for him! If the President was ill at ease with questions about Benghazi, the IRS and NSA scandals or the Obamacare disaster, he should be! Absent his regular roster of reliable show time mimics he reverted, as I understand it, to standardized verbose puffs of wind that resembled a snow job on the one hand and came off as out and out lies on the other! Not only was he not wearing the customary necktie for this interview, he was characteristically adorned in a selection from the Emperor’s wardrobe of phoney finery. It’s about time someone had the gumption to confront this maniacal minister of dread in a journalistically responsible way.

Obama, more than any other President in my memory (and that includes you know who) stands out as a model of disrespect for the office and has, for way too long, gotten away with it!

Geraldo Rivera, in my view, has for too many years sought a place in the limelight of legitimate journalism but has so often come up short. He has tried every gimmick in his worn out repertoire to make the grade but always seems to recede into mediocrity. This was, I imagine, a repeat performance.