In September of 2008, Bill O'Reilly had Barack Obama on his show. Their discussion was focused primarily on the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; a topic that hold obvious controversy. One doesn't have to be an expert in politics to know that Bill O'Reilly has been a supporter Iraq war from the beginning, while Barack Obama is fundamentally opposed. Naturally, a discussion between two people who hold absolutely opposite ideals is bound to have a few heated moments and this interview does. However, by comparing this interview with the one O'Reilly had with Hillary Clinton, one can see vast differences between O'Reilly's demeanor and style with women as compared to with Barack Obama. With Clinton, O'Reilly spent a good majority of the time interrupting and correcting her. He chastised her frequently and, as he did with every single one of the women I've talked about in this paper, he asked them a varying form of “Do you understand what I'm talking about?”
In his interview with Obama, however, O'Reilly does not once ask him if he “understands” something. If O'Reilly does interrupt, he will let Obama finish his thought before continuing on. Even O'Reilly's manerisms are different with Obama then they are with the women. He has very limited hand movement and appears, for the most part, to be quite calm and somewhat reserved. At one point, O'Reilly begins to interrupt Obama with an indistinct mutter, stops, and proceeds to raise his palm slightly (as if raising his hand in class) and waits for Obama to finish his thought. Once Obama finished, O'Reilly proceeded to ask his question. This same courtesy was given to John McCain in the previous interview, but not to a single one of the women I looked at.
In October of 2008, John McCain was a guest on O'Reilly's show to discuss his political platform for the presidential campaign. When the interview begins, O'Reilly immediately poses a question to McCain, something that is quite uncommon in most of the interviews I've looked at. O'Reilly tends to have a sort of dialogue with himself before ever posing a question to his interviewee. He then allows McCain to answer, uninterrupted. The rest of the interview follows similarly. O'Reilly poses a question, and McCain answers the question. O'Reilly interrupts, but not aggressively and he always lets McCain finish his thoughts.
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