by David Epstein
Just a quick post to state the blindingly obvious: Hillary did a fantastic job in part one of her much-anticipated interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox tonight. She was alternately jovial, tough, and serious, and breezed through a number of sticky questions like the pro she is.
One particular exchange caught a lot of what she did right: the part about tax rates. This is always a tough issue for Dems, since people hate to have their taxes go up. But O'Reilly led her into the issue by mentioning that taxes were going to go up for people like him and Bill Clinton, i.e., rich folks. That immediately took a lot of the pressure off Hillary, who admitted that top rates would go up from 33% to 36% and 39% on people making over $250,000.
Then when O'Reilly tried to make one of those absurd right-wing "in the good old days" kind of points about tax rates, Hillary nailed him, pointing out the rather clear-cut fact that upper tax rates used to be much higher when O'Reilly was a kid not lower. O'Reilly had to admit that they didn't pay a lot of taxes back then, *because they were much less wealthy*. Well, duh. Sometimes I think he must wake up at night thinking, "Did I really ask that question?"
So, part 1 was a smash hit. Let's wait to see how part 2, on foreign affairs and the war, goes tomorrow night.
I'm not a regular viewer of partisan talk shows, but from what I've seen, Bill O'Reilly is reasonable enough, center-right on the partisan scale, not right-right nor bombastic as he often has been portrayed. At the same time, I haven't found him to be especially insightful or knowledgeable on at least the issues I have some knowledge about. He's a layman whose value as an independent commentator is fairly well summed up by his talking points and his easily digestible way of communicating those points to other laymen. (I don't mean that as a disparagement - even experts are laymen when it comes to most issues outside their expertise.) O'Reilly's value as a talk show host is his ability to provide a point-of-view frame for his guests, like Clinton, without overpowering his guests.
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