Bill O’Reilly: “There's got to be some downside to having a woman president.”

Transcript Excerpts with Comments by Brigitte L. Nacos

With Hillary Clinton the only woman in the discussed line-up for the 2016 presidential race, Bill O’Reilly put forth the argument that there must be a downside to having a woman president. In the following excerpts from the January 26^th “The O’Reilly Factor” program, I added my comments in brackets.  

 

O'REILLY: Last night on THE FACTOR Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said that she believes some Americans do not feel the USA is ready for a woman President -- very provocative. [And that from a woman who ran for president last time around! Ah, well, she did not lose because she is wacky but because Americans were not ready for a woman in the White House] Joining us from Washington is Kate Obenshain a Republican and Kirsten Powers is a Democrat and Fox News analyst.

O'REILLY: There's got to be some downside to having a woman president, right? Something -- something that may not fit with that office, correct? [It takes a male with a superiority complex to make such a statement. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has a downside as head of Germany’s government?]

POWERS: I'm going to say no, Bill.

O'REILLY: So there is no downside to having a woman.

POWERS: Well just because you're female that would something -- let me ask you this. What's the downside of a man being president?

O'REILLY: Oh you've got three -- you've got three years? I mean look at the guys we've had in there since.

POWERS: That's because they are a man or it's because of the people that are in office.

O'REILLY: Look, men are men and women are women. There is a difference, Kate. There is a difference between the genders. [What a smart observation] Now men, they are tied up and a lot of them macho image and that kind of thing and they act like you are not going to push me around. That could be a deficit you know they are not as kind of open to sensitive discussion maybe as women. [Why would that be a deficit since you and your conservative brethren love sable rattling macho guys in Washington? Your guys are not sensitive and discuss, they act] There's got to be a downside for a woman. Do you know one?

KATE OBENSHAIN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, I'm having a tough time with this one, too Bill. I think it depends on the individual. Of course there is a downside to certain individual women, you know --

O'REILLY: But in general you both don't see any gender deficiency to lead the free world?

OBENSHAIN: I don't generalize all women or all men.

POWERS: Well I actually can think of something.

OBENSHAIN: Oh good.

POWERS: I mean if you can take -- if you can take your example of men being macho a woman might feel like she needs to act macho, for example, maybe feel like she had to take -- vote for say the Iraq war, I'm just going to say theoretically to make it look like she would be a tough leader when she was in office and that she is not afraid to use military force. [Are the female guests falling in line now?]

O'REILLY: That's what Hillary Clinton did. [Yeah—she is the real target of discussion]

O'REILLY: There haven't been that many strong women leaders throughout history. I mean we have Golda Meir.

O'REILLY: We have Margaret Thatcher.

POWERS: Both of them were very tough.

O'REILLY: We have a bunch, you know a bunch of people in American on the senate level and the Congress level. But you know, when you are President of the United States you've got it deal with people like Putin, Kate, you've got to deal with real ornery. There are the mullahs in Iran. [So, we forget about Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher since they did not have to deal with Putin and the mullahs in Iran—the toughest guys of all]

O'REILLY: Look the Mullahs in Iran they think women are like subspecies. [Thus, we should not elect a female president because the mullahs would consider her an inferior species?]

OBENSHAIN: Yes how is Obama doing with that with these tough guys? I mean I would say he's probably having a much harder time than some really strong women would have. Obama has been bending over backwards to be gracious and work with these people that is running rough shod over him. [Never miss an opportunity to attack the president for refusing to send our military to every crisis spot in the world]

O'REILLY: But let's keep it on rather than bash -- rather than bash the President which is funny and easy. Let's keep it on women. All right you've got a woman of the President of the United States and the Mullahs say we are not going to deal with you. We don't like you. We don't think you are as good as men. The Muslim world does not accept equality. You know we're not dealing with you. So right away there is a deficit there, no. [What are you suggesting, Bill? Should we get rid of our laws that the mullahs hate and embrace Sharia law that they love?] 

O'REILLY: All right so say Hillary Clinton, and she is the only woman in play right now, is elected. Well you know the Chinese are going to test her right away. They are going to move warships into certain areas and they are going to bing, bing, bing. Let's see what we have here.

They did the same thing with Barack Obama. They tested. They tested. They tested. All right, to see what he has and now Barack Obama he dropped drones on them and I think Hillary Clinton absolutely would drop drones on them. I think she would probably up the drone drop knowing Mrs. Clinton.

But now you're going to have, you're going to have -- Putin is going to do it. Chinese going to do it. Certainly North Korea is going to do it. They will snatch some Americans. They will kidnap them. They will do all of that just to see how it goes, Kate. [And they did all of those things before Obama and before the first female president, when your tough guys were in the White House, the last was George W. who looked into Putin’s soul and still could not prevent his soul mate in the Kremlin from invading Georgia…].

OBENSHAIN: But Bill, they do that to everybody.

POWERS: Right.

OBENSHAIN: I really think there is no question about we're going to talk about Hillary whether she is tough enough. I think everybody knows we see in her throughout the Clinton years I think if anything she is probably considered somewhat ruthless. So I don't think toughness is the question with her. I think competency when it comes to foreign policy issues like of course Benghazi is going to be the big one. She knew it was coming. She knew that they were -- well she knew that there were heightened tensions. And yet, she didn't do what she needed to do. She wasn't tough enough in that situation wasn't proactive enough. And then of course she lied to the American people with the caskets right next to her. So I think her competency is going to be the question. Just like with any woman as opposed to the toughness [The great finale: Hillary is ruthless and incompetent and lies and did not prevent the Benghazi attack. Weeks before 9/11 George W. had an urgent warning by the intelligence community of an imminent Al Qaeda attack, Secretary of State Clinton did not have such a high-level intelligence warning before Benghazi. But that does not matter here].