...at least according to Bill O'reilly. In one of his cute segments entitled pinheads and patriots Oreilly dubbed Ron Paul a pinhead for comments Paul made at a Q and A session at one of his rallys.
Specifically, in response to a question about his appearance on the Oreilly factor, Paul said, "what do you expect when going on Oreilly... all he want to do is interrupt... I wanted to talk about history and he doesn't want to know about history."
After the excerpt finished, Oreilly stated that he interrupted Paul for 2 reasons. First, he stated that Paul dodged the question about Iran. Second he brought up the fact that guests cant ramble on when the interview only lasts 6 minutes.
So why is this important or even relevant. Well (as someone who isn't particularly fond of Oreilly) this is the top rated news show on television watched by all sorts of likely primary voters, most of which are republican.
While some might hold to the adage that theres no such thing as bad publicity, thats not how things work in politics. Regardless of whether what Paul said was right, he, once again, came off as the angry whiner, high pitch and all.
Secondly, Bill had the last word making Paul look worse. While admitedly thats the nature of having your own show, its problematic nonetheless. It essentially left Paul with no rebuttal which didn't help his case.
Finally, and most obvious, the fact that the most popular news show by far is calling Paul a pinhead is a problem. All those voters who have never heard of Paul before or really don't know anything about him, now have the frame of reference to refer to Paul as "that guy who Oreilly called a pinhead".
No doubt the Paulites will dismiss or attack all of what I just said. Thats fine. But heres the real problem. In the day and age where everything is taped and put on tv or the net within minutes (especially when Paul is aware that he's being videotaped) you can't get away with openly mocking one of the most powerful people on the news (and doing a poor job of it at that).
If Paul doesn't have the common sense or the savvy to take chiding shots at people while still flying under the radar (like other candidates do day in and day out), then he doesn't have the experience or the skill to not step on a landmine when in office. Pissing off Oreilly gets you bad press. Doing the same to a foreign government has far worse consequences.
Theres a reason why Kennedy smiled at Khrushchev and its totally lost on Paul.
Specifically, in response to a question about his appearance on the Oreilly factor, Paul said, "what do you expect when going on Oreilly... all he want to do is interrupt... I wanted to talk about history and he doesn't want to know about history."
After the excerpt finished, Oreilly stated that he interrupted Paul for 2 reasons. First, he stated that Paul dodged the question about Iran. Second he brought up the fact that guests cant ramble on when the interview only lasts 6 minutes.
So why is this important or even relevant. Well (as someone who isn't particularly fond of Oreilly) this is the top rated news show on television watched by all sorts of likely primary voters, most of which are republican.
While some might hold to the adage that theres no such thing as bad publicity, thats not how things work in politics. Regardless of whether what Paul said was right, he, once again, came off as the angry whiner, high pitch and all.
Secondly, Bill had the last word making Paul look worse. While admitedly thats the nature of having your own show, its problematic nonetheless. It essentially left Paul with no rebuttal which didn't help his case.
Finally, and most obvious, the fact that the most popular news show by far is calling Paul a pinhead is a problem. All those voters who have never heard of Paul before or really don't know anything about him, now have the frame of reference to refer to Paul as "that guy who Oreilly called a pinhead".
No doubt the Paulites will dismiss or attack all of what I just said. Thats fine. But heres the real problem. In the day and age where everything is taped and put on tv or the net within minutes (especially when Paul is aware that he's being videotaped) you can't get away with openly mocking one of the most powerful people on the news (and doing a poor job of it at that).
If Paul doesn't have the common sense or the savvy to take chiding shots at people while still flying under the radar (like other candidates do day in and day out), then he doesn't have the experience or the skill to not step on a landmine when in office. Pissing off Oreilly gets you bad press. Doing the same to a foreign government has far worse consequences.
Theres a reason why Kennedy smiled at Khrushchev and its totally lost on Paul.