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  Five days after the explosion, the U.S. Coast Guard approved various plans to cap the leak. Four days after that, with the oil still gushing 24/7 in front of underwater cameras, President Obama finally began visibly taking charge. He ordered a variety of federal agencies to take action, mostly exploratory, and sternly told the world that the United States would hold BP completely responsible.

  By early June, with the oil pollution still out of control, the President was under siege. Front-page photos of birds covered with oil, along with scores of TV interviews with folks losing their jobs, brought the situation to a boil. A Quinnipiac poll found that 59 percent of Americans believed Mr. Obama was handling the situation poorly. The liberal media, which had pounded President Bush quickly and unmercifully for slow action after Hurricane Katrina, were finally forced to scrutinize Obama’s reaction to the BP disaster. Things got bloody fast. Speaking on Good Morning America, Democratic pundit James Carville shook up the liberal world when he said:

  The President of the United States could have come down here. He could have been involved with the families of these eleven people [who died]. He could have commandeered…research vessels in the Gulf of Mexico.

  These people [living on the Gulf Coast] are crying, they’re begging for something down here. And it just looks like he’s not involved in this. Man, you got to get down here and take control of this. Put somebody in charge of this thing and get this thing moving. We’re about to die down here.

  President Barack Obama arrives in Venice, Louisiana, twelve days after the region was affected by the BP oil spill. He’s seen here greeting Coast Guard first responders.

  Associated Press/AP

  Photographed by Charles Dharapak

  The committed Left was stunned. Carville going after Obama? Then things got even worse. While most of her fellow New York Times columnists continued to make excuses for President Obama, Maureen Dowd wrote the following:

  Too often it feels as though Barry [Obama’s childhood name] is watching from a balcony, reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down. The pattern is perverse. The man whose presidency is rooted in his ability to inspire withholds that inspiration when it is most needed.

  Wow. Remember, those comments were from liberals!

  The right-wing media, of course, went wild. As you might expect, talk radio covered itself in oil. Conservative partisans, angrily remembering the Bush-Katrina media coverage, hit hard. Right-wing intellectuals, some of whom were not Obama-bashers, predicted doom for the President. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Peggy Noonan summed up that point of view:

  The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the President and his administration…. It’s not good to have a President in this position—weakened, polarizing and lacking broad public support—less than halfway through his term.

  From my perch on television, I clearly observed the “nuts-r-us” brigades swinging into action. On the Far Left, the loons began blaming Bush and Cheney for the spill. On the Far Right, there were cries of conspiracy, the theory being that the President intentionally let the disaster get out of control so that he could damage the oil companies beyond repair.

  So what is the truth here? Well, like many things, it’s complicated. No President could have prevented that oil spill. Deep-well offshore drilling is here to stay, and obviously there is risk involved. Realizing almost immediately that he had no solutions to the spill and staggering pollution, Mr. Obama gambled and allowed BP to take the lead. That decision cost the President valuable time, as BP failed dismally to stop the leak or prevent the rapidly spreading oil from staining mainland America.

  The governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, watched all this with horror. Early on, his people had wanted the federal government to approve a massive sand barrier installation project to protect Louisiana’s vital wetlands. But the feds dithered, citing environmental concerns. And that was legitimate. If you build a barrier in front of wetlands, there will be unintended consequences. The Army Corps of Engineers knows that, so there was big-time tension between the feds and the state of Louisiana.

  What makes the situation even more fascinating is that exactly the same thing happened after Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans. The state was telling the feds to do one thing, but the Bush administration had other ideas. It was chaos. And the press harpooned Mr. Bush.

  Would those oil-blocking barriers that Governor Jindal wanted have worked? Nobody knows. But once again, the American people were subjected to watching a terrible disaster careen out of control on the Gulf Coast. I mean, it was eerie. President Bush lost a ton of credibility after Hurricane Katrina’s force caused massive and visible human suffering for weeks, and now the identical thing was happening to President Obama, who, by the way, had hammered Bush over Katrina while campaigning for the presidency. As I’ve said, karma can be a bitch and make anyone look like a Pinhead, even though the press generally gave Mr. Obama an easier time than they did with George W. Bush.

  At the moment, it is impossible to assess exactly how much the oil disaster has hurt the President. But it is clear that his credibility as a problem-solver was gravely damaged. Also, as political heat generated by the oil slick rose, the President’s famously cool demeanor raised questions once again about his leadership style. In times of crisis, “slick” doesn’t usually cut it. Pardon the pun.

  THE PEACE SURPRIZE

  At this point it may be worth taking a deep breath to clear our heads and change direction. Let’s be fair and define some of Mr. Obama’s Patriotic credentials. They begin on the personal side of his life. The rise of Barack Obama has been well chronicled and is truly an amazing story. Both Mr. Obama and Bill Clinton have demonstrated that humble beginnings can motivate people to accomplish just about anything. In Obama’s case, his achievement is even more astonishing, since his upbringing without a father was extremely chaotic.

  Although that story has already been told, it warrants mention again as it is, indeed, a Patriotic one. Only in America, I believe, can a boy as disadvantaged as Barry Obama once was grow up to become the leader of a great nation.

  However, the question going forward is this: Will the man Barack Obama has become achieve greatness with the opportunity the voters have given him? Right now the tea leaves (some covered with oil) seem to be saying no, but the President does have substantial time left in office.

  What else are those tea leaves saying? Let’s begin our microanalysis of Obama’s fortunes with the Nobel Peace Prize. On October 9, 2009, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, consisting of five guys wearing heavy woolen sweaters, announced that the President had won the prestigious award that carries with it a $1.4 million cash prize.

  The Nobel Committee chairman, Thorbjørn Jagland (Thorby for short), told the world that the President won for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

  Thorby, the former prime minister of Norway, went on to explain that Mr. Obama’s desire to reduce the world’s stock of nuclear arms had also impressed the committee.

  The President himself was caught off guard. After deliberating for a few hours, he said this about the peace prize:

  Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.

  That would be folks like Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and Yasser Arafat, to name a few—the latter of whom, you will remember, amassed millions of dollars by siphoning off foreign aid intended for the beleaguered Palestinian people. Wouldn’t you have loved to witness old Yasser’s face when that Nobel check rolled in? That bounty certainly made his day, even if he did have to share it with the other winners, Israelis Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.

  Anyway, some conservatives hooted at the Nobel situation and derided the President, even though he had nothing to do with the process. He was simply a beneficiary of a decision by some guys from Norway who apparently respect style over substance. I hear that eating a lot of herring leads to that.

  As for the peace concept, the truth is that Barack Obama is conducting the war on terror pretty much the same way President Bush did. He’s sending Predator drones into Pakistani villages to kill al-Qaeda big shots (sometimes killing civilians in the process). He’s maintaining the U.S. troop presence in Iraq. He sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. And, perhaps most controversial, Obama still allows the CIA to send captured terrorists to countries like Egypt, where they can get free root canals even if they don’t need them.

  As far as nukes are concerned, is there any sane person who wants more nuclear weapons? Just about everybody, with the possible exceptions of Kim Jong II and the nutty Iranian mullahs, would like to get rid of the doomsday weapons. Call me cynical, but giving a speech about downsizing nukes isn’t exactly a bold statement about peace. Or am I wrong?

  Nevertheless, most of the world greeted Barack Obama’s peace prize with rapture. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said it marked “America’s return to the hearts of the world’s peoples.” German chancellor Angela Merkel called it an “incentive to the President and to us all to do more for world peace.”

  By the way, Merkel would not allow German troops to aggressively fight the terrorists in Afghanistan, thereby ensuring more violence from the Muslim killers, who are not exactly known for giving peace a chance, with apologies to John Lennon.

  Ideological propaganda aside, the real reason President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize is a Pinheaded one: he made a series of speeches, including the famous address to the Muslim world in Cairo, in
which he ate humble pie on behalf of we the American people. The Norwegians loved that. They loved it better than North Sea oil, better than reindeer burgers.

  In fact, most of the world likes Barack Obama primarily because he is the antithesis of George W. Bush. While Bush didn’t give a fig what the world thought of his war on terror, Obama is apologizing for much of it, and that is a Pinheaded move. President Bush largely destroyed al-Qaeda’s operational abilities, and the record shows no further foreign attacks on American soil during his watch. Mr. Obama should respect that achievement. Apparently, he does not.

  My take on the Nobel Prize saga was tepid. I saw the absurdity of the decision, but unlike the hard Right, I chalked it up as a positive for America. I mean, if folks overseas like us better because they think President Obama is a peacemaker, what’s the downside? In my opinion, the more people who like the USA, the better.

  But some of my viewers dissented. Judy Robinson, who lives in Richmond, Indiana, wrote: “The Nobel people are a bunch of socialists. Don’t give them any credence, Bill. I would be embarrassed to accept an award from them.”

  Shirley Venente from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, opined: “O’Reilly, you are wrong. The award is not good for our country because it is based on a lie. Is that what we want, a lie?”

  What lie, Shirley? I know for sure that the Nobel committee believes that Barack Obama is a force for peace. So no lie is involved on their part. The difficulty that some are having with the President being honored is that he had not done anything to earn it. But, hey, who really cares? Mr. Obama donated the money to charity, a Patriotic move, and again, having America associated with peace is not a negative, unless we back away from confronting danger. More on that coming up.

  Summing up the Nobel deal: The committee people are Pinheads, committed liberals who want peace at any price. The President is blameless. Those who criticized him for being honored? Kind of petty, don’t you think?

  By the way, I would like to win the Nobel Peace Prize some day, so if you run into Thorby, please tell him that even though I’ve done nothing directly to promote world peace, I do want fewer nukes and have some Muslim friends. Should be enough.

  THE GREAT RATINGS WAR

  As we all know, life is a series of ups and downs, and shortly after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama entered a stunning downward cycle that damaged his administration perhaps beyond repair. There is no doubt that the autumn of 2009 was a terrible time for Barack Obama, and much of the carnage was of his own making.

  The insanity began when the Obama people suddenly declared war on Fox News. By the way, shouldn’t the President return the peace prize for such an aggressive action? After all, the Fox News Channel is a nonviolent enterprise with no standing army. The declaration of war from the White House came as a complete surprise to those of us who toil at FNC. You know, it was kind of like a symbolic Pearl Harbor.

  But unlike America after the Japanese attack, Fox News almost immediately declared victory, because our ratings went through the roof. Folks who would never consider watching a cable news channel tuned in to see what the fight was all about. As the White House launched their verbal Predator drone missiles, my colleagues and I gleefully debated what the heck was going on.

  On October 11, 2009, the Washington newspaper The Hill reported the opening salvo: “Fox News is simply ‘a wing of the Republican Party,’ a top White House aide said today…. ‘Fox News operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,’ [White House communications director Anita] Dunn said.”

  The article went on to quote some Fox News executives as saying Ms. Dunn’s contention was bull and ended this way: “‘The best analogy is probably baseball,’ White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told Time [magazine]. ‘The only way to get somebody to stop crowding the plate is to throw a fastball at them. They move.’”

  Or, they throw one right back at you.

  Which is what FNC did.

  Predictably, the left-wing media tried to come to the rescue of the Obama administration. The crazy Left New Yorker magazine printed this kooky analysis:

  Half the people who watch Fox News were over sixty-three, which is the oldest demographic in the cable-news business, and, according to a poll, the majority of the ones who watch the most strident programs, such as Sean Hannity’s or Bill O’Reilly’s shows, were men. All that chesty fulminating apparently functions as political Cialis. Fox News shows should probably carry a warning: Contact your doctor if you have rage lasting more than four hours.

  Ho, ho, ho. Memo to the New Yorker: People who declare war are usually the ones experiencing rage, are they not?

  The Pinheads at that magazine neglected to tell their readership two basic facts of the trade. First, since every news program skews older, the age differences in audience are minuscule. Second, according to a Pew Research Center study, the Factor’s audience is 48 percent female, a very high percentage for a news program.

  Also, the Factor has more young (twenty-five to fifty-four) viewers than CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Headline News combined. So much for the New Yorker giving its readers the truth.

  To be fair, the magazine did print one honest paragraph:

  Fox News has had a robust 2009 so far, and the recent decision by the White House to declare war on the channel is not likely to put a dent in the ratings. That decision has dispirited some of the President’s well-wishers [like the New Yorker]. It has also puzzled them.

  Indeed. It also puzzled me.

  If you want to be a Patriot, you have to look at the country honestly. So let’s do that vis-à-vis President Obama and Fox News. Two of my colleagues, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, do not like the President’s policies. There is no question about that. In the morning, Fox & Friends guy Steve Doocy is also not a fan. But that’s about it, as far as routinely hammering Mr. Obama goes. Then there is business guy Neil Cavuto, a free-market capitalist who does not accept Obama’s enthusiastic spending as an effective way to juice the economy.

  As for FNC’s highest-rated program, The O’Reilly Factor: we’ve been very fair to the President. The folks in his administration have a standing offer to come on my program if they have a beef about anything. Anytime.

  By all legitimate accounts, I conducted a probing interview of the future President in September of 2008. He said it was very fair, and it was. I’ve posted that interview in the last chapter of this book. Based on what has happened since, the transcript makes for interesting reading.

  But back to FNC. Fox News anchorman Shepard Smith likes the President. So does Greta Van Susteren. Bret Baier is very fair to Mr. Obama, as are our political team covering the White House. No fair-minded person really disputes that.

  So this charge of promoting Republican stuff is a complete myth. You may remember that John McCain did not really want to appear on the Factor during the campaign. And his staff actually kept Sarah Palin off the program because they feared tough questioning.

  Does that sound like a GOP alliance to you?

  So I do remain puzzled by the White House allegation and must enter the world of speculation for a moment to put forth an opinion on the matter. As you all know, I don’t really like the theoretical world, but here goes: I believe Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was the architect of the war against Fox News. The former congressman from Illinois is a left-wing ideologue who simply loathes FNC. Also, the President himself doesn’t like criticism. I can identify. I don’t like criticism, either, especially when it’s unfair.