Bill O’Reilly calls Obama’s G-20 press conference “inarticulate,” “garbled”

International diplomacy 'bores' the political pundit

By: ANTOINETTE KELLY | Published Tuesday, June 26, 2012, 7:45 AM | Updated Tuesday, June 26, 2012, 3:25 PM

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has no patience with inconclusive summits involving world leaders and President Obama.

The pugnacious pundit launched a scathing attack on Obama on Fox News week for participating in an event that didn't result in dramatic headlines.

Guest Brit Hume countered that in international diplomacy that is often the point: 'The most important thing about that press conference is that there was nothing important about that press conference,' Hume offered, evenly.

But according to Delmarvanow, O'Reilly wanted banners and bunting and he said so: 'President Barack Obama's press conference at the G-20 summit in Mexico was the most boring political exposition I have ever seen. Not only did the president ramble on about nothing; he did it in a halting manner that was excruciating to witness. How Obama thinks he can convince the world he is a strong leader with that kind of a presentation is an intense mystery,' O'Reilly scoffed.

Strong leaders provide copy for cable networks, O'Reilly suggested, adding that Obama has no idea how to solve the worldwide economic crisis. 'So he tries to do a verbal rope-a-dope and tell everybody solutions are in the wind. They are not. Countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy are on the verge of economic collapse, and Obama is powerless to do anything about it. In fact, I don't think he understands why these countries are going bankrupt. If he did, he would be trying to cut federal spending in America.'

Strong leaders are also never boring, O'Reilly suggested: 'I have never seen anything more boring than that, ever,' said the pundit.

Brit Hume wasn't impressed with O'Reilly's claims or theatrics countering that the president's subdued was the right one for the seriousness and complexity of the issues that had been discussed: 'It’s a natural function of the fact that the president really didn’t have anything new or dramatic to announce in his statement.'

No, said O'Reilly putting on both his psychologist's hat and his political-psychic one simultaneously. It's not diplomacy; it's exhaustion, he thundered: 'I believe the man is exhausted. I think he knows he's in trouble, that his re-election chances are getting slimmer by the day...'

Perhaps the memory of George W. Bush's famous Mission Accomplished speech from the deck of an aircraft carrier, wearing a flight suit and a codpiece would have provided the visuals and statements O'Reilly was in search of, but Fox News senior political editor Brit Hume resisted O'Reilly's characterization and insistence that the G-20 summit was the occasion for showmanship.