Bill O’Reilly took a jab at Sarah Palin during his show Tuesday night, saying that conservatives like Palin, Chris Christie and Donald Trump would certainly liven the GOP presidential primary, but that none of them were serious 2016 contenders. He said that Palin and Trump would have difficulty putting together a serious national organization like other candidates, but it was an earlier comment O’Reilly made during a promo about a possible run from any of them that former half-term governor of Alaska Sarah Palin really considered fighting words .
“Wow, talk about a reality show.”
It didn’t take long for Palin, herself a Fox News contributor and, as such, a colleague of Bill O’Reilly , to show up on the Fox News Network. Bill O’Reilly made his comments, and two hours later, Palin appeared on Fox’s show hosted by Sean Hannity, saying that all conservatives should rally around any potential Republican primary candidate.
“Knowing what the media is going to do, it’s going to take more than a village to beat Hillary (Clinton),” Palin asserted. “There needs to be unity, understanding that conservatives have that strike against us right off the bat — that being the media.”
Palin has long had a problematic view of the media, believing that it treats conservatives unfairly and often treating it herself like an enemy. In fact, in her recent speech to the Iowa Freedom Summit, which was later described as “bizarro” and so strange that it garnered an actual “thank you!” to Palin from Democrats, Palin spent the majority of her time during her speech railing against the media. For more on that, and to read clips of her speech or watch it in full, click here .
“Even there on Fox, kind of a quasi- or assumed conservative outlet,” Palin continued on Hannity’s show, “we have all day listening to the tease with Bill O’Reilly, he’s talking about the guests on his show tonight, or the commentary on his show, and that would be, ‘Oh, all these GOP contenders thinking about running like Donald Trump, Sarah Palin,’ and he names them off – he says, ‘Oh, what a reality show that would be, yuck-yuck.’”
Palin said further that the “left” doesn’t make a habit of marginalizing its own potential candidates.
“They take this serious, because this is war, and hopefully the media – even the quasi-right side of the media – won’t be looking at this as some kind of reality show, a joke, because they have theirs, they’re taking care of theirs fine.
“No, the people of America deserve the best, and competition through a GOP primary, whether a Bill O’Reilly or somebody else assumes it’s a reality show or not, they deserve that competition to surface the competitor who can take on Hillary or whomever it may be and win for this country.”
What do you think? Is Sarah Palin actually a serious contender for 2016 , or is it likely that she won’t be taken seriously at all? And is she right about Bill O’Reilly — that the conservative media should support all conservative candidates, or was Bill O’Reilly right in expressing his concern over some of the more extreme conservative candidates like Donald Trump and Sarah Palin?