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On Wednesday night’s The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly did his normal ‘just asking questions’ bit as a way to allow his true sexist, bigoted self to shine on through. In a segment where he had on two female guest, Kirsten Powers of USA Today and Republican strategist Kate Obenshain, O’Reilly first discussed how Michele Bachmann stated that there is no real desire by the American public to elect a female president.

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Now, one should severely question why O’Reilly is using Bachmann as a serious reference for any level of discussion, but that’s a whole other issue. He used Bachmann’s statement to segue into a question he asked his two guests. He asked, ”There’s got to be some downside to having a woman president, right? Something that may not fit with that office?” After the initial shock of O’Reilly’s blatant sexism, the two guests decided to try to play along with his game of finding something ‘wrong’ with a woman being the leader of the country.

Powers eventually served up O’Reilly a nice little meatball by giving a ‘theoretical’ example of a woman voting to authorize force in Iraq to prove that she is ‘macho’ as a man. O’Reilly knew her little ‘theoretical’ example was about Hillary Clinton back when she was a Senator. Powers was just being the good little Fox News contributor that she was hired to be. While Powers is always referred to as a Democrat when she’s on Fox, over time, she’s learned to toe the corporate line and present the ‘facts’ the way Ailes and Co. want it presented.

To wrap it up, O’Reilly made it out like there have been very few strong women leaders in the world. He also made it appear that women would have a hard time dealing with tough, militant rulers in parts of the world like Iran and Russia. First off, I am pretty sure that Angela Merkel would disagree with O’Reilly’s characterization. Also, countries as diverse as South Korea, Brazil, Ireland, India and Indonesia have all elected women as heads of state. It seems that the people of those countries had no issues with the ‘strength’ of their women or their ability to communicate with leaders of other countries.

O’Reilly, like always, will act like he was merely trying to spur discussion about any potential issues surrounding a female president. However, it is obvious that the man has issues with what he sees as the so-called ‘feminization’ and ‘wussification’ of this country. He sees himself as the epitome of the ‘macho’ male, and he feels threatened when any formerly subjugated group is presented as the equal to the white Christian male. It angers him. But, more so, it scares him.

H/T: Talking Points Memo