Living The Life Of O’Reilly; Hillary Jokes, While O’Reilly Shoves Obama Aide

An incredible juxtaposition of events involving Bill O’Reilly in New Hampshire today.

O’Reilly in the morning attended a Clinton event, and a jovial atmosphere ensued as Clinton joked with him:

Clinton who appeared rested after a brutal 48 hours of Iowa and New Hampshire campaigning. She had the crowd laughing when she acknowledged the host of the O’Reilly Factor standing unobtrusively next to a camera tripod.

“Hi, Bill how are you?” Clinton asked, as O’Reilly frowned, rocking on his heels.

“You’ve got to give to him points for courage,” she told the crowd of about 800, which jammed the school’s gymnasium.

Meanwhile, O’Reilly attempted to ask Obama a question as he worked the rope line (presumably to demand he come on his show or something of that ilk) and he ended up shoving an Obama bodyguard:

Mr. O’Reilly, who had attended a campaign event earlier for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, sought to get Mr. Obama’s attention along a rope line. With cameras rolling, Mr. O’Reilly was trying to shout a question to Mr. Obama. But according to a photographer who witnessed the scene, Mr. O’Reilly grew agitated when he couldn’t get close to the senator.

“Move,” he shouted to Marvin Nicholson, the national trip director for the Obama campaign, according to witnesses.

Photographs of the incident show that Secret Service agents intervened after Mr. O’Reilly pushed Mr. Nicholson.

John Dickerson has perhaps the most thorough recap of the event, including Obama talking to O’Reilly after the fracas:

O’Reilly took up a position along the narrow column by the doorway created for Obama’s departure. The press really isn’t supposed to line up against the steel barriers that protect the candidate from the crush of the crowd but it’s not an ironclad rule. We all break it from time to time covering the news. With his camera crew behind him and the sound boom overhead, O’Reilly waited to grab the senator on his way out the door. I had been watching him since his arrival (his group had bumped into me at one of the two press platforms), and I followed him to watch the spectacle it was certain he would create.

At first, the railing where O’Reilly stood wasn’t very populated. Then, as the Obama team saw who was laying in wait, they started to huddle. Staffers started to arrive at the scene. Three policemen showed up, too. One of them stood in front of O’Reilly until O’Reilly asked him to move. One of Obama’s staffers Marvin Nicholson, took up the same post, standing in front of the Fox camera as Obama neared the door.

“You’re blocking our shot,” yelled O’Reilly.

“Oh, am I?” asked the Obama staffer, not entirely sincerely and not moving.

This is not a new trick. When staffers block you because you’re being too aggressive, the standard thing to do is give them a little business and then move to another spot. O’Reilly didn’t do this. He shoved the Obama aide. There was an exchange and a little more shoving. I didn’t fully capture because as I looked at O’Reilly in his black leather Fox jacket, which resembled the kind we wore during football season in high school, I swore I could hear him challenge the staffer to a rumble out by the drive-in.

“That’s really low class, pal,” said O’Reilly.

When Obama passed, he looked like he was headed for the door but stopped to talk to the Fox host. The conversation was short. O’Reilly did not seem to be causing the commotion in the national interest—I heard no questions about marginal tax rates—but instead he made a personal appeal to Obama to get him on his show. (I can’t be sure; I heard only part of the conversation.) Obama appeared to say that he would come on sometime.

This is pretty ironic: the Obama unity campaign getting in a tussle and the Clinton campaign that talks more about fighting joking harmlessly. It can’t hurt Obama though to see his campaign get into a bit of a scrap with someone who is such a demon on the left. And Obama agreeing to go on the show will be something they can use to defuse this in case it somehow turns into a story of the Obama campaign bullying O’Reilly.

Point being though, that Clinton is getting really unlucky in addition to being in a bit of a rough place right now.

No word, though, on if the shove was effete or if Papa Bear was flip-flopping big time.