In an effort to find common ground, President Obama suggested that he and Bill O’Reilly both received a little help to make it through college. But Obama didn’t realize he was talking to a rugged, bootstrap-pulling individualist who subsidized his education through his own blood, sweat and tears.
During the unedited portion of O’Reilly’s Super Bowl Sunday interview, Obama explained that he has “not massively expanded the welfare state.” The government’s current support structure, Obama said, isn’t all that different from “thirty years ago, forty years ago, fifty years ago.”
“You and I took advantage of certain things. I don’t know about you, but I got some loans to go to college,” Obama said.
But a self-described “self-reliance guy” like O’Reilly didn’t need any government largess, thank you very much.
“Nah, I painted houses, I didn’t get any,” O’Reilly responded. “See, that’s who I am.”
Obama was quick to say that he painted houses in the summer, too.
“It still wasn’t enough,” he told O’Reilly.
