Obama on O'Reilly Tonight, Olbermann Monday

Over the next few days, Barack Obama will sit down with the mutual antagonists of what is likely the biggest cable news feud of all time--Bill O' Reilly and Keith Olbermann. In a shrewd bit of counter programming, Obama will appear on the O'Reilly Factor tonight at 8pm. Fox News will switch to convention coverage at 9:45pm. On Monday Obama will appear on Olbermann's show, Countdown, on Monday, providing a potentially huge lead in for MSNBC's newest program, The Rachel Maddow Show, which will debut that night after Countdown.

Obama's visit to The O'Reilly Factor appears to be the product of a recent airing of grievances between Obama and Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, which included Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Ailes went on the record about the meeting with The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz (h/t TV Newser). Obama expressed his concerns over the way Fox covered his campaign to Ailes. Ailes told Obama, "Senator, you're the one who boycotted us. We're not the ones who boycotted you. Nor did we retaliate for your boycott." That's technically true enough. There is no need to "retaliate" when you're already operating at maximum hostility to begin with.

In February, O'Reilly's courtship of Obama bubbled over when Obama staffer Marvin Nicholson called O'Reilly "low class" for pushing him at an Obama rally (classic video here). O'Reilly recently alluded to Obama's absence from his show in a rambling justification for Jerome Corsi's widely discredited book about Obama.