The stranger aspect of the Tea Parties is how they are being aggressively promoted by America’s most successful cable news station. Media Matters has been clipping video left and right, and this one’s amusing for 1) the appearance of “color” reporter Griff Jenkins in colonial dress and 2) the insistence by Ann Coulter that these rallies are more legit than anything “George Soros” funds, as if she didn’t just see a Fox News reporter promoting them. (Video after the jump.)

Having lived in Washington for five years, I’m familiar with media coverage of protests. The day before the protests there are (occasionally) stories on what they’re about and how they might affect your travel plans. The day of, there are (occasionally) stories about what happened, especially if violence broke out. I’m really at a loss to think of another example of a news station telling people to show up to protests and promising to cover them.

Fox’s tight and symbiotic ties with the G.O.P. are well documented, but that does not rule out a Democratic detente, since it is still owned by Rupert Murdoch, a pragmatic mogul who has famously made peace with liberal politicians here and abroad.

Fox’s Republican role is out in force on Friday, however, as the RNC began an offensive against Obama based entirely on Bill O’Reilly’s framing from The Factor. A new RNC attack file contends Obama offered “conflicting threat assessments on Iran” based on “his interview with Bill O’Reilly.”

Some Democrats were also concerned about the Obama-O’Reilly exchange on Iraq. “Instead of presenting a clear definition of how he will realize the promise of change after eight failed years of George Bush, [Obama] blurred the distinction between himself and John McCain on Iraq,” lamented a former aide to Chris Dodd, who thrilled liberal Fox critics in a more combative exchange with O’Reilly during the Democratic primary last year.

“He gave up his greatest strength – opposition to the Iraq War – on O’Reilly’s show,” the operative continued. “If Obama’s lucky, he gained enough new Fox-watching supporters to make up for the Democrats he just alienated.”

The Obama campaign had no comment on the appearance or reaction from Democrats.

Robert Greenwald, the director of the documentary, “OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism,” emailed a new video to supporters today. In it, he criticized Fox’s unbalanced treatment of Democratic politicians:

O’Reilly needled and interrupted Obama, trying to get him to simplify many of his answers — a far cry from the softballs O’Reilly lobbed at many prominent Republicans like Rudy Giuliani in the past.

In a separate interview with TWI, Greenwald said his new video shows how Fox News is using the same playbook this year that it effectively deployed against Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004.

“Those who don’t learn from history are forced to relive it,” Greenwald wrote in an email. “Here is proof positive of the Fox propaganda machine using the same language, the same tools the same attacks word for word against BO as they did against Kerry.” Raw Story, an alternative news site favored by the netroots, also criticized O’Reilly for a slanted, hectoring performance.

While most news channels focused on Sen. John McCain’s big night on Thursday, it was a battle of the B.O.s on Fox News.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, made a much-hyped appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor” to tangle with Bill O’Reilly. The talk-show host had been pushing so hard for an Obama visit, of course, his unrequited desire was a big topic at the secret meeting between Obama, NewsCorp head Rupert Murdoch and Fox News chief Roger Ailes.

Ever the showman, O’Reilly turned his new tape into a mini-series — only “Part 1″ aired Thursday (below) — and turned us commentators into previews for the remaining segments. But it was still good television.

Part 1 is about national security, with O’Reilly gingerly mugging as a salt-of-the-earth armchair general. He may pull down $9 million a year, but O’Reilly talks with the cadence and umbrage of any regular guy holding court at the bar — scrunching his face, interrupting, waving his hands and wondering whether Obama is tough enough to take on Iran.

He looked permanently perturbed with Obama’s answers. But he also offered his guest a few compliments. So Obama was correct to oppose the Iraq war as the “wrong battlefield,” O’Reilly observed, but wrong to oppose the surge. (Don’t even bother trying to square that.) Obama gave a good speech in Denver, O’Reilly conceded, but he still “bloviated” about Pakistan.

Obama was cool and cogent throughout, but O’Reilly’s audience presents demographic kryptonite to his political superpowers. Fox News viewers went for Bush by 9:1 last cycle, and prime-time shows — like The Factor — offer an even more conservative spin than daytime programming. Meanwhile, the average age of an O’Reilly viewer is 71. Obama has trouble with older Americans in general, but older Americans who voted for President George W. Bush and tune into O’Reilly? Even they may not be moved by this solid performance: