November 12, 2005

Bill O'Reilly Condones an Al Qaeda Attack on San Francisco

By now people with even a 60 IQ should know better than to believe anything Bill O'Reilly says. But given Fox's patriotic rah-rah image, just how in the hell can they continue to employ a guy who'd be perfectly fine with an al Qaeda attack on the West Coast? As long as he's daring to work for Fox he should be forced to apologize, or he should be fired immediately. And of course he should apologize in any case.

Posted by armand at November 12, 2005 08:26 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Media


Comments

So, I guess the always only-slightly-informed-on-the-scope-of-the-issue Mr. O'Reilly thinks it would be ok for Al Qaeda to attack all the colleges that are independently opposing allowing military recruiting on campus - there is a major lawsuit on this very issue pending before the Supreme Court this month brought by numerous law schools. If we win, I don't think it would be very safe for DC's overall security to let the terrorists blow up Georgetown Law...its pretty close to the Capitol, they might be able to get that too.

Posted by: ryan at November 12, 2005 11:40 AM | PERMALINK

I do believe that's called sarcasm.

Posted by: big country at November 12, 2005 01:56 PM | PERMALINK

Guess that fits O'Reilly since it's the "lowest form of wit."

Posted by: binky at November 12, 2005 02:17 PM | PERMALINK

Bro,
I'm sure you can score points by suggesting that O'Reilly's advocating a terrorist attack, but of course he's making the point that if San Francisco wants to make it as difficult as possible for their citizens to support national defense, then why don't we let them go without that defense and see how well they do. It's pretty simple, and it might be an experiment they'd be interested in. San Franciscans think it's american imperialism causing the hatred of America in the world, so we simply let them stop supporting our military, and if they're right, then the terrorists won't attack them. If, on the other hand, it is radical liberalism that the terrorists seek to destroy, if they hate Americans because we allow things they believe shouldn't be allowed, then they would descend on San Francisco, as the saying goes, with a furious anger. If San Franciscans are so sure that it's the military itself which is offensive, then let them bet their own lives on it, and not the lives of young men and women from everywhere else in the nation.

Posted by: Morris at November 12, 2005 11:45 PM | PERMALINK

Mo - Uh, excuse me, but take off your FoxNews blinders and simply ook at the words (much like Justice Scalia would have us all do, right?). Bill O'Reilly said he wouldn't have any problem with terrorists attacking San Francisco, an American city, and he even went so far as to specifically say that he was ok with the blowing up of something that's 1) an American landmark, 2) a tower and 3) a tower which, as legend has it, was designed in a way to, at least partially, honor firefighters.

Does it really matter WHY O'Reilly thinks that's ok? (and even if it does - 1) your argument doesn't really follow logically 2) not all SanFranciscans voted for this - so their lives should be put at risk b/c of the actions of the majority?). Uh, if Sen. Kennedy or Sen. Clinton had said this, wouldn't O'Reilly himself be throwing kerosene on the torches and gathering the pitchforks for a march on DC?

Posted by: Armand at November 13, 2005 03:46 PM | PERMALINK

not to mention that to reject active recruiting on public school campuses is hardly to reject either the military or the necessity of a national defense, any more than denying compelled religious practice in public schools is tantamount to rejecting religion generally. we protect kids against exposure to tons of things on school grounds. given allegations* of misleading recruiting tactics by the military, it seems to me wholly defensible that people might be leery about permitting recruiting at schools, which are supposed to encourage critical thought.

_______
* I doubt recruiters, for example, acknowledge coercive retention tactics.

Posted by: moon at November 14, 2005 12:57 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
You are on point, and you don't recognize it. If I ban something from going on, it is of course a rejection. High schools have been the setting for many years of debates on whether certain books should be allowed in their libraries. Most liberals come down on the side of letting books be in libraries, even if the ideas are threatening to certain people and their values, as you say because of an emphasis on critical thinking. So how is it that it's okay to expose children to profane, anti-democratic, and anti-religious books, but when it comes to high schoolers being mature enough to make decisions about whether to join the defense of this nation, they need to be protected? Why does the belief in a high schooler's ability to think critically suddenly disappear when it comes to defense of our nation?
And your argument about nasty recruiters sounds like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Should we have no political system because some politicians are corrupt? Should we have no doctors because some have drunk before operating? If the problems you talk about are systemic, they should be addressed in a way that fixes the system, not throws it away, unless you honestly believe nothing but the goodwill of others is what protects our country from attack. I agree we shouldn't compel children to worship any particular religion in school, though if we ban individual, voluntary prayer in schools, that is of course a rejection of religion.
Bro,
It's called hyperbole. You might note the part where it says "not meant to be taken literally." And next time you tell me my argument doesn't follow logically, you might explain how it doesn't follow logically, otherwise it's not really much of a response. And you're right, not all san franciscans voted for this, so maybe their city court will hold it to be unconstitutional, so they can protect San Francisco from those people who actually want the will of the majority to prevail. It's funny, I don't hear the liberals there complaining about the minority rights for those who support the military. Where is the lament for majority rule so often voiced by them?

Posted by: Morris at November 14, 2005 02:52 PM | PERMALINK

well, unless someone can speak authoritatively to what recruiting activities the shools in question will permit i'm dropping out of the discussion for the following reasons:

first, there's no special privilege of the military to recruit where no one else can, so unless there's some sort of open job fair from which only the military is excluded, i don't see that this matters much.

second, while your attempt to spin me onto a Farenheit 451 discussion, i'm pretty sure you're not only off-point but trying to drag me off-point as well. i guarantee no one would raise an eyebrow if some employer with a series of OSHA complaints were denied access to high school recruiting fairs. any misconduct by the military pertaining to its representations regarding the position furnish a perfectly legitimate basis for denying them access to job fairs wherever. they may be government, but they're still just an employer.

third, hey dingbat, it's democracy, remember? courts don't overturn the will of the people for fear of being labeled activists? in the people is vested all relevant power, etc.? omigod, let me pause to catch my breath that, once again, a republican thinks direct democracy is what it's all about . . . that is, until direct democracy doesn't effectuate the most backward moral proscriptions, the most pro-corporate tax plan, and the most uncritical view of the military and the militaristic mentality in government -- then, of course, outside help must be enlisted -- like, for example, Bill O'Reilly ranting on and on in the best traditions of propaganda mouthpieces all over the World War II Axis that anyone who doesn't hew to a narrow, jingoistic, kill-em-all-let-God-sort-em-out mentality is, ipso facto, a traitor.

so what's it gonna be morris? is democracy the end-all be-all that you respect, notwithstanding outcome, or are you going to be like all the rest, precisely as outcome-driven as are the caricature of judges promulgated on the right under the "activist" rubric. bear in mind, in that connection, activist is used to mean unprincipled, and in that sense readily extends beyond the judiciary to the commentariat and the party itself. so does it extend to you?

Posted by: moon at November 14, 2005 03:43 PM | PERMALINK

As to arguments that don't follow - ok, let's start with your last paragraph. I think you are making some sort of joke, but I can't follow it. But you want me to explain that (even though it's your incomprehensible writing), so ... you think the people who lose elections shouldn't have their voices silenced even though they lost so ... oh, I guess you are arguing that there is a constitutional right to entice youngsters into the military in America's public schools ... but there's not, so ... sorry, something doesn't fit, but your making so little sense in your joke that I don't know where to start.

Why do you think this is so "anti-military"? San Franciscans, including many parents among them, don't want to let military recruiters into the school to steal away impressionable 17 year olds, lavishing lies upon them to get them into Iraq (which is, quite honestly, what a lot of recruiters do - they are essentially engaged in marketing as much as, and often more, that they are engaged in protecting the country). Somehow I think the possibility of coercing impressionable youngsters into signing up to go to war is a rather graver threat to their safety than whether or not Harry Potter is on the shelves of the library. And that parents wouldn't want to give dangerous, mendacious predators (which is how I might see some of these folks if I had a kid in school given the recruiting violations we've seen become common in the last couple of years) access to their kids is something I think is entirely reasonable.

But whether or not these people are in the schools, why do you think the military should have a basic right to this activitiy? Should churches? Should PepsiCo? Seems to me entirely reasonable that a locality would have votes on who to let in, or not, and here the military lost - I don't see the results of an election as evidence of some anti-American conspiracy.

But, getting back to the topic I actually wrote about, the loathesomeness of that airhead - what, you think jokes from US opinion leaders (as this wacko sadly is) about attacks on US towers are funny? I think they are sick and and coming from someone with his megaphone and audience pretty fucking irresponsible as well. B/c that's the problem with this asshole and Rush - they hide behind the guise of being entertainers, not political commentators, whenever someone points out the fact that 1) they are making shit up and/or 2) allowing themselves to do things that they criticize Democratic leaders of doing, whether or not Democrats actually do them. For example, I don't know that many Democratic leaders who're under investigation for drug crimes, or who incite terrorism in major American cities - but I know of at least two supposedly patriotic "conservative" assholes who fit those descriptions.

So, I'll ask again, since it's what I was writing about in the first place - do you think he should be fired or at least apologize? Or will you say, well he was right and those Americans deserved it, after the next terrorist attack? And if you agree with him - why do you hate America and Americans so fucking much?

Posted by: Armand at November 14, 2005 03:53 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
I ask for consistency, and you accuse me of distracting our argument. I guess that means your positions aren't consistent, because if they were you'd simply explain how they are, right?
I'm curious as to what the number of OSHA violations required to bar a company from recruiting at high schools, and whether it has anything at all to do with the number of employees. The armed forces employees millions of Americans, and because human beings aren't always perfect, some are going to give into their dark sides every once and a while regardless of who they work for. I'm a little curious as to why the anti-war crowd who has probably been studying this relentlessly can't come up with a number of abuses, and instead presents simple case studies of individual cases.
And, yes, there are occasionally job fairs at schools, and this law would encourage schools to specifically bar the military recruiters without barring other recruiters.
If you want to engage in intellectual debate, you might consider the rational value of calling someone a dingbat. Oh, that's right, it doesn't have rational value, it's an attack, typical of those who feel threatened. Does my argument hit too close to home?
Bro,
Liberals have been insisting on the right to an abortion for as long as I've been alive, where is that in your Constitution? The courts found it, of course. It's in the middle somewhere, right, or maybe towards the back? Liberals find rights where none exist, then decry the abuse of those rights by others, except as moon points out when hypocritical people's agendas aren't principled or consistent.
I of course don't see fighting in Iraq as anything but protecting the country, and if it's a lie to you and true to me, maybe we should let the high schoolers make a decision as to what's right for them, rather than you or the San Franciscans making it for them.
You don't see any evidence of an anti-american conspiracy in letting PepsiCo hire but not letting the american armed forces hire at high school job fairs? There's a key word that's different between the two employers' names, look and you might find it.
And I'm all for teaching about world religions in high school. So are you saying Harry Potter's all right but the Krishnas aren't?
It sounds to me like you're getting frustrating (dropping F-bombs), so bring it back to reality. Yes, conservatives are inconsistent about their philosophies and values, and yes, liberals are too. Yes, the jokes of one party are taken seriously and scorned by the other. It's been years since I've watched the Daily Show, because it's more the Democrat show, and making Republicans look stupid isn't funny to me when it's about talking down and not about a more generalized human absurdity. Political arguments don't tend to come down to reason, they're often about how our personal experience connects with these ideas, and they're about seeking validation, that's part of why we get angry when people disagree, and why we like it when somebody jumps in on our side, or comes to see it our way. This world has been around with political structures for thousands of years. Don't you think if human growth and conflict was simply about having a certain political values, structure, or theory, humanity would have figured it out by now, and it would have brought us lasting peace and prosperity? But Republicans and Democrats both go to war, and they both get addicted, and maybe there's a reason for that. Life would be way too boring if it had worked out any other way.

Posted by: Morris at November 14, 2005 05:35 PM | PERMALINK

Begging pardon for attempting to clarify, but isn't the problem not that the military gets to recruit on campus, but they get access to student records, home addresses, phone, email, etc?

And were I Dawn Eden or LaShawn Barber, I already would have deleted ALL of you for straying off topic. See what a Benevolent Despot (TM) I am?

Posted by: binky at November 14, 2005 07:06 PM | PERMALINK

Morris, (and honestly) this is a post about Bill O'Reilly, San Francisco, which then morphed into something about military recuitment. Why did you have to bring up abortion? Why does everything, it seems, have to do with abortion?

Honestly, I'm just curious.

Posted by: baltar at November 14, 2005 07:16 PM | PERMALINK

Morris, why would I bother honing my writing to satisfy your criteria when it's so painfully obvious you aren't reading what I did write. First of all, I didn't suggest that the army violates OSHA. Indeed, my guess is that they're immune from OSHA claims. What I said is this:

second, while your attempt to spin me onto a Farenheit 451 discussion, i'm pretty sure you're not only off-point but trying to drag me off-point as well. i guarantee no one would raise an eyebrow if some employer with a series of OSHA complaints were denied access to high school recruiting fairs. any misconduct by the military pertaining to its representations regarding the position furnish a perfectly legitimate basis for denying them access to job fairs wherever. they may be government, but they're still just an employer.

What I implied was that the serial misrepresentations by recruiters are at least as bad as serial misconduct under OSHA, which I'm sure most reasonable people would agree would furnish sufficient grounds for denying a non-military employer access to school facilities and time in order to seduce students into enlisting.

Second, the dingbat thing was a f&^king joke (you nit), and hardly reduced the robust basis for finding you hypocritical that followed unworthy of discussion. That said, you didn't respond. Many times, here, you've taken the GOP line that where a majority of people want something, either through referndum or by proxy of a majority of an elected legislature, even God himself shouldn't have the power to evaluate the action. So why is this particular exercise in democracy so odious to you -- the people have spoken. Furthermore, you didn't bother to acknowledge the fact that, like most employers, the military's lack of access to schools puts them on the level playing field of having to go out and get their recruits in the venerable free market. And since the free market is omniscient, surely such a worthy employer as the U.S. Armed Forces will find itself inundated with applicants due to the wealth of opportunity it affords young recruits.

But apparently that's not enough, as, just like with airlines and junk bond purveyors and Halliburton, it can't compete on a level playing field and thus requires constant tampering with the market to stay afloat. Again, stop me when I say something that isn't an affirmative proposition which someone with something to say in response would respond to.

Finally, I don't know the condition of the job fairs, and I said that at the outset, hence I don't know -- and MOrris I'm dubious that you know either -- that the military's access is merely the same as other job fair employers or that there was an open job fair at issue in the first place.

Finally, the thought that this will encourage anything anywhere runs directly counter to the whole premise of O'Reilly's bulls&^t -- he's saying San Franciscans are unique, that they're so damned gay and democrat that they must be traitors, and that as such they can be sunk for all he cares. So fine, but then you can't turn around and say San Fran is setting some sort of precedent while assuming B.O.'s position. What San Francisco does often reflects its own dance to its own peculiar drummer. Moreover, one democratic referendum is not a precedent of any sort; elsewhere, the barriers to entry for referenda are much higher, the inclination to resort to them much lower, and the broader audience far less inhospitable to the military. Like it or not, this is probably sui generis.

Similar efforts, it is true, have cropped up in the undergraduate and graduate school context, but to my knowledge they have arisen principally or exclusively at private schools. Guess what, oh GOP friend o' mine -- that's yet another consequence of the free market. Where does the GOP get off insinuating that private enterprise should accede to government prerogatives where less intrusive means are available? If a private school chooses to say, "We won't have anything to do with permitting organizations that discriminate institutionally against homosexuals equal time on our campus," who's the GOP to say anything. Their kids don't have to attend if they don't like it. Plus, this is the sort of autonomous action from principle one might expect the GOP to line up behind, the marketplace of ideas, government out of private enterprise, etc.

Sound absurd to you? Yeah, to me too, but that just illustrates how far adrift of its own raison d'etre the GOP is.

If you want to mandate military recruiting access to schools public or private, you can try to pass a law, but this would be a decidedly anti-federalist move, and one your own cherry-picked Supreme COurt would almost certainly reject as exceeding the sweep of Congressional power -- a ruling that would sound in the supposed core principles of the GOP.

And just for the record, the attempt to drag abortion into the debate is just scurrilous. It's not what we're talking about. Period.

Posted by: moon at November 14, 2005 09:19 PM | PERMALINK

Binky,
I'm certainly not in favor of schools giving the military high school students' names and phone numbers. But the proposition passed in San Francisco discourages high schools from even letting recruiters on campus (and I guess that may also mean goodbye to low income students getting JROTC training so they can quickly move up grades within the military once they graduate). Of course, the crux of this post seems to be about what O'Reilly said based on his understanding that San Francisco had actually banned recruiting on high schools, because he got this mixed up with a handgun ban that San Francisco also passed. We could get upset about what he said given the situation as it is, but of course he wasn't responding to that, so getting upset would make as much sense as getting upset at a President for acting based on assurances from the CIA that there was a slam dunk case for something or other.
Baltar,
The point about abortion is that I was accused by my brother of finding a right in the Constitution that wasn't specifically spelled out(letting recruiters talk to students who want to talk to them). If he wants to go after me for being inconsistent, then I simply return the favor and bring up how abortion isn't specifically in the Constitution, but liberals insist that it's supposed to be, should've been, would've been, etc.
Moon,
I respond in the hope that you learn something. Where is your evidence that the armed forces has serially misrepresented itself? You present the testimony of one admitted anti-war activist from back in March who says that the military is misrepresenting itself. I've actually gone to a military recruiter, and he was clear that I could list the military specialties I wanted, but if the army needed ditch diggers, then I was going to be a ditch digger. You present absolutely no evidence that systemic misrepresentation is going on, besides the assurances of anti-war activists who actually say that going into the military means not having to make decisions for four years. These people are a little left of reality. As far as the complaints about re-enlistment, those are serious, but remember that the Congressional Democrats wanted an inquiry into plans the Bush administration had to attack Iran once re-elected, and that's what they were telling young voters, so I'm not sure how credible this investigation is. And though this practice may be perceived as a threat, this may simply be a way the military can get its troops to rotate through Iraq so the ones who are there can rotate out. It may be more of a "we need troops rotating through Iraq, so you can go now or if you re-enlist you can go later." I hate to break it to you, but if they enlisted to protect our country, then they can be sent to Iraq to protect our country, and it doesn't sound like they're keeping these soldiers in past their original enlistment.
If you read my original response, you would see that the particular idea of democracy is exactly what I'm suggesting, a democracy of San Francisco who can decide on their own how to protect their own pacifist paradise. But the armed forces aren't the Texas Armed Forces, or the Los Angeles Armed Forces, they're the United States Armed Forces, and if SF want to get their protection, then they can let their students make choices including the option of national defense. A level playing field is exactly what I want. If a student goes in to see a career counselor and takes a test, then military careers should be included as options, just as private sector and religious careers are. If a school has a job fair, then armed forces have every right to be there that Aflac does. There is no exclusion here, there's tolerance. That's what I'm talking about. Exclamation point!

Posted by: Morris at November 15, 2005 12:33 AM | PERMALINK

Ah that's my brother - "Political arguments don't tend to come down to reason". Funny, I'd think that's exactly what they SHOULD come down to. But as you've noted time and again, regardless of the topic, you'd rather just vent emotions and untruths.

I will note the following though (again) - you are defending a guy who's ok with a terrorist attack on an American city. How very patriotic of you.

And your knowledge of the law that started all this (the voters just saying no - and Bill O'Reilly getting so pissed at the result of a democratic election that he wants to see America attacked) seems to be entirely non-existent. Note Binky's 7:06 post - the military gets information and privileges that no other employer in the country gets. Why should they 1) have such *special* rights in the first place and 2) be able to get access to American kids like that, when no other employers can, if the parents don't want that to happen?

Are you both anti-family and pro-terrorist attacks on America? Or will you separate yourself from O'Reilly (who - I REPEAT AGAIN - is the subject of this post, not anything else).

[Btw, the Daily Show is anti-hypocrisy more than anti-Republican (and sadly Stewart has gotten all cozy with John McCain of late). But if the Republicans happen to be more obviously hypocritical, that's hardly Jon Stewart's fault. However, as with so much of your post - this has nothing to do with the topic at hand.]

Posted by: Armand at November 15, 2005 09:45 AM | PERMALINK

Said Morris:

Where is your evidence that the armed forces has serially misrepresented itself

Oh, you could start with:

"Out of 75 kids I put in the Marine Corps, 70 of them were fraudulent enlistments," Sergeant Jimmy Massey, Marine Corps recruiter."

or

"There's white, there's black, and there's gray. Any recruiter who's successful lives in the gray and goes into the black pretty often..." [said] a recently retired Army recruiting-station commander.

or

A former Marine recruiter...put it more bluntly: "Everybody frauds contracts. It's just a matter of coaching the kid to keep his mouth shut. Everybody does it. It doesn't matter what service. We all did it. They can sit there and tell you they haven't done it, but they're full of shit."

or perhaps

Allegations of recruiting improprieties almost doubled from 2000 to 2004...

And if you don't like Vanity Fair, you could get information from a Fox News investigation.

Under the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) the Pentagon pre-enlists high school students into the military while delaying their actual entrance for up to a year. Yet the military recruiters who sign up the students sometimes "threaten them, intimidate them and tell outright lies." These were among the findings of a five-month long investigation titled GI Lies led by reporter Dale Russell of FOX 5 TV News, Atlanta GA.

snip

In the second part of the Atlanta news report, Russell talked to several ex-recruiters and interviewed two, a Navy lieutenant and a Master Chief on camera. While recruiting commands state that threats and intimidation are "against policy" ex-recruiters Holland and Nyberg said that "outright lies, threats nd intimidation are commonplace and have been going on for years."

In the Seattle area, counselors affiliated with the GI Rights Hotline, a GI advocacy and information program, tell much of the same story. One of the counselors, from the Seattle Draft and Military Counseling Center, said "these recruiters BS these kids into enlistment with inaccurate promises of training and education benefits, threaten them when they change their minds, and then they are in the service with a dead end job, with a 25 percent chance of getting a less-than-honorable discharge."

Recruiters have been involved in incidents more serious than simply lying to students. In the north Seattle Shoreline Public School District, recruiters were charged in at least three separate incidents of sexual harassment/abuse involving three female students ( see May/June issue of the Free Press). In the most serious case a recruiter was accused by a 16 year-old student of touching her buttocks, placing her hand on his crotch and pulling her shirt up.

Posted by: binky at November 15, 2005 09:57 AM | PERMALINK

Bro,
I'm not the one throwing around the f word or personal attacks like dingbat and nit, so if you honestly believe these arguments should come down to reason, then you recognize these have no place in an argument based on reason. Even as far back as Freud (and philosophers before him) those who've studied psychology have realized that rational insight produces growth when it's tied to a feeling. I could interpret any way I want, but if you don't feel it to be true, if it doesn't connect with your experience, all the statistics in the world likely won't change your behavior. And I would argue that our experience as human beings is what we know to be true, because we feel it. This serves a biological function that helps us survive when others would try to deceive us with sophistry.
And before you accuse me of going off topic, read about the law yourself:
"Measure I encourages city officials and university administrators to exclude recruiters and create scholarships and training programs that would reduce the military's appeal to young adults."
I agree that the military shouldn't get favored status, I said that above, my trouble is with them keeping recruiters off of school campuses, be they high school or college. You talk about how you and I have different personalities (you being more thinking-oriented and me being more feeling-oriented), you see these exist, so why do want to make it more difficult for people whose personalities fit the military to have the same access to armed forces jobs that others have to private sector jobs, when that's where they'd be happy given their personalities. If you profess to be tolerant, then why would you single out these people and put obstacles in their way just because they're wired a little differently than you?
You keep attacking my arguments and yet ignoring my response that this is hyperbole, exxageration for effect. I refer you to your own post of five months ago:
"And of course Sen. Dick Durbin, who had nothing to apologize for. Was he exaggerating a bit? Sure. But that's how politicians often make points, and he didn't say anything inaccurate."
Binky,
Thankyou for taking the time to look that up for me. I still don't see how as a nation seeking to defend ourself we can afford to throw the baby out with the bathwater and scrap its access to students as well as students' access to it. There's no way we should tolerate recruiters doing this, they ought to have their pensions taken away, as well as get sued or thrown in jail if they threaten or molest students. The statements you describe from Vanity Fair sound like people who've done what Bandura would call moral disengagement, and specifically diffusion of responsibility, saying that everybody does it or doing the same things the other people in your (Detroit) office think it's okay to do. But whenever you have an agency hiring 180,000 people a year, you're going to have some of the hundreds of recruiters giving in to their dark sides, dissociating themselves from what they think is right because they believe it to be pragmatic for them. Even if it's systemic, once some of them get their rank knocked down a few pay grades and their pensions docked, recruiters would tend to think twice before continuing to engage in deceit. This is important, because trashing the whole system and barring them from schools would leave us without an armed forces to defend us, and that's something I don't want to contemplate. I do wonder, though, if you still trust the UN, and think it should be allowed to recruit on campuses, despite its members' horrendous record of exploitive and corrupt behaviors.

Posted by: Morris at November 15, 2005 12:21 PM | PERMALINK

Morris, you're welcome. And while I would say that you are likely right that claiming 100% fit with this pattern is not accurate, that the increasing pressures on recruiters as well as the statistic about doubling of complaints (which are likely to underrepresent occurrence) in this regard over a period of four years indicate a startling increase in the behavior.

Posted by: binky at November 15, 2005 12:35 PM | PERMALINK

Morris -

1) Dick Durbin was not endorsing an attack on San Francisco and my quote says HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING INACCURATE. Did O'Reilly, or not? That's what this post is about (Armand says for the billionth time).

2) And OF COURSE exaggeration is fine - I can throw around "fuck" as often as I like, and still be making points based on REASON. The "fucks" are just showing that I'm exasperated. But they don't undo the meanings of any of the words I've typed.

And 3) I was talking about the law that the measure was written in response to. The one that gives recruiters *special* privileges.

And 4) These kids can still talk to recruiters silly, there is nothing banning that and I have no problem whatsoever with them doing it. This simply alters the venue.

Posted by: Armand at November 15, 2005 01:51 PM | PERMALINK

Bro,
The meaning of the word exaggerate implies that it isn't accurate, it is "To represent as greater than is actually the case; overstate." So to argue that someone is exaggerating but not being inaccurate doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense.
Of course, you realize exasperated is a feeling.
I don't think the armed forces should have special priveleges, but the law written by the San Franciscans discourages equal priveleges.
Yes, this is exactly about the venue. This proposition is seen as a first step to put pressure on colleges to ban military recruiters from their campuses. Why is it that the UN can recruit at campus job fairs, Target can recruit at campus job fairs, but the military is selectively excluded? This is intolerance, and so much more hypocritical for a city that prides itself on tolerance.
Binky,
Right, it does fit with the diathesis stress model that increased pressure/stress would lead to more personal breakdowns and moral lapses by recruiters.

Posted by: Morris at November 15, 2005 02:36 PM | PERMALINK

I imagine quite a lot of groups are "selectively" excluded - though I don't know the specifics of San Francisco's current policy (and I doubt you do either) so I can't comment on that. But it's absurd to assert that they alone are somehow punished. Why? Well, look at what's preceded this - they've brought it on themselves by their own unethical recruiting practices.

If you want to go sign up - go sign up. I have nothing against that. But if recruiters have been found to be telling a whole bunch of lies (and they have) I think it's entirely reasonable for parents to want to ban them from the school for that reason. Kids can still go see the recruiters of their own accord.

And colleges and high schools are quite a bit different (both legally and in terms of the maturity of the students involved), so a slippery slope argument about one affecting the other really doesn't apply.

But (for the ten billionth time) - this post is about whether or not it's appropriate for a major TV figure, who supposedly provides news and affects the political views of thousands of Americans, to endorse an attack on the US. You seem to think that's fine, I think it's horrifying - why are we continuing on this thread?

Posted by: Armand at November 15, 2005 02:44 PM | PERMALINK

back on point:

o'reilly's a coward, a scoundrel, and an idiot. if dissent from the war itself is treason, as he and his ilk have insisted time and again, then he ought to be on his way to the gallows for advocating the destruction of a landmark in one of this country's greatest cities. how insensitive to the victims of terrorism, and to the soldiers who apparently die so he can piss on the flag like that. i don't hear prominent liberal commentators with mainstream bullypulpits saying anything even remotely like that, not ever, and that's why i continue to find more patriotism in the democratic party than the republicans even pretend to, let alone how much less they actually achieve.

the san francisco voters simply believe that their children should be encouraged to consider alternatives to the military. worst case scenario, the government will have to make employment in the military more rewarding both during and after service. worse things could happen, much worse.

and for the record it's no accident that this referendum didn't pass under clinton (or bush, or reagan, or carter). back then lower and middle-class parents didn't have any cause to fear the wholly irrational and mendacious insertion of 150,000 of their young people into harm's way to tidy up the remnants of some ridiculous grudge, some neocon preoccupation. if we'd only fought in afghanistan, i suspect this measure still wouldn't have been passed.

oh, and i noticed you shut up about the noble military recruiters in the face of baltar's evidence. what other liars do you think should be allowed to ply their wares on government property during school hours?

Posted by: moon at November 15, 2005 03:38 PM | PERMALINK

Bro,
All I'm doing is pointing out that when Durbin compares Gitmo Marines to those who committed ethnic extermination, or to those who systematically exterminated the supporters of political freedom under dictators, you say he's being accurate, just exaggerating because he doesn't mean it to be taken literally. When O'Reilly points out that if San Francisco wants to be intolerant of the military, then why don't we let them see how well they do without it?, well O'Reilly's seriously desecrating firefighters and telling terrorists to slaughter americans. You choose to see one as not intending to be taken literally and you choose to see the other as meaning literally what he says. This is what's called a confirmatory hypothesis.

"Besides imputing order where none exists, humans are prone to self-confirmation in cases where equivocal information exists (Granberg & Brent, 1983; Sears & Whitley, 1973). We believe what we wish to believe. A partial reason for this tendency to believe what we wish is the human tendency to search for confirmatory information. There has been a wealth of research demonstrating the human tendency to search out and attend only to evidence that confirms our ideas, beliefs, or hypotheses (Greenwald, Pratkanis, Leippe, & Baumgardner, 1986; Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Snyder, & Campbell, 1980). The problem with the confirmatory tendency is that only information supportive of ones beliefs is thus attended to, even in the face of extremely disconfirming information. Information that could provide corrective feedback that our beliefs are in error is rarely attended to."

What Durbin did (describing the US as a tyranny committing genocide) and what O'Reilly did (suggesting terrorists attack) are the same thing, they're both exaggerating to make a point, you just won't see it as the same thing because you've had it in your head that O'Reilly's a bad guy (conservative) and Durbin's a good guy (liberal).

My guess given all the city council meetings I have sat through is that the military is being selectively excluded. I'm not aware that this is in any way a common practice, and it seems like something they might have mentioned in my career counseling course if it was. Unfortunately, I can't prove that there haven't been other groups excluded (even if I searched through all decisions of their city council and all their legal code and found nothing, you would still want to see the specific part that says no other groups have been excluded), so the burden is on you to provide examples of other groups that have been excluded in San Francisco.
I give you the same challenge I gave Binky. The crimes committed by recruiters pale in comparison to those committed by the UN. So should we ban the UN from recruiting on school campuses?
And most students don't have an inborn knowledge of the different careers available in the military any more than they know which careers are available in any other setting. That's why so many over 40-year olds end up in college, seeking career counseling that they should have gotten when they were in high school or college 20 years before. The purpose of the law as written is to encourage students to pursue any career but the military, essentially ostracizing those who want to serve their country in this way. This is intolerance, and if this law encouraged people to pursue any religion but Jewish, any sexual identity but transgender, or any political identification but liberal you might see it that way. And the slippery slope isn't my argument, it's the argument of the one who supported this law.

Posted by: Morris at November 15, 2005 03:57 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
It was actually Binky's evidence, not Baltar's, and yes I do change my mind when convincing evidence is presented that I'm wrong. It's actually something I'm proud of. And if you'd actually read my response instead of thinking I must think a certain way because I support Bush, you might have seen that I said there should be consequences for those recruiters who lie to students, jail time for those who molest them. But, no matter, just go on saying what you want to say as if the rest of the world doesn't exist. Enjoy!

Posted by: Morris at November 15, 2005 04:04 PM | PERMALINK

Thanks, Mo.

Posted by: b at November 15, 2005 04:40 PM | PERMALINK

of course, durbin's and o'reilly's positions might themselves be "confirmatory hyptheses," no? durbin's because the evidence is equivocal about our motives in iraq, and o'reilly's because the evidence is equivocal about whether san francisco should be attacked. oh wait, that doesn't work, does it (no matter how hard you try to miss it, i'm going to insist on levity)?

anyway, this was the thrust of what i wrote (and my misattribution of the factual info doesn't change the thrust at all (although i'm sorry, binky)):

if dissent from the war itself is treason, as [o'reilly] and his ilk have insisted time and again, then he ought to be on his way to the gallows for advocating the destruction of a landmark in one of this country's greatest cities. how insensitive to the victims of terrorism, and to the soldiers who apparently die so he can piss on the flag like that. i don't hear prominent liberal commentators with mainstream bullypulpits saying anything even remotely like that, not ever, and that's why i continue to find more patriotism in the democratic party than the republicans even pretend to, let alone how much less they actually achieve.

i'll just wait for a real response. because to be clear, i don't hear prominent liberal pundits on any major network spitting out such scurrilous, hateful bile, as a function of exaggeration, confirmatory hypothesis, or otherwise. this breed of vitriol appears to be the sole rhetoric of the right.*

_________
* and please, morris, don't bore me with crap from the fringe. both parties have nuts at the fringe. but o'reilly isn't at the fringe in the way that limbaugh or moore are; he's right in the middle of things, with a huge audience at least some of whom actually believe he's a journalist.

Posted by: moon at November 15, 2005 04:41 PM | PERMALINK

And now, thanks Mo(o)

Posted by: b at November 15, 2005 04:46 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
I'll give you the benefit of a history lesson, because maybe you're not intentionally missing the point. Durbin wasn't talking about Iraq (you keep trying to hijack this thread to that issue, which I'd be happy to debate, but I know the other posters would chime in about it being a distraction if I actually did). Durbin was talking about Gitmo being equivalent to a prison run by Hitler (who persecuted and killed people because they were Jewish or Gypsy), Stalin (who killed people or threw them into Gulags for decades because they were free thinkers) or Pol Pot (who tortured and killed thousands for political dissension). Besides the obvious fact that the numbers of dead in Gitmo would have to be multiplied by thousands or millions to be equivalent to any of these regimes (you want to talk about Iraq, then you know Saddam's name could be thrown in here too)...besides the obvious fact that people haven't been accused because of crimes like writing poetry as happened with Stalin...besides these people not being kept in prison for decades...besides these people not being abused because of their race or ethnicity as happened with Hitler...besides these people not being imprisoned for nonviolent political dissension.... Do you get my point? There is so very little similar between the Bush administration and these regimes (ask anyone who's gone through the gulags or concentration camps, they'll tell you) that this is an enormous exaggeration. Quite frankly, what with having a masters in a month, I'd prefer a terrorist attack to this country becoming anything like these regimes, because those with good educations didn't tend to fare well. For the benefit of a fair debate, I have suggested Durbin's comment to be equivalent to O'Reilly's inasmuch as they were both exaggerating to make a point. That is where they are equivalent, not in the degree of darkness each suggested.
B,
YW

Posted by: Morris at November 15, 2005 07:20 PM | PERMALINK

i don't think the durbin example, exaggerated or not (and i don't think the oppressiveness of regimes is something measured in body counts; every genocidal campaign takes time to build speed, and these regimes were oppressive long before they resorted to genocide) is "anything even remotely like that." i don't think you countering with a democrat "exaggeration" is in itself responsive.

you obviously can't defend o'reilly, and you know it. but that you and your peers at that end of the ideological spectrum aren't distancing themselves from him as swiftly as possible for what he says tells the whole story, doesn't it?

Posted by: moon at November 15, 2005 10:53 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
I've been very clear that the explanation for what O'Reilly said is that he was using hyperbole to make a point, just as Senator Durbin was.
Do I believe that for a minute Durbin really believes what happens at Gitmo is equivalent to what happened in Nazi Germany, the Gulags, or the killing fields? No, because I hope a Senator would have a better understanding of history than to actually believe that. That's why I say it sounds like he wasn't trying to be taken literally. Do I know for sure? No. And it's the same thing with O'Reilly, he's exaggerating to make a point. He's frustrated with this law that's like a whole city spitting in the face of every soldier who serves our nation, risks their lives for us whether you believe this war was started for the right reasons or not. And so to attack this metaphor is nothing but a distraction from the real issue, that the city of San Francisco says whatever lip service they want about supporting our troops, but then says stay away from our kids because we don't trust you and we don't trust our kids around you, because we don't want them to turn out like you turned out.
To me, this is about defending speech. I actually believe people should say what's on their minds, because I believe if they do exaggerate I'm smart enough to figure it out, eventually. This whole business of analyzing every spoken word that the media's gotten into has really come to resemble those humorless religious types who take every word of the Bible literally. I'd like to grow old around people who can take things lightly because if I have to analyze every word I speak from every possible perspective to make sure I don't offend anyone, I'll grow old far too quickly for my taste.

Posted by: Morris at November 16, 2005 12:23 AM | PERMALINK

"He's frustrated with this law that's like a whole city spitting in the face of every soldier who serves our nation."

It's funny you should bring up that Viet Nam era visual. Just today I was reading some book reviews on Amazon about how those spitting on soldiers stories may have been largely apocryphal.

Posted by: binky at November 16, 2005 12:57 AM | PERMALINK

"those humorless religious types who take every word of the Bible literally"

you mean the ones running your party for whom you effectively apologize every time you endorse their policies?

just checking.

i could point to a thousand off-hand things that o'reilly says that betray him as racist, homophobic, spiteful of the poor, and indifferent to any one who doesn't have six figures in the bank. but those things are a) off-hand and b) exaggerated and so i let them pass.

i don't let allusions to endorsing the destruction of a city pass. and if you want me to believe that you'd let something like that pass from the left it's going to take the systematic erasure from my memory of quite a few indications you've given me to the contrary.

there are jokes, there is tactlessness, and there are limits. o'reilly crossed one on a rocket scooter, and i'm not letting him off the hook for it when he's crucified people on the left for statements categorically milder time and again.

Posted by: moon at November 16, 2005 09:29 AM | PERMALINK

Moon,
Every time I respond to your post, your respond by attacking conservatives and republicans. Hey, it's your time if you want to spend it that way. But in a discussion it's what we call a straw man fallacy. You don't debate with the person you're debating, you debate with some other person who's a cookie cut out of what you disagree with. Like I said, it's your time. I do agree more of the time with conservatives than I do with liberals. I do have strong disagreements with liberals on a number of issues. I do think each of our ideas about what it means to be liberal or what it means to be conservative, these cognitive sets do play into our debates. But none of you have answered the question about whether San Francisco should ban the UN from recruiting given their recent history of abuses far worse than the military.
Yes, some conservatives are humorless and do interpret the Bible or other sacred texts literally. But I'm not one of them. So if you're in a debate with me about this issue, and all you do is refer back to other people who I've made it clear I don't agree with, then all your doing is stroking yourself, talking for the sake of hearing your own voice. But like I said, it's your time.
And if you want to debate O'Reilly's positions on other issues, that's fine, then go debate O'Reilly, I'm not really interested. But what are you doing blogging with me about what O'Reilly thinks, that doesn't make any sense. I've told you my position as far as believing it's okay for people to use hyperbole, it's part of being human. And if you actually think the terrorists were sitting around in a hotel room in Syria and talking about playing chess, but then they watched O'Reilly and heard what he said, and they said to each other, "Hey, he's right, we SHOULD go attack the Coit Tower," that would fall more under schizophrenia than it would religious fanaticism. I don't think any of them really care what he said, you're giving O'Reilly way too much credit here. And if you're so frustrated about O'Reilly "crucifying" people on the left, then change the channel and watch something else.

Posted by: Morris at November 16, 2005 01:07 PM | PERMALINK

that's fine, but my point is neither you, nor mr. o'reilly himself, would have been half so charitable if a lefty had said anything in the ballpark.

and until you show me an example of a lefty who has a mainstream job in the news who got away with anything half so offensive, i'm going to read your hyperbole rationalization for what it is -- a convenience that's less than deeply held.

Posted by: moon at November 16, 2005 01:47 PM | PERMALINK

majikthise on why bill o'reilly is ridiculous and a hypocrite, based upon this quote regarding villified professor Ward Churchill (for whom, to be clear, i have no special regard) from last february:

"One more thing. I have, or, I'm revising my opinion based upon this new information that he thinks more 9/11s are necessary, but last week I said, look, don't fire him, because the message it sends to the enemies is, we oppress people we disagree with. Our country is strong enough to put up with even him, but now he seems to have gone over another line. You know, if he is calling for the murder of American citizen, you simply can't have him."

you tell him bill. so, perhaps as a consequence of a confirmatory hypothesis o'reilly effectively assumes churchill wrote literally, but now, through forgiving souls such as morris, he'd be understood as resorting merely to hyperbole.

as i said before, o'reilly's "a coward, a scoundrel, and an idiot."

[microphone thumps to the stage as moon stalks off]

Posted by: moon at November 16, 2005 02:12 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
To steal from Night at the Roxbury: I know your tricks. You want me to examine the news media for a story that never would be a story because of they "got away with it" as you say, there would be no story for me to find, would there?

Posted by: Morris at November 16, 2005 02:15 PM | PERMALINK

actually, i just wanted you to read: "You know, if he is calling for the murder of American citizen, you simply can't have him."

Posted by: moon at November 16, 2005 02:40 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
You're back to reading this literally, when I've said many times I believe this to be an exaggeration. We don't know what's in his head, and I'm not going to spend hours psychoanalyzing him. This that you point out is a contradiction if he literally means that terrorist should attack Coit tower. If he literally means that, you're right, and I disagree with him too. But it sounds like you've spent a lot of time watching him, so you know this is how he argues, how he makes his points, by exaggerating the in-your-face stuff, what makes all those SNL skits so funny. It's the Oliver Stone style of argument, everything's to the extreme and shoved down your throat, and all the counter arguments aren't presented. I think Ollie's a great director, but I don't rely on him or anybody else for my political opinions.

Posted by: Morris at November 16, 2005 02:55 PM | PERMALINK

Woops, memory hiccup, that's Chris Matthews in those skits. But of course O'Reilly's a lot more that Chris Matthews style than he is the George Will style, and that's what I'm saying.

Posted by: Morris at November 16, 2005 03:00 PM | PERMALINK

so o'reilly's entitled to interpret ward churchill, an academic -- which is to say another person who, within reason, can reap rewards for taking extreme positions (due respect guys, but we laypeople know a lot more about ward churchill and stanley fish than the more methodical thinkers out there) -- as literally as he wants, but god forbid we interpret o'reilly literally?

whatever. i'm sick of double standards. and no mainstream commentator on the right still has any entitlement to the benefit of my doubt. when they chose to just play along like it's republicans running the country instead of a gang of thuggish plutocrats, they forfeited anything but my worst assumptions.

and fyi, if some full-blown communist bluffed his way into office pretending to be an old-school democrat, and the leftwing pundits played along like he was a dem in any meaningful sense of the word, i'd be f*&king outraged. and i know plenty of republicans who are. too bad the media choose not to employ them.

so fine, bill o'reilly is entitled to the assumption that he was just exaggerating for effect when he expressed indifference to, if not desire for, the terrorist attack of the coit tower. okay, fine. let's just recall this anecdote the next time someone calls a democrat senator a traitor for -- gasp! -- attempting to do his goddamned job and make sure the president doesn't march our kids off to war over some inherited grudge under a false mandate foisted upon a still-wounded and pliable republic still moist with tears.

granted, that ship has sailed, but there's always next time, right?

oh well, now i've done it. out of some spirit of evasiveness -- by contrast, apparently just shouting "hyperbole" over and over is engaging the issue -- i've dared to mock the republicans again. we all know what that means. i'm a traitor.

btw, you still haven't ever directly acknowledged that, to stay faithful to your masters, you're supposed to conclude that the will of the majority is inviolate and good. so, why is this particular majority vote bad? seriously, why? and if it's bad this time, what about possible votes that are bad on the national level? maybe we should seek another power to right those wrongs? maybe the courts?

i'd say pick a side, but being a republican means never having to.

Posted by: moon at November 16, 2005 03:12 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
You say: "let's just recall this anecdote the next time someone calls a democrat senator a traitor for -- gasp! -- attempting to do his goddamned job and make sure the president doesn't march our kids off to war over some inherited grudge under a false mandate foisted upon a still-wounded and pliable republic still moist with tears."
Do what? I'm a little confused. What senator are you talking about? Do you mean the grudge inherited from Clinton whose policy was regime change in Iraq? How is 60 million votes a false mandate?
What I'm talking about is people being able to exaggerate and not waste hours of media coverage on it, when the people who said what they said didn't seriously advocate anything, but were just trying to illustrate a point. If you're talking about Kerry, he seriously advocated one thing one day, another the next, and so on and so forth up until the election. Kerry was a candidate for President, not a news show host, and so what he would advocate might have actually mattered in some alternate reality where he was elected president. And I understand your frustration, because sometimes there is so much double talk in politics that it's tough to tell who's talking seriously and who's exaggerating, especially when their positions on the war for Kerry or on the courts for some conservatives go back and forth and back and forth. I think as I've said before that it's okay for Bill O'Reilly to say what he said as long as he's just exaggerating to make a point. He's just a TV star.
Again, as I've said before that you still apparently don't feel inclined to read, I think San Francisco can make whatever laws they want for themselves as long as they don't expect anything from the rest of the nation. If they feel entitled to national defense, then it seems the nation who would be protecting them should be the one to decide whether their kids have the right to know that they can serve their nation and its defense.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding here that doesn't recognize the difference with agreeing with the use of a certain political process and agreeing with every political act to come out of that process. As I've said before, I voted against the gay marriage ban, but it was approved by the voters here. And if we are going to act democratically, I don't see how it follows the rule of law for a country to let its people decide issues, then do an end run around that process when even the smarter, more educated people disagree with the outcome. I'm not pleased by the result of this gay marriage ban, I don't agree with this political act, but I do agree that the process of democracy and liberty tend to have had more pleasing results historically, and I recognize that to look only at the individual act and put it into law through force of the courts runs counter to the process that most pleases me.
And what's this business about taking sides? Who says you have to pick a side? Think for yourself. We don't live in Australia, so you don you have a right not to vote if you don't want to. Don't be a slave to the two party system!

Posted by: at November 16, 2005 10:01 PM | PERMALINK

I'm no slave to the two-party system; I just make sacrifices in order to do my best to prevent the really bad people from getting into office.

A mandate is "false" when it's founded upon deliberate, calculated, systematic lies (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; WMD; Saddam tied to al Qaeda and 9-11), something the polls confirm in their reflection of the effectiveness of GOP misinformation in the run up to war and the election.

Then there's this: "Again, as I've said before that you still apparently don't feel inclined to read, I think San Francisco can make whatever laws they want for themselves as long as they don't expect anything from the rest of the nation. If they feel entitled to national defense, then it seems the nation who would be protecting them should be the one to decide whether their kids have the right to know that they can serve their nation and its defense."

I'm sorry, did San Francisco stop paying federal income taxes? Did San Francisco stop being a very hospitable place for a fairly significant contingent of armed forces personnel, USN in particular? When?

If the military's being led by an administration so odious, so blithely unaware (thanks, Daddy) of what it is to fight a war, that it consistently misses its recruiting objectives, is that the fault of the San Francisco electorate? I mean, of all cities, are they really going to get enough recruits there to meet their goals?

I'm thinking most San Francisco residents probably pay taxes at a much higher effective rate than Bill O'Reilly. So maybe we should let the terrorists bomb his house, since he's not lining up to sacrifice his assuredly sheltered income to a recently radically reduced marginal rate because, you know, the military needs all the help it can get and it's his patriotic duty.

By the way, by now we're all accustomed to the right blaming everything in sight on Clinton's budget-surplusing, job-creating, not-getting-American-kids-killed-by-the-thousands time in office, but to blame Iraq on him is just plain ridiculous. Seriously, dude. Go back to claiming that the man can't possibly be a good president because he has sex or something. But don't try to lay 2,000 dead young Americans at Clinton's feet. You insult your audience and embarrass yourself.

Posted by: moon at November 17, 2005 10:34 AM | PERMALINK

Moon,
We've had this debate here before. Saddam was taking his oil for food profits, had increased his technical research projects to 3,200 in 2002 from 40 in 1996, had increased his military-industrial complex's budget 40 fold in that same time, he was "palpably close" to ending sanctions, WaPo's Pincus said of the report, "Hussein's government retained data and personnel knowledgeable about weapons, and used funds from the Oil for Food relief program to upgrade his chemical industry so that weapons materials could be produced once sanctions ended." Saddam "contacted W.M.D. scientists in Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria and elsewhere to enhance his technical knowledge base." WMDs for Saddam were a matter of when, not if, that's why Duelfer described them as having "totemic" importance to Saddam. And you want to bash Bush because he knocked Saddam out of the box before this psycho had a chance to make and use them? I don't understand this position often advocated by the left, that we can't defend ourselves until we see thousands of our people die horrible deaths. Al Queda told us what they were going to do, but we waited until they did it before going to war. Now you want us in hindsight to extend the same courtesy to Saddam, despite the fact that when Clinton fired missiles at him in 1998, nobody said a thing about him acting on faulty intelligence or lying to the country. And from what Duelfer says, Saddam's military budget and "research projects" went up 40 times from 96 until we went to war. So why is nobody on Clinton's ass for shooting a bunch of cruise missiles at Saddam when according to Duelfer, Saddam's existing WMDs had been destroyed by that time. Why isn't everybody as upset that he apparently acted on worse intelligence, or does it only count when a Republican's in office, or does it only count when it's Americans and not Iraqis who die? And liberals have the temerity to accuse Republicans of being racist. This essentially means by the standards used against Bush that Clinton is a reckless mass murderer of civilians, who needs to sit in front of a war crimes tribunal.
See, this is what's called hyperbole. Of course we did have intelligence at that time that Saddam was up to no good, just like we had it later when Bush sent the psychopath to jail. And of course there's other good intelligence that there is a tie between 9/11 and Saddam.
And you give too much credit to Swift Boat Vets. That was Kerry's mistake for "reporting for duty," and then everybody got to remember how he was Ho Chi Minh's errand boy. Nobody wants to see the officer who sounded the retreat in Vietnam standing up to protect them. He had no credibility, and if you forget he wanted to run everything by the UN, which is an even bigger mess today than it was when he said that. Your revisionist history of Bush only works on people who've forgotten their history.
I don't see how you have the cahones to accuse anyone else of being blithely unaware, they must be huge. Unfortunately, your arguments are hollow. How exactly do you think the military recruits, through psychics who somehow confuse children long enough to get them to sign a piece of paper? The armed forces is an honorable career, and before you begin accusing leadership of being the reason recruiting goals aren't being met, remember that 57% of the veterans surveyed in Presidential exit polls (that you'll recall were heavily skewed towards Kerry) voted for Bush. You may be able to get ex-hippies smoking weed to buy what you're selling, but our soldiers gave President Bush more of a mandate than even our nation as a whole did. For all the liberals who attacked Bush about unemployment (don't hear that much anymore), they're the ones who would deprive their own children of the opportunity and knowlege to choose a career like this. But wait, I thought liberals didn't tell people what to do, I thought they let people do what they wanted? You'd think that, but you wouldn't be thinking any clearer that a hippie on LSD.
Do you think O'Reilly had a lower tax rate than John Edwards? Five percent on a couple million's pretty good, right? Look, if you want to take pot shots at conservatives, I can fight back at liberals. But I'm just wondering how you're so upset at O'Reilly advocating terrorists kill Americans when you're doing the same thing. Or maybe this is just your own attempt at hyperbole, despite having constantly criticized O'Reilly for the same practice.

Posted by: Morris at November 18, 2005 12:07 AM | PERMALINK

apparently i don't need hippies smoking weed; according to your own numbers 43% of veterans did NOT vote for bush. i'd be willing to bet it's been a while since a wartime president of any kind, let alone a republican, got such a paltry portion of the veteran vote.

"[Kerry] was Ho Chi Minh's errand boy. Nobody wants to see the officer who sounded the retreat in Vietnam standing up to protect them. He had no credibility, and if you forget he wanted to run everything by the UN, which is an even bigger mess today than it was when he said that. Your revisionist history of Bush only works on people who've forgotten their history."

this is simply ridiculous, and i refuse to engage someone who simply makes unsupportable statements.

saddam = bad? sure. saddam = bad enough that by telling the truth bush could have rallied the country to wage war against him? since the president and his minions didn't even try to level with the american people, i guess we'll never know.

by the way, your recent preoccupation with the UN, while quaint, is quickly making you look like one of the black helicopter contingent, which does nothing for your credibility. flawed? mismanaged? sure, i'll call that and raise you hamstrung-by-American-resistance-to-joining-any-club-that-would-dare-to-hold-it-to-any-basic-standards.

seriously, explain to me how cheney's clear and serial misrepresentations to the american people don't comprise high crimes and misdemeanors (on the rather broad republic definition applied to clinton) and we can talk. but please keep the conspiracy theories (kerry relinquishing american sovereignty to the UN is among the more ridiculous statements you've made, and that's saying something) to a minimum.

Posted by: moon at November 18, 2005 11:59 AM | PERMALINK

Moon,
Do you really want to rehash this whole swiftboat thing? Remember, Kerry was playing politics to begin with when he started bringing up his service record, because: "A decade ago, however, Kerry rose in the Senate on two separate occasions to decry presidential candidates who used their military service record as a qualification for the highest office." We can talk about the doctor who remembered a shrapnel wound that Kerry claimed to be from enemy fire that the doctor remembers his crewmates saying wasn't. Of course, Kerry filled out his sf 180 to release only some of his records, so who knows for sure? As far as sounding the retreat, Kerry never hid the fact that he was in Vietnam Veterans against the war, he wanted us out of Vietnam. He testified before the Senate about specific crimes of specific soldiers, and used that as evidence that it was the United States' fault these crimes were occuring, rather than holding the individuals who committed these crimes responsible for their own choices. He said the US sent us to war so it's the US' fault when we committed war crimes. That is absolutely not the case within a political system that values individual liberty and their related responsibilities. And in his description of these crimes committed by specific individuals, none of whom Kerry pursued through proper military justice channels, he gave Ho Chi Minh much evidence that they should be fighting Americans because Americans are awful people who've done these awful things.
You refuse to engage someone who makes unsupportable statements, then you present me with your own thoughts on how veterans would have voted during a different war with a different president. That's rich.
Yes, Cheney did try to tell the American people there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11, because there was. It's linked in the post I cited above.
Have you been living on another planet? Besides funneling billions of dollars to other nations with corrupt agendas to break down sanctions in Iraq as well as Saddam's WMD scientists, the UN has engaged in what may be the most widespread organizational sexual exploitation in world history, so I'm curious as to what basic standards you think this kind of behavior upholds.
Conspiracy theory? Kerry actually said that US troops dying under the UN flag is okay, but it's not okay for soldiers to just die for the US. This was not a new position for him, he said the same thing in 1970 to the Harvard Crimson.

Posted by: Morris at November 18, 2005 02:23 PM | PERMALINK

i said i wouldn't engage anyone who buys the swift boat tripe and i won't. i know it's been discredited, nearly everyone i know and respect (including a great number principled republicans embarrassed by the whole affair) considers it discredited, and that's really where it begins and ends for me.

you're entitled to believe whomever, but to trust a man (o'neill) who has quite literally founded an entire career on assassinating the character of a combat veteran for fun and profit over a raft of innumerable journalists who don't depend on telling any particular side of the story for their livelihood (and yet reach a shockingly broad consensus on it) is just plain silly.

write about o'reilly if you want to keep talking. but even if kerry weren't old news, i wouldn't be interested in having this discussion.

Posted by: moon at November 18, 2005 04:38 PM | PERMALINK

oh and by the way, clinton's missile strikes were direct responses to violations of no fly zones and other unequivocal infractions of the terms of surrender following desert storm. that's why none of our traditional allies abandoned us. some might have grumbled, but no one abandoned us like they did after this war started.

that's an apple to the orange of perpetuating a canard regarding an isolated meeting in Prague of one of saddam's security officials with a putative al Qaeda member. the sources of that putative information came forward and unquivocally said IT NEVER HAPPENED. years later cheney said it did, citing the very sources, _official, identified sources_, who recanted. what part of bald-faced liar is so hard to understand?

Posted by: moon at November 18, 2005 04:43 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
Actually, it's Kerry's own field doctor I quoted, not O'Neill, but it doesn't surprise me you continue to ignore the substance of my posts and return to liberal talking points.
Actually, you're the one who brought up the swift boat vets, so it's curious that now that I've responded you're not interested in the discussion.
And don't you pay attention to the news at all? Our "allies" that abandoned us have for the most part been found out to have been profiting off the oil for food scandal. They were in it for the money. That's what Duelfer described in his report, if you would bother to read it, or at least read some relatively accurate description of it. That's what Saddam was doing, using bribes through oil for food to build opposition to the US efforts in the UN against Iraqi weapons development. And, yes, Duelfer found many weapons systems in Iraq that violated UN resolutions, so Bush was just as righteous as Clinton if Iraqi violations mean it's okay to attack Iraqis. If you'll actually read the article which you seem suspiciously reticent to, you'd see that the meeting in Prague is only one of several pieces of evidence that Iraq was tied to 9/11.

Posted by: Morris at November 18, 2005 08:48 PM | PERMALINK

doctOR I quoted, not O'NEILL, but it doesn't surprise me You

Well, at least you got the name of the subject of this post in there somewhere. But since you didn't say anything about him, my response to the rest is PFFFT!!!

Really, accusing me of spouting talking points while defending the Iraq - al Qaeda link that even th liars who propagated them have been forced to recant is just ridiculous.

Posted by: moon at November 19, 2005 12:24 PM | PERMALINK

Moon,
You accuse me of avoiding the subject after you're the one who took the tangent to begin with, talking about systematic Republican lies as making Bush's mandate false, and so I respond yet again to your non-responsive answers. Check your history books. After the 9/11 commission report came out, Tom Kean, Lee Hamilton, and John Lehman all spoke of the "shadowy" connections they had found between Iraq and Al Queda. I understand how you may have missed that because the media chose for the most part not to report on that aspect of their findings.

Posted by: Morris at November 20, 2005 11:59 AM | PERMALINK
Post a comment









Remember personal info?