An insult every 6.8 seconds...

don't you just love it when a close examination of the facts substantiates your gut feelings?

Maddox said it all already. You knew someone would put up this link sooner or latter. http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=bill_oreilly

They should do a decibel level check next...just to see how loud the guy gets when he thinks he's making a solid point and won't let the other person speak. May the loudest proprietor of truthiness (isn't that in the dictionary now?) win!

Quite possibly the most compassion-deprived human to ever reach the airwaves.

I think it's disgraceful that O'Reilly is still on the air, and that opinion has very little to do with any political disagreement I might have with the guy. The results of this research come as little surprise. He's a nasty piece of work.

Just to run down a few sins he's committed on air OTHER than his offensive rhetorical style. . . he argued that a boy who had been kidnapped and raped repeatedly must have enjoyed it since the boy didn't manage to escape for years (apparently Bill O thinks that the boy prefered being sodomized to having to go to school and do chores and stuff). . . He repeatedly, and incorrectly, claimed that a group of American WWII soldiers commited horrific war crimes against a group of German P.O.W.'s (as a lame ass defense of Abu Grab), when in fact, the Americans had been the VICTIMS of the atrocities. After being repeatedly corrected about the story, he kept repeating it as a defense of our immoral treatmen of P.O.W.'s (and they are P.O.W.'s, even if they fight for an evil cause)from the war on terror. For Bill O, having a bad precedent from the greatest generation is enough to justify anything our president might want to do. Too bad he has to lie and to dishonor the memory of American soldiers as a part of his argument. . . He repeatedly used a story about a young woman who died in a car accident involving a drunken illegal immigrant (he was driving the other car) as a way to sensationalize his stance about the dangers of illegal immigration, despite the requests of the young woman's family to lay off. Apparently Bill O thinks that the family's pain was serious enough for mealy mouthed editorializing but not important enough to have any respect for their wish that their pain not be politicized. . . there's plenty more, but let's end on a lighter note. . . he used to have a weird habit of claiming that a tabloid T.V. show he used to host won a Peabody award. It didn't. It did win a couple of Polk awards, but that was after he had left the show. I think he's actually knocked this off, but only because Al Franken harrased him about it repeatedly. During the first confrontation they has about the issue, Bill O almost punched Franken in the face. Apparently fact checking really pisses him off. His show seems to comfirm that theory.

Don Imus got what he deserved, but I don't think he's stepped nearly as far over the lines of good taste or ethics as Bill O has. His continued employement suggests that Fox News and its viewers have no sense of shame whatsoever.

I still can't understand how O'Reilly, who used to be the host for the sleaziest of tabloid TV shows, A CURRENT AFFAIR, is the source of news for a large portion of society.

Big hairy deal! There isn't an accusation here that couldn't also be levied against virtually every other commentary and/or talk show host in the business -- from Rosie O'Donnell on up. And isn't it obvious that the piece tries to make O'Reilly the "villain" and those he disagrees with the "victims." And an expose that targets a conservative journalist without also questioning the methods of similar liberal journalists seems to be showing its bias from word one. How can you take seriously any criticism accusing someone of skewing the facts when the piece itself is obviously designed to skew the facts. Talk about simplistic visions of good versus evil!

I'm puzzled by the assertion that criticism of Bill O constitutes a "liberal" point of view. The guy is an absurd anti-intellectual blowhard, and a self serving, pompous liar. If you are really a conciencious, thoughtful conservative, you will do everything you can to distance yourself from the likes of Bill O. History will not remember him kindly, as it has not remembered Joseph Macarthy or The John Birch society kindly.

If you'd like for me to say that Micheal Moore is also an absurd, pompus anti-intellectual blowhard, fair enough. He is. The fact that he's occasionally insightful doesn't remedy the fact that when he tries to tie his insights up into bigger political positions, he's almost always wrong.

But Micheal Moore doesn't claim any kind of objectivity. He says a lot of stupid things, but it's obvious from the get go that he is speaking for himself, and it's obvious that what he does is agitprop. Bill O, on the other hand, professes to speak for "The American People" against and imaginary coallition of evil pinko aethiests who want to destroy America. The reason he's a jerk isn't that he's very conservative, but that he pretends to speak the unfallible "no spin" truth on the "fair and balanced" news channel. That makes it different. I don't know of any other prominent person in the media who uses the Macarthyesque rhetorical stance that Bill O does, except for Ann Coulter, but she's so nutty that nobody takes her very seriously. (And in her defense, her critics seem to always take the bait she leaves for them. She's a lot funnier and smarter than most liberals will admit. She's still crazy though.)

Let's agree that if Bill O will admit he's a conservative polomecist and not a journalist, I'll stop calling him an ass. I'm fine with offensive speech, but don't pretend to be fair if you're not.

"I'm puzzled by the assertion that criticism of Bill O constitutes a "liberal" point of view...etc. "
First of all, follow the link to and read the original article. If it accurately reflects the survey, then it is obvious that the team of researchers set out to get O'Reilly. They used "propaganda analysis techniques" to dig "further into O'Reilly's rhetoric" -- in other words, they went looking for evidence to prove their point. Wow, how unbiased. Did they analyze the works of any other TV commentators for comparison? Apparently not. Did they compare it to a liberal journalist -- an Al Franken or an Al Sharpton? No. They did however make a point of comparing his techniques, as they interpret them, to the rhetoric of a noted anti-Semetic, fascist supporter of Hitler and Mussolini, implying in no subtle way that O'Reilly is also an anti-Semite and a fascist. Talk about spinning. I haven't read the original survey, of course, but if the article about it is, in any way, correct it is a pathetic joke and an insult to academic study. The three researchers don't want to debate the value of O'Reilly's opinions, so they try to undermine him by attacking his style.

Look, I listen to O'Reilly's radio show now and again, when I happen to be driving my car and his show is on. I am not a fan, just a casual listener, and sometimes I agree and sometimes I don't. Yes, he is pompous, but that is almost a pre-requisite for pundits these days. The article in no way reflects the tone or quality of his show. For instance, the insult "every 6.8 seconds, on average" is "during the editorials that open his program each night" -- when he sets up the topic and tries to generate controversy and interest. Horrible display of bigotry? Or showmanship? You spin it anyway you like. But, as long as there are Michael Moores and Michael Savages and Rosie O'Donnells on the airwaves, he is far from the worst.

But if you must compare O'Reilly to Michael Moore, then O'Reilly comes off like Edward R. Murrow. O'Reilly certainly states opinion as fact -- just like virtually every editorial writer in the world, including film critics -- but Moore states lies as fact. He dishonestly edits to create false quotes, takes quotes out of context and lies to interviewees to get reactions. He treats journalism as publicity stunts. Moore is a man of little talent and fewer ethics. I wouldn't compare O'Reilly to Moore -- heck, I wouldn't compare Jerry Springer to Moore.
Oh, and by "no spin," O'Reilly means he is not a mouthpiece for any party or group. He speaks his mind and takes responsibility for his opinions. He may insist that he is fighting for the American people, but he doesn't claim to be speaking for them. (Moore does!) Is O'Reilly "an absurd anti-intellectual blowhard?" I don't think so. He is "self serving" and "pompous"? Undoubtedly. Is he a "liar"? No, he believes in what he says. And I respect him for that.

Merwyn: You raise an intriguing notion -- a question that has been asked repeatedly about the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq. Is someone telling a "lie" if they believe (or just assume) what they're saying is true? If you're a journalist, a pundit or a president, what is your responsibility to check your facts? O'Reilly is notorious for getting his wrong (as is Moore). The legal standard for libel in America is that the publisher of false information either knew it was untrue or showed a "reckless disregard for the truth" -- in other words, didn't bother to actually check facts. Ethically, is that worse than lying? Everybody can make occasional mistakes, but repeating rumors or misrepresenting (or cherry-picking) facts, or not bothering to determine if something is true before repeating it (again and again) seems just as bad to me. Especially when it involves matters of life and death.

Again, that's why (with the exceptions I noted) I I think people who get their "news" from TV shows -- whether it's network newscasts, cable news networks, or blabberfests that preach to the converted, like O'Reilly's show or Hannity's or Oprah's or Air America -- aren't getting much of any real news value.

"I think people who get their "news" from TV shows -- whether it's network newscasts, cable news networks, or blabberfests that preach to the converted, like O'Reilly's show or Hannity's or Oprah's or Air America -- aren't getting much of any real news value. "

I can not argue with this statement. Obviously, the discourse you see/hear on O'Reilly's show, as well as most TV news/commentary programs are simplistic and biased. That is just as true with supposedly open forums like "Face the Nation" and "Meet the Press;" somebody sets the tone and enforces the agenda. My problem was with this one so-called academic paper. The point of the research was not that TV journalism is poorly done, and "The O'Reilly Factor" is an example. The point of the paper is that O'Reilly himself is a dishonest and corrupt individual. The paper did not defend this position by questioning the facts as O'Reilly presents them, but by attacking him on a matter of style, with the inference that his style makes him a liar. But the survey, at least as it is explained in the linked article, offers no example of this, resorting to generalities, but does resort to the type of "propaganda techniques" they themselves condemn.

There have been a lot of "studies" to prove that Fox News, for instance, isn't "fair and balanced." Yet the only ones who study or even question if the "mainstream media" is "fair and balanced" is by people on the right. And as such, those studies are ignored because they are biased. Why didn't the university researchers examine the style of Michael Moore, or for that matter Bill Moyers or the team on "60 Minutes." Maybe they don't want to know if they are being "fair and balanced."

As for lying, scientists once firmly believed the world was flat. Were they lying -- or seeing things from a different perspective? Currently, the "Big Bang" theory of how the earth was formed is generally accepted as fact within the scientific community, though to me, no matter how it is explained, it is one of the most incomprehensibly stupid concepts ever concocted. Are they lying when they accept it as fact, or am I lying when I call it "incomprehensibly stupid"? Rosie O'Donnell famously announced that the Bush administration was behind the fall of the Twin Towers because "for the first time in history, fire melted steel!" Obviously, a statement of monumental stupidity. But Rosie believes it. Why? She did her research -- she "Googled it!" She found "facts" (i.e., opinions) that confirmed her opinions and in the process called George W. Bush a mass murder. No one on "The View" challenged her statement -- and if you visit the internet message boards, you'll find a lot of people praising Rosie for speaking the truth! We went to war based on faulty intelligence -- and therefore Bush is a liar. Of course, this is the same WMD info that both Clintons saw and believed and used to support the war, but no one is calling them liars -- at least not about the war, anyway. Facts may be facts; how they are viewed and interpreted is what is behind all political debate.

As for O'Reilly, he is not nearly as smart or as informed as he thinks. And he is a hypocrite: He vocally campaigns for stricter pedophile laws, but then accused kidnapped child Shawn Hornbeck of staying with his captor because he was having too much fun to go home. Stupid and offensive. Sometimes O'Reilly is a jerk -- sometimes he is one the money. But no worse than most and a lot more fun to listen to than many.

Merwyn: You say Bill O'Reilly is not a liar. Is he not the same person who went on David Letterman and said there was a relationship between Saddam's regime and Al-Ansaram, despite that such a claim is explicitly contradicted by the findings of The Senate Intelligence Committee? The same Bill O'Reilly who referred to the ACLU as a "terrorist organization"? How is this any different from, say, Joe McCarthy calling General George Marshall an "evil genius'? Is ignorance an excuse for slander and repeating falsehoods? In the case of the president, is it not his responsibility, his duty, to ask questions and listen to dissenting points of view, before suggesting through subordinates that if the public does not get behind his policies they will be vaporized in a "mushroom cloud"? How many times did he invoke 9/11 in the march to war? What's worse, incompetence or dishonesty? Or are they just part of the same equation? Alberto Gonzalez's forgetful testimony? Reagan during Iran-Contra? Where is the accountability? And I must add, this conservative obsession with Rosie O'Donnell has gotten rather pathetic. Unlike Bill O'Reilly, she has never claimed to be a
"journalist". Big difference. And Bill Moyers, to my knowledge, has never cut off someone else's microphone.

Is he a "liar"? No, he believes in what he says.

"It's not lying if you believe it."
-Jason Alexander, as George Costanza

Has Bill O'Reilly ever told a lie? Sure, I a bet he has. Has Bill Moyers ever told a lie? I wouldn't be a bit surprised. Have I ever told a lie? Never, ever in a hundred million years. (But, I may be lying about that. Sssshhhh!) Have you ever told a lie? Come on, maybe just one tiny, little, itsy-bitsy untruth. Be honest. Okay, just for the sake of argument, we'll pretend that you too have told a lie. There... I'm a liar, Bill's a liar, the other Bill's a liar, you're a liar -- all God's children are liars. There, that's settled, I hope.

But, just because someone says something that is untrue -- in your opinion -- doesn't make it a lie. A lot of people don't believe the Warren Commission report that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing JFK. Are they liars? Official reports are the work of committees that might be totally honest and benevolent, or might have political agendas that are self-serving. Why is your "intelligence" report any more valid or trustworthy than the "intelligence" reports warning us of WMDs in Iraq? Because it is from a Democratic Congress and Democrats never lie or even make mistakes? You question the honesty of the President because you don't agree with him, but when O'Reilly questions the honesty of those on the left, he is a liar or idiot. Why doesn't he have the same right to question and disagree with government officials that you do? (Oh, and it's clever they way you worked in that bit equating O'Reilly to McCarthy ... one might even call you an "evil genius!")

And as for Rosie ... she is a host of a talk show that is designed to discuss topical issues and it was created by and is produced by Barbara Walters, a legendary figure in the world of broadcast news. Rosie says things designed to sway public opinion, based -- she claims -- on research. That, unfortunately, makes Rosie a journalist.

Re: the definition of "lie"...

If it's not "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," then what is it? If the language is carefully (or vaguely) constructed to mislead or misrepresent -- while remaining technically "true" -- is that a lie? (I think it is.)

Does adding the phrase "British intelligence has learned" make the infamous "misstatement" in the State of the Union address about Saddam seeking "uranium from Africa" any more true? Or does it just derail questions of truth to quibbles over the definition of "learned"? (How about what the definition of "is" is?)

Here's Frank Rich in today's NY Times, writing about Condoleeza Rice's mendacity ("Is Condi Hiding the Smoking Gun?") on TV "news" shows last week:

* * *

Thus Ms. Rice was dispatched to three Sunday shows last weekend to bat away Mr. Tenet’s book before “60 Minutes” broadcast its interview with him that night. But in each appearance her statements raised more questions than they answered. She was persistently at odds with the record, not just the record as spun by Mr. Tenet but also the public record. She must be held to a higher standard — a k a the truth — before she too jumps ship.

It’s now been nearly five years since Ms. Rice did her part to sell the Iraq war on a Sept. 8, 2002, Sunday show with her rendition of “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Yet there she was last Sunday on ABC, claiming that she never meant to imply then that Saddam was an imminent threat. “The question of imminence isn’t whether or not somebody is going to strike tomorrow” is how she put it. In other words, she is still covering up the war’s origins. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” she claimed that intelligence errors before the war were “worldwide” even though the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohamed ElBaradei publicly stated there was “no evidence” of an Iraqi nuclear program and even though Germany’s intelligence service sent strenuous prewar warnings that the C.I.A.’s principal informant on Saddam’s supposed biological weapons was a fraud.

Of the Sunday interviewers, it was George Stephanopoulos who went for the jugular by returning to that nonexistent uranium from Africa. He forced Ms. Rice to watch a clip of her appearance on his show in June 2003, when she claimed she did not know of any serious questions about the uranium evidence before the war. Then he came as close as any Sunday host ever has to calling a guest a liar. “But that statement wasn’t true,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said. Ms. Rice pleaded memory loss, but the facts remain. She received a memo raising serious questions about the uranium in October 2002, three months before the president included the infamous 16 words on the subject in his State of the Union address. Her deputy, Stephen Hadley, received two memos as well as a phone call of warning from Mr. Tenet.

[...]

On ABC, she pushed the administration’s line portraying Iraq’s current violence as a Qaeda plot hatched by the Samarra bombing of February 2006. But that Qaeda isn’t the Qaeda of 9/11; it’s a largely Iraqi group fighting on one side of a civil war. And by February 2006, sectarian violence had already been gathering steam for 15 months — in part because Ms. Rice and company ignored the genuine imminence of that civil war just as they had ignored the alarms about bin Laden’s Qaeda in August 2001.

Ms. Rice’s latest canard wasn’t an improvisation; it was a scripted set-up for the president’s outrageous statement three days later. “The decision we face in Iraq,” Mr. Bush said Wednesday, “is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it’s whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11.” Such statements about the present in Iraq are no less deceptive — and no less damaging to our national interest — than the lies about uranium and Qaeda- 9/11 connections told in 2002-3. This country needs facts, not fiction, to make its decisions about the endgame of the war, just as it needed (but didn’t get) facts when we went to war in the first place. To settle for less is to make the same tragic error twice.

[...]

No wonder the most galling part of Ms. Rice’s Sunday spin was her aside to Wolf Blitzer that she would get around to reflecting on these issues “when I have a chance to write my book.” Another book! As long as American troops are dying in Iraq, the secretary of state has an obligation to answer questions about how they got there and why they stay. If accountability is ever to begin, it would be best if those questions are answered not on “60 Minutes” but under oath.

* * *

I got this form dictionary.com.

lie1 /laɪ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[lahy] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, lied, ly·ing.
–noun 1. a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.
2. something intended or serving to convey a false impression; imposture: His flashy car was a lie that deceived no one.
3. an inaccurate or false statement.
4. the charge or accusation of lying: He flung the lie back at his accusers.

So, there. By definition 1, bush isn't a liar, by definition 3 he is. 2 is debatable. 4...not particularly relevant. Much like these word games.

The important issue is that no WMD's were found in Iraq, and that hurt both this country, and the administration. Talks of impeachment, prison sentences and such may be out of line since criminal intent seems unlikely (for the administration to lie about WMD's when they knew they weren't there, and then invade Iraq, proving this assertion to be false would be an extremely self destructive act.) But the damage this has taken on U.S. credibility is undeniable, and is ultimately a much more pressing issue. And regardless of Bush's intentions-whether what he did was "lying" or just a really bad mistake-this problem isn't going away until he's out of office.

Jim, In your rather lengthy message, I happen to notice that you did not once mention Bill O'Reilly or the university survey, which I thought was the point of this entire thread. Instead, you go off on a tangent about all the many sins of the Bush administration. Apparently, you feel that if Bush and Co. are all certifiable liars, then anyone who has ever agreed with them for any reason must also be liars. Guilt by association. Okay, but I also notice that you didn't question the honesty of Mr. Rich, or of Stephanopoulos, Blitzer or "60 Minutes." Indeed, Rich is an outspoken liberal and has attacked conservatives in the past, especially Bush. Why do you assume his attack on Rice and Bush, et. al., is any less biased/dishonest than anything that O'Reilly has ever said. When he wrote the above article, don't you think he left out anything that might contradict his assessment of the situation. How hard to you think he tries to be "fair and balanced"? Do you think he ever tries to view things from a conservative side? Or do you think he picks and chooses only the "facts" that confirm his already formed opinion? When you read his article did you ask if it was "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" Or did you accept it because it said just what you wanted to hear? If Bill O'Reilly were to take the Rich article and rip it to shreds, pointing out every example of "propaganda techniques," would you give O'Reilly the benefit of the doubt?
I don't like being put in the position of defending the veracity of every little thing that Bill O'Reilly has ever said. I don't believe and/or agree with everything he says -- nor would I be that way with any political pundit, right or left. I try to be cynical and skeptical about everything, especially when someone is trying to sell me something. (And that is what politics is all about, selling something.) But one point that O'Reilly does make (as does Fox News, etc.) is that most of the media in this country has a liberal bias. But every editorial, article, survey or joke that tries to reveal that O'Reilly or anyone else has a conservative bias, and is therefore not "fair and balanced," never questions the political slant of the opposing argument. The assumption is that if O'Reilly is "unfair" and "unbalanced" then the other guys (on the left) must be "fair and balanced." Your assumption that Rich must be telling the "truth" when he reveals all the "lies," just seens to backs this up.

Merwyn: No, the point of this entire post was not B.O. or the study. These are only symptoms -- examples -- of a larger phenomenon that I wanted to raise about the existence of facts that are beyond the reach of "spin." It does not matter what sort of "bias" is exhibited by one pundit or politician or network when the facts exist independently of what they say. My point is that "opinions" are worthless unless they are based on independently verifiable facts. "Fair and balanced" (as the media, from Fox News to the NY Times) have been practicing it, does not mean reporting that one person represents one point of view while another represents a contrary point of view (usually arbitrarily chosen Democrats and Republicans, or "liberals" and "conservatives"). Reporting means going to primary sources and getting at the facts that neither "side" (as if there are only two!) is offering. (Read the Knight-Ridder reporting before the invasion of Iraq. I did, and could not believe the falsehoods being printed on the front pages of the NY Times, which were reporting as fact things Knight-Ridder had already demonstrated were not true (like the supposed "consensus" on Iraqi nuclear programs).

I do not care in the least if reporting is "balanced" -- as long as it is truthful and presents the known facts. Facts do not care about "balance" -- or "fairness." What I object to is the reporting of opinions as if they were a substitute for (or just as valid as) facts.

Jim, Facts or facts. But ...

Facts are always open to interpretation. "The sky is blue!" Fact? Maybe. What shade of blue? Is it always blue? If not then "The sky is blue" is not a true statement, or not as true as "the sky is sometimes blue." Is its blueness just an optical illusion? If someone is color blind, then is the sky less than blue? If they've just taken viagra, is it more than just blue? Does the shade of blue it is at anytime indicate the time of day or forewarn of approaching bad weather? What is blue? To a poet, "the sky is blue" might mean he thinks the sky is sad -- whatever the hell that might mean. And what does it matter if the sky is blue if that information doesn't have a context and point. A blue sky after a storm is good news; a blue sky in the middle of a drought is bad news.
That is the nature of political debate: Not just facts, but the meaning of the those facts and the selection of the facts that are considered more important. Let's say it is a fact that "Bruce Willis is starring in a movie called 'The Sky is Blue!'" That is a fact that tells you very little of importance. But how about if you say "Bruce Willis is starring in a movie called 'The Sky is Blue," where he plays a freedom fighter." That tells you a whole lot more, and is seemingly positive. But what if that was worded like this: "Bruce Willis is starring in a movie called 'The Sky is Blue," where he plays a suicide bomber." Same info, different interpretation, and likely a totally different response from the reader. It is not facts that matter, it is the facts that surround them. When the film comes out and you sit down to review it, will you simply write "Bruce Willis is starring in a movie called 'The Sky is Blue," or will you take all the "facts" that you already believe to be true and use them to discuss the film's artistic merits, or political agenda, or cultural importance. However you do it, you will take "facts" and arrange them according to your view of reality. And you disregard the facts that you deem unimportant. Let's say, in the Willis film, he plays a "freedom fighter/suicide bomber" but the story takes place on Neptune in the year 3078; will you view it as just a sci-fi adventure, or a political commentary about Iraq, circa 2007? "Bruce Willis is starring in a movie called 'The Sky is Blue" is a news report, but anything else you say about it would be of greater interest and value. As long as you don't deny that the film is called "The Sky Is Blue" and Bruce Willis is the star, you won't be lying. And if you say it is a lousy movie, full of poliltical distortions, you won't be lying either, even if I disagree with your assessment.
Are we in Iraq because Bush is an idiot who is driven by a blood-thirsty lust for power and corporate greed? Or are we in Iraq because that country was being ran by a ruthless, blood-thirsty tyrant and Bush saw this as the last great hope of stopping the potential of a third world war and an nuclear holocaust? That depends on a lot of "facts" and how they are interpreted and how they are arranged. You believe the Knight-Ridder reports, and indeed they might be as good as gold. But what if the Bush administration has "facts" that the K-R report didn't report -- or even know about?
I've studied journalism -- actually, mass communication -- and the first thing they teach is the importance of facts and being accurate. But they also teach you the whole theory about being a "gatekeeper,' picking and choosing what you think the public has the right to know, the need to know, etc. They practically tell you to play God. It didn't take me long to realize that all that means is that you inject you personal values and opinions into every story, in what you say and how you say it. And it is not a matter of left versus right, or even right versus wrong, but usually in what will make the story sell. The negative sells ("BUSH LIED!! -- page one, banner headline) better than the positive (Democratic elections held in Iraq -- page 6, below the fold, one column).

Well... no. Fact, by definition, are not "open to interpretation." O'Reilly complains about that kind of relativism (moral and otherwise) all the time. Sure, you can quibble about whether the sky is blue (to whom? A dog? They don't see colors the way humans do! And what about somebody who's colorblind?), but that's simply an evasion technique. Some facts are indisputable. Like whether Condi Rice was warned that the CIA did not feel the "uranium from Africa" story could be substantiated. She was warned -- at least three times. She just says she doesn't remember. Those are facts. There's an unambiguous paper trail to confirm them. No one is even disputing them.

John McCain walked through a Baghdad market on April Fools Day, wearing a flak jacket, surrounded more than 100 soldiers in armored vehicles, with attack helicopters circled overhead, after soldiers redirected traffic, restricted access to the Americans and sharpshooters were posted on the rooftops. Those are facts. McCain said he could buy a rug. That is a fact, too. But you don't get a sense of the whole picture unless you consider all of this together.

Others still claim "British intelligence has learned" about Saddam seeking uranium from Africa, but they've never produced ANY evidence to substantiate those claims -- and such evidence would not change the reality that the statement was (as even Bush himself later admitted) wrong to include in the SOTU.

Evidence and facts come first. Opinions are irrelevant unless they're rooted in the verifiable. Otherwise they're just free-floating opinions, untethered to any external reality.

But maybe there isn't any reality, right? Everything is just our perception. In which case we've just wasted a lot of time and space here...

This whole talk about lying seems to be a lot of double speak. I would say the greater sin in discussing lies within politics and the biased/unbiased journalists' (whether questionable or not) opinions is that once a statement is known to be false regardless of whether it was meant to be a lie or not, they should fess up to the fact that they were incorrect in the first place. I don't care who the person is, what side of the right/left fight they are on...to me right/left is far less important than good/bad...cripes, I don't know why people are so hung up on using right/left against each other...get over it! I don't care who you are. What side of what imaginary line you stand on, if you claim something that later turns out to be incorrect or false, have enough guts and humility to say "we were wrong" and then grow up and get over simplistic liberal/conservative arguments and hate mongering.

A statement doesn't have to be a lie when it is first made, but if the truth is ignored once it's known, then it's far worse than a lie. It's malevolent and harmful ignorance and a lie.

Jim ... First off, I'm sorry to read about your father. My dad died a year and half ago, so I know its a rough time. I send you my best wishes.
Second. We seem to be carrying on two separate arguments here. I'm talking a theoretical debate and you seem intent on teaching me a history lesson. I've been trying to avoid discussion of the war, because I have mixed feelings about it and because history in the making is never clearly defined or clearly reported. I don't feel that the war is being covered with any degree of enthusiasm and/or fairness by the press on either side of the spectrum. I do think the press is always eagerly willing to report the negative, but are hesitant to report anything positive about the progress of the war. I don't think the mainstream press cares if they have a liberal bias, but I do think they live in fear of being accused of having a conservative bias. Thus, they take an adversarial stance against Bush and other right-wingers. (Yet, I have seen no reluctance in them to join the bandwagon of Al "the sky is falling" Gore's global warming campaign.) So when you quote this news story or that news story as fact, my reaction is a "yeah, okay" and a shrug.
But let's take one of your examples: McCain's shopping day in Bagdad. Assuming that his visit is a factually documented, without bias or exaggeration by the press, what does it mean? That the streets of Bagdad still aren't safe? That's a given, but what does that also mean? That the war is a total failure and the presence of the American troop is a waste of time, money and effort? Or that the presence of the Americans is still vitally needed because the streets of Bagdad are still unsafe? Or that, because McCain is a Washington big shot and potentially a future President of the United States, the military went overboard in protecting him -- and maybe to impress him with a show strength? Or, all three? Unless you consider this all of this together, you don't get a sense of the full picture.
Facts, by definition, are not "open to interpretation." But the meaning of those facts and their value is open to interpretation. You argue that "an unambiguous paper trail" said the African uranium threat couldn't be substantiated. But how many "unambiguous paper trails" confirmed the validity of that threat? And how many of those "unambiguous paper trails" where bogus red herrings designed to confuse American intelligence? How many pages, volumes and tons of "unambiguous paper trails" come through the intelligence pipeline every single day? Rice, Bush, etc have to choose something to believe. And, I'm sorry, but rumors and reports of third world republics trying to get their hands on uranium and other nuclear goods have been surfacing since the Carter administration at least, and most likely since the 1950s. So, I don't see your point; why should she doubt this story, when the no-nukes liberals have been warning of the same type of possibility for the last 30, 40 or 50 years?
And when a government official says "I don't remember" or "I forgot" why would you doubt that? What were you doing two years ago last Thursday and who were you with and what was said? Nothing is more open to interpretation and reinterpretation than the human memory. What I don't believe is when someone says "Oh, yes, I remember with absolute clarity!" That person is lying. There is no such thing as "conveniently forgot," people just forget, period! For instance, this conversation -- which, by the way, I am enjoying very much -- has provided us both with an opportunity to think intently and to form complex opinions about important issues. But how much of any of it will either of us remember in six months? We will undoubtedly remember that this exchanged happened -- it's a fact. But everything else will be open to interpretation.

Defending Bill O by pointing out that Rosie O'Donnel is wrong a lot too is kind of silly. Of course she is. And 911 conspiracy bunk is as offensive as anything Bill O has ever said. The difference though is that as far as I can tell, she's politically pretty naive, where as Bill O is a very smart guy who makes a pretty serious efforts to distort the truth so make himself and his point of view seem right all the time.

You are absolutely correct that anybody who participates in pop culture American Political discourse can be charged with the offenses that Bill O can, but so what? Does that make him less dishonest or less offensive? How does that challenge the point that his rhetorical techniques are nasty? I think the problem with Bill O (and with his liberal conterparts, too, by the way) is that their "spin," their paradigms that inform how they act as gatekeepers, are soooo partisan. They spin not to support intellegnet, challenging, idiosyncratic points of view, but to support the extreme special interests of either the Democrat or Republican parties.

That partisan slant is a bit problem. I think any thoughful conservative should be offended by the moral crusades and ignorance prominent Republicans occasionally trot out in their efforts to pander, and I think they should be absolutely revolted by the depth of the corruption that has invaded the idealistic Republican revolution. Any party that has included Tom Delay and Karl Rove as its key movers and shakers is a total disgrace. And any liberal who isn't tired of petty identity politics and dangerously stupid ideas about foreign policy should be equally ashamed. Why, oh why do people still take Jessie Jackson seriously? Why, oh why can't the Democratic party come up with a better foreign policy statment than "WAR BAD." Yes, "war bad," but what is YOUR suggestion. Is Islamic fundamentalism not scary and dangerous? What's the plan folks?

I think your attack on Bill O's critics falls into the same trap. Calling Bill O an evil propagandist doesn't make somebody a liberal. Decency is supposed to be important to social conservatives. Bill's disgusting in a way that undermines the things he claims to believe.

I think your demand that an academic paper analizing Bill O's rhetorical methods give equal time to some liberal commentator is a little unreasonable because that's just not how academic journal articles are written. They aren't editorials, and broad pontification about the sorry state of American political discourse just isn't what they are. The point of the article was to demonstrate how Bill O's speech is wrong, period, and I think the article accomplished that goal fairly. Simply put, the article only attacked Bill O, because that is what the article was about. Was the decision to go after Bill O and not Micheal Moore informed by the author's political beliefs? Probably, but do you really know that? The guy's awfulness isn't less awful just because there are awful liberals out there too.

Your point that we all use bias in our efforts to report and communicate is perfectly valid, but there is a difference between the methodical arguments that might be logically debated and the kind of intellectual proffesional wrestling that Bill O participates in. I remember John Steward going on "Crossfire" and angrily telling Tucker and his liberal pal (whose name I forget) to cut it out because their dumb polical style was hurting America. I'd say something similar about Bill O. And Micheal Moore for that matter.(I would actually defend Al Franken, since he usually operates pretty clearly as a satirist, and since he spends a lot of his time correcting gibberish coming from conservative media. Certainly he's a liberally biased media critic, but he is pretty fair and he does check facts.)

I think that Jim's insertion of the administrations "untruths" are absolutely prescient for a discussion of why attacking Bill O a worthwhile thing to do, and why Bill O might be a better place to start a critique of the media than Micheal Moore. Bill O is a outspoken conservative (which is why his "no spin" thing is so annoying and so wrong. . . he spins like CRAZY), and an alarmingly loyal one. (Yes, I know he disagrees with G.W. about illegal immigration, but somehow whenever he talks about the issue he doesn't paint Republican business interests who like having cheap as the bad guys, but weak liberals. . . that's spin for you. "Libral evil" says Bill O.) Bill O's distortions often serve as propoganda for an administration that has proven itself to be a remarkable failure. If we want to talk about how that administration has weilded power, analyzing its supporters in the media is a pretty valid thing to do. Simply put, attacking Bill O might be understood as a broader project of understanding what when wrong during the last six year, and so I think it's a fine project to engage in, especially for conservatives who might want to learn some lessons from this disaster. I am not concerned with whether Bill O is making a conscious effort to serve as an apologist for one of the worst administrations in our history, but that is often what he is doing. And that makes him absolutely wrong, and absolutely more dangerous than Micheal Moore, if only because Moore expresses unpopular minority opinions.

(I want to insist that I think Micheal Moore is an ass by the way, but he's an ass who grazes on the fringe of the pasture. There are a lot of asses out there, and there will always be a lot of asses out there. Their presence isn't particularly remarkable. Michael Savage and Ann Coulter, who graze at the other edge of the pasture, aren't worth arguing about either. I'm sure that wherever he is, David Duke is saying stupid things, but I don't feel it would serve anybody for me to look into it.)

Merwyn, I'll agree with you on this: People's memories (or lack thereof) are indeed a big part of the problem. I'm using Bush administration examples because they are in the headlines (especially with George Tenet's book) and provide so many instances of facts that were reported as opinions, and opinions that were reported as facts. (And, I suppose because -- lest we forget -- Bill O'Reilly himself said on ABC's "Good Morning America" March 18, 2003: "And I said on my program, if -- if -- the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." O'Reilly has since admitted, "Well, my analysis was wrong and I'm sorry.")

I guess it is possible that Condoleeza Rice forgot three warnings from the CIA, including a personal one from the head of the agency. That's what she says. You can draw whatever interpretations you like (as you can about McCain's Baghdad market stroll), but the facts remain. Rice says she forgot; I say if that's true she should resign because those are not things someone in her position should be allowed to forget. I'd have no problem with McCain saying he visited the Baghdad market under the circumstances that were later reported; it was when he tried to pretend that he got a glimpse of normal life in Baghdad that I found him to be... well, disingenuous at best.

But while people on the right and left complain about "moral relativism," I think a more serious problem is "factual relativism." Once the facts are known and reported (which used to be part of the definition of "news" -- as in "journalism"), then we can argue about what they mean. But to pretend facts themselves are always unknowable or malleable or open to interpretation is nihilism. If Rice or McCain (for example) want to say that's what they believe -- that they are nihilists to whom (as the dictionary puts it) "all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated" -- then those who are asked to vote for them (or for the people who put them in power) should know that. If their memories are bad and their judgment faulty, we should know that, too. But we need to know what they base their statements and actions upon.

Jim, you are right on. The problem is that everything has become "spin," and we (right and left alike) have drifted off into a bizzare cloud of partisan solipsism.

That Condi Rice or Alberto Gonzolaz should be forgiven for "not remembering" things is stupid. At best, it means that they are incompetent and unprepaired (people do take notes. . . how many secretaries work for Rice?). I find that unlikely. I think they are lying. I don't think that is an outrageous speculation.

The Bush Administration, for a group of people who claim to care about moral values, have an awfully slippery idea of what the truth is. Sadly, many of their conservative supporters in the media has a similarly Machiavellian (or should I say "Rovian," After Karl) idea about how critical thinking and honesty work.

The fact is, some "facts" stand up to scrutiny better than others, and some interpretations of facts are better than others. You have to play play fair and use critical thinking. This standard might lead you to be a liberal or a conservative, but it would not lead you to behave like Condi Rice or Bill O.

I'd like to mention Christopher Hitchens as the kind of commentator I respect. He's been wrong, and he has been guilty of certain excesses, but he always backs up his points of view with deep political and historical knowledge, not with name calling, and best of all, if you tried to tie him to any conventional ideological position, you'd get twisted in knots. He's strongly anti religion and anti death penalty, but he was adamantly pro war. He has been an outspoken critic of Bill Clinton, Noam Chomsky, Mother Theresa, George Bush, and the Dali Lama. He's been called a Marxist and a Neo conservative. I mention him only because his honesty and independence mean that he doesn't spin to support a left of right ideological point of view, and he isn't going to reject any particular idea because it doesn't fit the angle of his spin. THIS is what we need in our discourse. Integrity and independence. Then perhaps, our media would do a better job, and it wouldn't have taken and election and congressional hearings to get the truth out of this awful administration. This kind of lying persists because we have become so partisan that there will be mobs of commentators mobbing to defend whatever weasily thing any public figure does if it suits their own agenda.

Jamie, ... "Does that make (O'Reilly) less dishonest or less offensive? How does that challenge the point that his rhetorical techniques are nasty? "

I don't doubt that O'Reilly is a "offensive" and "nasty;" indeed, he is a pompous blowhard. But I don't think he is dishonest. He says what he believes and though he obviously leans to the right, he doesn't temper his rhetoric to pander to the right or the Bush administration. For good or ill, I think he is the genuine article. My defense of O'Reilly stems not from any particular affection for the man himself, but from a lack of respect for the so-called research paper that attacked him. I have little doubt that the researchers felt they were being "fair and balanced" in revealing the many sins of Bill O'Reilly, but I don't think they realized that they were using the same "propaganda" techniques that they accused him of -- or, if the did, I doubt they realized the irony. It seems that when it comes to political discourse, the first trait to disappear is self-awareness and the first trait that is acquired is self-righteousness. I feel that in picking (and picking on) O'Reilly, the researchers revealed more about themselves than the did about O.

Besides, O'Reilly is a cheap and easy target. He is already out there and has tomatoes tossed his way all the time. But it is easier to join in an existing hunting party than to begin one of your own. O'Reilly was a safe target (and more than likely, one that a professor at liberal college would approve of). It would have taken far greater courage for them to tackle Michael Moore, partly because they probably already agree with his politics and to study him might force them to examine their ideals. But, also, Moore has basically been given a pass. Though ripped to shreds by the right-wing media, the so-called mainstream media pretty much ignores Moore, except to report that he has won this award or another. Despite the controversy, I don't think there was one expose questioning his 9/11 movie on "60 Minutes," "20/20" or "Primetime." Meanwhile, the Democrats quietly embrace him, not because of his "unpopular minority opinions," but because he can do all the dirty work of smearing the right and the Demos can keep their hands clean. He's their pet pitbull. Though Moore is one of the most incompetent and dishonest "journalists" the world has ever known, and because he goes largely unchallenged, he is a far greater threat. At least, O'Reilly stands by his opinions -- and does so on Letterman and "The View"; Moore pretends he has no opinions and deals only with "facts." When asked to defend his "facts," he refuses interviews and he threatens law suits. Moore just loves freedom of the press, but only if it is his freedom.

Jim ... You know this whole "he lied" thing has become one of the great American political clichés. Just as major elections approache, one side or another always begins scouring the past rhetoric of the other in hopes of finding an inconsistency, a misstatement, a poor use of words or something taken out of context, as well as an untruth, just so the phrase "he lied" can be used. Think of the Kenneth Star situation: How many millions of dollars and man hours of labor did he expend in a desperate effort to smear Bill Clinton, never finding anything juicy enough, until he caught him in a lie. And yes, Clinton lied to a grand jury -- about not having done something that wasn't illegal, had no effect on any government policy and at worst showed poor personal judgment. But it almost got him impeached. The whole Monicagate thing was pure desperation. Ditto for the Scooter Libby thing. Do you think that the Democrats care for an instance if the open secret that whatshername worked for the CIA was made public. No, but they went gunning for someone -- anyone -- in the Bush administration just to embarrass Bush. (I mean, they didn't go gunning for Novak or his paper, who actually made the info public -- but they aren't about to intimidate the friendly press!)

As for Rice, basically the same thing; they want to pin a "lie" on her. If she knew about the warnings and forgot them, she is human. If she knew about the warnings and disregarded them because other info was more persuasive, then that is a judgment call and the Democrats would have to prove the other info was invalid. In either case, it shows she is human and the Demos can only criticize her performance -- which they have done to death anyway. But to catch her in a "lie" would make her a criminal, evil, vile, unfit for public office -- break out the torches and the pitchforks and storm the castle. In this case, the Democrats don't want the facts, just an easily manipulated version of a fact. The aren't looking for truth, just looking around for a more useful untruth. And to me, that doesn't mean "the war is lost," only that the Democrats haven't a clue about what to do about the war, terrorism or anything else. Their only policy is to get back in office.

Certainly Bush has made mistakes and things could be going better -- but he is walking in uncharted territory with the entire terrorist issue. And he is doing something and being proactive -- which is more than Clinton ever did -- all without a shred of help from the Democrats. I have been a Democrat all my life and I voted for Clinton both times -- though looking back, I can't imagine why -- but the Democrats' behavior has been absolutely shameful for the last six or seven years. They no longer want what is best for the United States; they only want Bush to fail. And if that means losing the war and a return of terrorist threats, then so be it. I have little doubt that the next president will be a Democrat, and unless he/she is extraordinary (from the current candidates? yeah, right), then things don't look at all promising.
But this is opinion, not fact.

Well, we're back to the definition of "lie." In the case of high government officials, these are not just personal matters, but matters of grave responsibility. So, in building the case for invading Iraq (for example), Rice, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., either 1) knowingly presented false and/or misleading information; 2) presented only the information/opinions that supported their case for war; 3) were not informed of information and conflicting claims that were already in the public record (in official government documents available on the web; in reporting by Knight-Ridder, etc.). Given that we're talking about the most important decision any public official is ever faced with -- whether to go to war -- I'm not sure which of these is a greater failure (or betrayal of the public trust). I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican (not that it would matter either way -- the record speaks for itself), and I think the Democrats in congress are equally culpable for not questioning the administration's case more closely. But even I can't go so far as to agree with you that Dems would rather see Bush fail than to protect Americans from terrorists. That's exactly the kind of preposterous, unfounded assertion that O'Reilly makes over and over again -- opinion without evidence.

I agree that Micheal Moore hasn't been really engaged by the mainstream media. The pop culture phenomenon of Micheal Moore has been covered (the box office significance of his films are big news), and petty controversies (like whether or not that bank really stored rifles on its property) got some press, but there has been no attention to the larger idiocies of what he says.

Of course, when Bill O gets criticized in the mainstream media, it's not for the intolerance and stupidity of what HE says, but its for his rudeness. Where Moore is sly and funny, Bill O screams and threatens. I'm not sure we have an ideological problem on our hands but a cult of personality problem. Bill O isn't terribly likable.

If you think Micheal Moore has been given a pass by the academic community, you need to go to a college library and put his name into a the search engine of an electronic bibliography of journal articles. You might be surprised at the diversity of opinions around the guy. Certainly he gets some positive attention because he gives voice to the kind of radical (as in far left, not as in original or challenging) beliefs that lead some folks to want to be college professors, but you'll also find plenty of criticism of his methods. (I'm a grad student myself, and I ran Moore through a couple of search engines just to browse around today. I can confirm that he has certainly not been given a pass.) He probably gets taken more seriously than Bill O, but I think he deserves it. Underneath the bluster he does raise concerns that need to be raised. Too bad he doesn't seem to understand anything about politics or economics. If "Bowling For Columbine" got anybody to read Barry Glassner's book, then it did some public good.

I will conceed that Bill O is an easy target for anybody writing in an academic context (and your point about the irony of the article attacking his use of ad hominem attacks by comparing him to the Nazis is well taken. . . yes that was a mistake), and I agree that bashing him is preaching to the converted. I will not conceed that bashing him isn't valuable. Simply put, I think that if the article called him a neo fascist jerk and an offensive propagandist, then it was accurate. (Was that name calling? . . . yeah, probably. . .) I don't care if he is sincerely concerned for America, or if he is the genuine article. Blind adherence to an ideological point of view IS dishonesty, period. If I beleive my own lies, they are still lies. We have a responsibility to be self critical, and we are not excused because we "feel" like we are right. Not to get too melodramatic here, but I'm sure Osama Bin Lauden thought (thinks?) he was right too.(And I don't want to suggest any kind of comparison to Bill O. He's a bad guy, but he's hardly a terrorist!) Maybe "lie" is the wrong word? But does it matter? If he's wrong, he's wrong, and his disgusting tactics just make him more wrong.

The work of folks like the "media matters" website got Dom Imus fired and Trent Lott demoted. Going after these jerks is important because every once and a while, people pay attention, and they realize how awful and NOT harmless some of these public figures are. I figure if the truth about Bill O gets passed around enough, he'll get pushed out the fringe where can graze with Coulter. The trick, for me, is to promote independent, ideosyncratic commentators that give us opinions we have to think about. Pandering jerks are bad news. Bill O is an extreme pandering jerk, and an offensive one.

By the way, I've enjoyed this little debate. Arguing is not only fun, but it's important. I'm glad you're posting messages here. I still like the article bashing Bill O, but your criticism of it has given me a lot to chew on, and I appreciate it. (I'll hold back from another "grazing" metaphor for now!)

Jim ... "But even I can't go so far as to agree with you that Dems would rather see Bush fail than to protect Americans from terrorists. That's exactly the kind of preposterous, unfounded assertion that O'Reilly makes over and over again -- opinion without evidence."

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Democrats actually want any more terrorist attacks, but doing anything about it is, at best, priority number two in their agenda. Can you name one idea, proposal, initiative, piece of legislation they have collectively or even individually come up with to deal with the threat of terrorism? Seriously, I can think of only one: The cut-and-run timetable to get out of Iraq before the next presidential elections -- consequences be damned -- so they can boast of "ending" the war. "We brought the soldiers home -- Vote For Us!"

Most of them wholeheartedly stepped up and supported George W. Bush's initial response to 9/11 and the aftermath and voted for the Patriot Act, et. al., -- you know, back when it was good PR. But as soon as Bush poll numbers soared, they started the counterattack, chipping away at the very policies they had so patriotically supported. They have distanced themselves away from the anti-terrorist programs, suggesting no alternatives, safely aware that Bush would take all or most of the heat. When confronted with their original support of the war, what was the response? "He lied!" Whether they believe it or not, their public stance is that the biggest threat to the United States is George W. Bush and the Republican party. Oh, yeah, there are terrorists out there who have vowed to destroy American and everything we stand for -- but we'll deal with that latter, after we solve that horrible global warming problem. Only time will tell if Bush is right or if the war was worth it, but at least Bush has tried to be a commanding leader. His detractors have been sitting on the sidelines whiny about how no will let them be team captain. To me, that is irresponsible behavior.

As for the War, I don't think Bush "got us into" this war -- by lying or otherwise. It has been a long time coming and is the result of the weak Middle East policies of Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan and Carter and probably even before that. Clinton, Bush Sr., etc., didn't keep us out of war, they just delayed it. That is where the "betrayal of the public trust" lies. And as far as "the record speaks for itself:" Saddam and his regime are gone, Iraq has had democratic elections -- a first for any republic in that region, and there hasn't been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Those are facts too -- neither preposterous or unfounded.

Jamie ... I'm enjoying the conversation too. You make excellent points.

Comparing O'Reilly and Moore is like comparing an apple soaked in arsenic and an orange laced in cyanide -- then picking the one with the least fruit flies crawling on it. I'd go with O'Reilly, simply because he is not particularly likeable. For good or ill, his arguments speak for themselves; I don't see him trying to charm people to win their favor. Moore, on the other hand, plays the "poor little me" card endlessly. He wants the world to think he is this humble journalist battling the "big guys" who are trying to suppress truth. Also, though he obviously controls the conversations, O'Reilly does confront his opponents directly and at least allows others to disagree in person and on the air. Moore, on the other hand, hides behind his camera and is notorious for his deceptive editing techniques and cheesy publicity stunts that distort and openly misrepresent the opinions of others.

It is good to know that Moore's techniques and conclusions are being challenged in academic circles. I'd hate to think he is being used as an example of either good journalism or ethical politics. Moore, and O'Reilly too I suppose, are products of their time; time will judge the honesty of their work and the value of their opinions.

Yeah, I will conceed that at least Bill O confronts people in person. He has been made to look foolish a few times, which actually is to his credit, since it shows him engaging in the risks of having actual conversations with people. He doesn't ALWAYS play fair in this way (he has ordered more than one guest's microphone to be turned off and he has shouted down plenty of folks), but a clever guests are given the opportunity to "win" arguments with him on his show.

A quick youtube search shows Bill O getting embarrased quite a few times. This is quite gratifying for O'Reilly haters like myself (which doesn't speak to any maturity on my part, but oh well. . . ). You'd be hard pressed to find Micheal Moore putting himself in any kind of situation where his opponents get to talk back to him. In his defense, the kind of opinion he expresses is pretty far from the mainstream, so we might argue that pretty much everything else out there argues with him in some way. That doesn't make his style any more fair though, which makes totally undermines his sometimes quite correct critiques of America. He sees the right problems, but he has a habit of addressing them in the most superficial, unfair, assinine ways he can.

Christopher Hitchens, who I praised in an earlier post, wrote a really good slam of Moore a while back. Hitchens, being one of the few real live intellectuals who gets to be a talking head, thinks Moore is a callow, insubstantial little twit. That about says it. It's a shame too.

Excellent debate going on here, and big props to all involved for not allowing it to degenerate into the kind of pointless screaming attacks that most internet debates do.

I'd like to weigh in a little on a few things of interest to me, if I may.

First off, I think that one theme of this debate which I personally strongly disagree with is whether it's even worth discussing the relative merits of commentators on either side of the spectrum. Does it really matter in the least whether Bill O Reilly is better or worse than Michael Moore? If we could ever even come to an agreement about that, would it make even the slightest impact on our views about which side is 'correct'? To me, all that ought to matter is the results; has voting Bush into office, or any other politician, made life better or worse for the average American? Jamie and Jim seem to think not, while Merwyn seems to think that we'd be neck deep in terrorists by now if we hadn't. Ultimately, I believe that is the only rational basis from which to form political beliefs and arguments. I'd argue that voting for Bush was a mistake not because Bill O Reilly is a bigger jerk than Michael Moore, but because the standard of living of the average American has suffered as a result of his terrible mismanagement of the power he unfortunately still wields.

Merwyn seems to think that going to Iraq has somehow protected America from terrorists, and he also seems to find a lot to criticize in the Democrats for not articulating a comprehense 'anti terrorism' policy. I'd dispute both those points rigorously, and add a third of my own.

In the first place, it is by now a well documented and agreed upon 'fact' (hopefully we can move past the various definitions of fact by now) that Saddam Hussein was at least as 'anti-terrorist' and 'anti-religious extremist' as even any American, Dem or Rep has ever been. Saddam Hussein never cooperated, met with, or even tacitly allowed any so called terrorists to operate in his country. We 'know' now that he never had wmds, nor made any serious attempt to produce them, and we can also be very sure, based on his record, that he would never willingly allow any wmds to fall into the hands of 'terrorists' because he was well aware that he himself would probably be their first target! So the idea that toppling his regime has made America safer is one of the most absurd and incorrect 'opinions' a person could take, in my humble opinion. About the only thing that can be said in favor of that view is that the 'terrorists' (which are now far more numerous and influential as a result of that horrible policy decision, another widely agreed upon 'fact') now have much easier and more convenient targets in the form of American soldiers in Iraq; now they can kill Americans in a more 'morally acceptable' manner, and without even having to go half-way around the world! Although why we should feel that the death of American 'civilians' is worse than the death of American soldiers is quite beyond me. I'd say that a life lost is a life lost, and now that we've lost far more lives to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars than we did on 9/11 I'm beginning to wonder whether it was all worth it. But more on that later.

Merwyn's second assertion, that Democrats have no good anti-terrorism credentials or ideas, is in my opinion flatly wrong. It's a well documented fact that before 9/11 Clinton was far more anti-terrorism than Bush. It was he who first said that terrorism was the greatest threat facing internation stability in the coming years, and it was he and his advisors who repeatedly tried to warn Bush and his of the threat posed by Al Queda and other groups like them. They were basically ignored until 9/11, at which point the Right threw the entire blame onto Clinton. Clinton did a lot more than Bush ever planned to do before 9/11, and, more importantly, he did it a lot more effectively. What he did NOT do was make a calculated attempt to foster in Americans a fear or terrorism, and then use that fear to garner support for anything from limiting civil liberties to invading foreign countries. The only thing that surprises me is that Bush and the Right have not managed to find a way to use fear of terrorism to justify further enriching the richest 5% of Americans while further impoverishing the poorest 20%.

My third point is related to this; Clinton fought terrorism without constantly using it as a political tool for his own ends(though, granted, one could certainly make the argument that a few of his missile strikes did coincide conveniently with Starr's pointless impeachment hearings); Bush has done quite the opposite; he's been a huge help to the terrorists by inflaming anti-American sentiment, and he's used the ever growing terrorist threat as a tool to further his own political ends.

You accuse the Democrats of having no plan to deal with terrorists, when numerous Democrats, most notably in my opinion, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, have in fact detailed and well-nuanced plans with how to deal with the situation in Iraq. The thing is, their plans are, in fact, detailed and nuanced, which means they are difficult for the press to report on with a 30 second sound bite, and so do not get a lot of play in the mainstream media.

But my real point is this, and you may find it shocking; terrorism is not the greatest threat facing America today; it never has been, and it never will be, ever. Compared to cigarettes and drinking and driving, and ordinary forms of murder or suicide, the deaths and injuries attributable to terrorism are a miniscule proportion of the total amount of preventable deaths in America each year. The only time terrorism affects a significant proportion of the American population is when politicians use it for their own political gain. By far the best response to terrorism, even terrorism as 'terrible' as the WTC attacks is to condemn it, marginalise the masterminds, and, most importantly, to PROVE THEM WRONG by NOT turning around and invading other countries. Iraq has been decimated by the overthrow of Saddam; by all accounts the quality of life of the average Iraqi has been significantly reduced. America lost 3000 people in the WTC attacks; since America invaded Iraq, conservative estimates place their civilian and military death tolls in the hundreds of thousands. I know it's common in America to consider non-American deaths unimportant, but surely figures that disproportionate merit a least a little reflection.

Democrats are RIGHT to not constantly trumpet the dangers of terrorism. 'The only thing to fear is fear itself'. Wise words from a wise man, and I think that the average American ought to be 100 times as scared of losing their personal freedoms, and going to war with other countries in the name of fighting terrorism, than of actually being killed by a terrorist.

And in a final note, if we had elected Al Gore instead of Bush in 2000, and had as the dominant theme of the last 7 years the fight against global warming rather than the fight against terrorism, do you really not believe that the whole world would not be a lot better off? Do you really think that the potential consequences of global warming are not infinitely scarier than a hundred (thousand?) suicidal extremists? I'd say that anyone more scared of Bin Laden than of the melting of the polar ice cap is either badly misinformed, or just plain crazy.

Nic, thanks for reminding us of the real, actual importance of terrorism (it's a big deal, but it isn't exactly job #1), and thanks for reminding us or recent history dealings with terrorism. Clinton really did do quite a bit to deal with terrorism, but it was in the form of calculated strikes and intellegence gathering. . . the kind of tactic that has been proven to actually work. Remember the airplane bombing that didn't happen in England a few months ago (when we stopped being able to take shampoo on planes)? That was intellegence, not military action. A terrorist cell was arrested, a bunch of lives were saved, and the bad guys looked ridiculous.

I do not agree with you that today's Democratic party has any good ideas about what to do with Iraq. But really, this is an intractable mess that George Bush created. I'm not sure they should be blamed for not knowing what to do about it, but they should have more courage about the thing. As tough as it is to admit, John McCain seems the "most right" to me in his rhetoric about the war. We should be commited to a long, sad engagement. But we should marry that commitment to a coherent plan. The failure to produce such a plan was Bush's biggest mistake. (Besides invading a country he didn't have to in the first place.)

Of course, I prefer the Dems ideas to Bush's refrain of "stay the course." "The course" has been a nightmare so far, and Bush's refusal to admit it is perhaps the scariest thing about this administration.

Bush's "War on Terror" was exactly the opposite strategy we needed. By declaring "war" on a diverse bunch of extremists with varying greivances with us, and then by using our huge, scary military to engage in destructive combat with diverse groups of people with local complaints, we created a self-fullfilling prophecy. There wasn't a coherent united front against us until we created one by dropping our military in Iraq. Military theorists sometimes talk about "new war," where violence is used as a political tool to recrut and to raise resources. This is the opposite of regular war, where you the political and material support preceed the decision to use violence. Terrism is a recrutment tool for an extreme ideology. It is most effective when we choose to legitimize it by declaring "war." John Kerry got slammed in the press for arguing that terrorism should be understood as a nuiscence to be contained, like other crime. THAT attitude was the right one.

Treating absurd thugs like absurd thugs, and weeding them out gracefully with long term commitments to intellegence and calculated force would have been smart. Then we could have used political pressures to deal with the institutional problems that help fuel terrorism. One of the sadder things about this mess is that we had an opportunity to really encourage some kind of reform in the middle east. That chance is over now, and moderates are having a tough go of it over there.

Terrorists are not afraid of war. It is what they want. We screwed up by giving it to them. We needed spies and cops, not soldiers. Now we are the "bad guys" or at least the guys who don't have much to offer, and so we continue to lose.

Nic -- "terrorism is not the greatest threat facing America today; it never has been, and it never will be. ...Do you really think that the potential consequences of global warming are not infinitely scarier than a hundred (thousand?) suicidal extremists? "

Well, that sums up a lot: Given the threat of a violent, often irrational group who have sworn to destroy us and everything we stand for (and have proven they have the willingness and ability to carry out their plans) and the theory that we might suffer a little bit because of a change in the weather if we don't live "ecologically correct" lives, the liberal response is to pick the one in which America is to blame. The only true villain is, of course, us. Well, I guess those 3000 who died on 9/11 lucked out, they won't have to face the horrors of mild winters. And no, I am no more scared of a melting polar ice cap now than I was 35 years ago when the environmentalists were warning us that the world would soon turn in a giant ice cube. Weather fluctuates; it happens, it is part of nature. I do find it fascinating how the left claims to have this great reverence for nature, but somehow views it as this fragile, helpless entity that bends and breaks with the slightest human intervention. Al "the sky is falling" Gore's tiresome campaign doesn't impress me one iota -- though I don't doubt his sincerity, I do doubt his expertise. To slightly misquote you, Gore "has used the ever growing (warming) threat as a tool to further his own political ends." And the left has used the whole global warming bit to divert attention from their lack of leadership in other areas, including terrorism. (But, I do have to give Gore & Co. credit with this whole "carbon credits" thing -- rich productive people being expected to "buy" credits from poor unproductive people -- it takes a certain skill, and nerve, to turn ecology into a thinly veiled Marxist scam.)

Anyway, Nic, welcome to the conversation. You have made some interesting points, though little I agree with. First off, I no more want to be a spokesman for Bush than I wanted to be a spokesman for O'Reilly. Could Bush have done a better job? Yeah, sure. Could someone have done a better job than Bush? Quite possibly -- but certainly not Gore. But has Bush done a bad job? No, his efforts and his successes have been as greatly underappreciated as his failures have been inflated, most certainly by the left whose only interest has been in seeing him fail.

But let's discuss some of your points: You say: "Merwyn seems to think that going to Iraq has somehow protected America from terrorists."
Not necessarily, but I do think being in Iraq has accomplished several things. For one thing, it re-established American strength. The rhetoric of the Islamic terrorists always stressed that they felt save in attacking us because we were viewed as weak and cowardly and unwilling to fight back. Diplomacy is always the first, best recourse, but diplomacy failed repeatedly. Taking a stand in Afghanistan and Iraq at the very least shows our strength. Also, though you seem to think that Saddam was really a pretty swell guy, there is ample evidence that he was a terrorist, even if that terrorism was directed at his own people. And, yes, his own threats indicated his hopes for outward aggression and plans for using WMDs -- which Clinton's intelligence confirmed. (And evidence that WMDs had been present was found after the invasion. Where you get this notion he was "anti-terrorist" I haven't a clue. It seems that your undisputed facts are pure conjecture and highly disputable.) Also, the war shifted the focus from American soil and back to the Middle East -- to the terrorists' backyard. So, did invading Iraq make us safer? If it made terrorists think twice about attacking us, if it shut down one ruthless enemy of ours, if it establishes a democracy in the region -- then yes, I think, in the long run, it will make us safer.

Your praise for Clinton's brilliant handling of the terrorist problem is intriguing. It would seem to me that 9/11 would contradict that assertion. Yes, it happened during Bush's administration, nine months after he took office -- but the plan was apparently in the works for years, possibly since their first attack on the WTC, during Clinton's watch. You claim that Bush didn't take the threat seriously -- I doubt this, but even it is true, if Clinton did such a bang-up job, why should Bush have worried? But assuming that Bush didn't take the threat seriously enough before 9/11, then the same could be said about Clinton before the first WTC attack. And let's see, when Clinton calls terrorism "the greatest threat facing internation(al) stability," he is a leader; but when Bush stresses the same thing he's "using it as a political tool for his own ends." You seem to have this double standard when measuring the actions of the two men. I believe with all my heart that if 9/11 has occurred during Clinton's reign, and he handled everything just as Bush has -- including "limiting civil liberties" -- he would be praised for his leadership, his courage and his brilliance. And the media would record his every victory with solemn respect. But, of course, Clinton wouldn't have handled it the same way; that would have taken decisive leadership -- never a Clinton strong point.

As for Hillary Clinton's "detailed and well-nuanced plans with how to deal with the situation in Iraq," are those the ones she'll only reveal after she is elected president?

And as for whether the war has "made life better or worse for the average American," you say "the standard of living of the average American has suffered." Well, if that is what you have heard, okay. But the reports I have heard say that unemployment is low, the stock market is strong, and generally speaking the economy is doing well (though the huge national debt is very much something to worry about) -- but, all in all, things are not that bad considering one of the aims of the 9/11 attacks was to destroy our economy. We faced a major depression and panic after 9/11; that did not happen. Plus, as I said, the terrorist threats have shifted to the Middle East, so we are not "neck deep in terrorists." No war improves any standard of living, but considering the sacrifices the country made due to the first two World Wars and the chaos and conflict inspired by Viet Nam, this war hasn't cost us much in the way of personal sacrifice. Only time will tell if it's been worth it.

Jamie -- Your insistence that the terrorist threat has been downgraded from "job #1" inadvertently supports Bush's policies. Apparently you -- and Nic and a lot of other Americans -- don't take terrorism very seriously any more. Is that because you are foolhardy and shallow? Or is it more likely that the means and methods used by the Bush administration has, indeed, decreased the real threat of terrorism on our soil. It is sort of a no-win situation for George: If there are more acts of terror, then he'll be blamed for not doing his job, but if the violence is curtailed, he isn't given credit for his effectiveness, rather he is attacked for over-reacting to a non-existing problem. He can't win.

You ARE right that Bush's "can't win" in the eyes of many liberals, just as Clinton "couldn't win" in the eyes of many conservatives, and yes, some of the hatred of the guy is irrational. But the problems here go much deeper than any ideological disagreement I have with the guy. The more we learn about the Bush administration, the more corrupt and incompetent they seem. Sure Clinton was imperfect, but come on. Bush is astoundingly bad.

I'm not saying terrorism isn't serious. I AM saying that the Bush's style of dealing with it- going in with a huge military production, was the wrong tactic. It legitimized, in the eyes of many people in the middle East, a dangerous minority movement that we should have worked to marginalize. I'll be more direct. This is not a military problem, it's a political one, as even the pro-war polemicists admit. The reason that neo con Bush advisors like Wolfowitz, Pearl, and (to a lesser degree) Cheney were interested in invading was to give democracy a foothold in the Arab world. Iraq was a rouge state, and so it became the focal point for them. It was a target of opportunity. This was a war started for political reasons, and admirable ones. But it seems that its failing badly. When Iraqis think Saddam was better than we are at running the country (as a recent poll confirmed), things are pretty bad.

I actually sympathize with the sentiments behind the logic of getting a Western foothold in Iraq, but alas, it was a disasterous move. You just can't convert people with tanks. And you can't be lie to the American people about your real motives. I am not a fan of Kissinger's realpolitik view of foreign policy (I think he's a war crimial), but somebody might have asked a smart Machiavellian like him for some advice before going to war.

I would argue that "terrorism" isn't nearly as serious as the Bush administration thinks it is. I think radical Islam, as an ideology is very, very dangerous. Jackass terrorists themselves, however, are a mere nuisence. 911 was an exeptional, aberrant accomplishment that happend in part because of the organization coming from inside Aphganistan, a state that was very devoted to overtly planning terrorism. We took that state down. Were there other states that we could attack with that kind of impunity, I'd think it might be a good idea. Iraq did not fall into that category. We haven't had more attacks because our intellegence has stepped up its work, and because Aghganistan was crushed. None of that has anything to do with Iraq.

You just can't kill all the terrorists. It's a hydra-headed thing. Every "matyr" the war creates creates more enemies for us. This is a political problem, and the military solution that Bush is trying to find just ain't gonna happen. If there is a good end to this (and I'd like to think that Iraq will eventually come together), it was slowed down by our bad strategy, not helped.

Jamie - "The more we learn about the Bush administration, the more corrupt and incompetent they seem. Sure Clinton was imperfect, but come on. Bush is astoundingly bad."

"Corrupt and incompetent" has been used to describe every administration ever -- or at least as far back as LBJ's, the one furtherest back for me to remember. It comes with the job and only time tells if it is true. And even then, there are historians who defend the Nixon administration. I think Bush has had fewer accusations of corruption, but then he got a grace period from the liberals because of 9/11.

I like Bush and I respect that he is a man who fights for what he believes. I can't say the same for Clinton, who wimped out on just about everything. The one thing he fought for with any conviction was to stay in office. But the first promise he was expected to keep was to support gays in the military. Instead, he backed "don't ask, don't tell," which he called a compromise, even though it was a total win for the conservatives. That set the tone for his entire administration.

As for Bush's handling of Iraq, you may be absolutely right. I agree that getting a foothold in the region was a major reason for the war. We have tried to establish a good relationships with all the countries in the area politically -- by supporting rebels, by supporting regimes, by giving them aid, by buying their oil, etc. But no matter who we support, we offend someone else. I think one miscalculation by Bush was assuming that, if we got rid of Saddam, the Iraqis would be grateful. We ALWAYS assume that if we help another country, they will be grateful. Instead, resentment is usually the result. Still, it was a calculated risk; and we are there and pulling out too soon will guarantee even more chaos -- and I think even more terrorism. If we "lose," the terrorists will see that as proof of our weakness and their righteousness.

I do disagree with you though about it not being a military matter. It became a military matter on 9/11. It's been on the verge of being a military thing since the establishment of the state of Israel. And our support of Israel is probably the root reason for the extremists' hatred of the U.S. And that isn't going to go away. It seems that all the Arab nations are separate entities, with separate policies (and many hate each other), but they are united in their Muslim faith in their hatred for Jews. And I think many see the U.S. as an extention of Israel. Playing politics probably won't change that, and maybe Iraq becoming a democracy might not make any difference either. But as far as I can see, leaving too soon will do far more damage than staying too long.

I'm with you for the most part.

While I deplore the administration's characterization of the "get out of Iraq" position as a weak, almost traitorous, "cut and run" strategy, I think the drive to withdraw is a mistake. The idea seems to be that since starting the war was a bad idea, ending our involvement in the war is a good idea. Well. . . if we had a time machine and could PREVENT the war, or if we could start over and fight it with a better sense of strategy, that'd be great. Making a mess and then leaving it is not so great. When Bush says that this is a dangerous idea, I'm inclined to agree with him. There's some merit in the idea that since our presence in inflaming so many people and causing so many problems, our departure might allow some kind of progress, but come on. The idea that our jumping ship is going to magically make everything better is as fantastic as the administration's delusional prediction that the Iraqi people would love us for occupying their country.

What I'd like to see at this point would be a shift from hunting terrorists to creating stability. That mission would take a long time. It would be expensive. And it might mean we would have a BIGGER force in Iraq, not a smaller one. But it might mean that we might actually gain some ground in the political struggle against extremism. In the early days of the occupation, many generals on the ground we actually using this strategy, and the territories they controlled were doing pretty well. Then they were ordered to abandon that to go kill the bad guys. I'm all for killing the bad guys, but I just don't think that's really the point. The point is to get the people of Iraq to understand the bad guys to BE the bad guys. Then they will be marginal jerks that we can kill, not defenders against the great Satan. I think radical Islamism is disgusting, but we aren't doing such a good job of "selling our brand" in the Middle East with this reckless, cowboy war.

McCain's idea that we should have had more troops seems right to me. Part of why this was so awful is that Donald Rumsfeld pushed his generals into a strategy of using smaller, faster shock attacks because he wanted to show how effective his restructured system worked. Even if you think we should have gone to war (And that is a reasonable position. . . just so long as you don't make the case in the way that the administration actually did), you have to admit that we fought it in the most arrgant, willfully clueless way we could.

And that's where we differ. I don't think Bush's mistakes were the least bit excusable. Yes, this was an unprecedented situation, and yes, I think his heart was and is in the right place, but I also think that he is reckless and stubborn, and I think that he puts ideology before political process. I think he had plenty of access to realistic information about what an invasion of Iraq might actually mean, but he chose to stick to a narrow, ideologically driven interpretation of the situation. The kind of strategic back and forth with the military and the C. I. A., and the kind of politcal back and forth between the administration and congress, just didn't happen. (Certainly some of that is Congress's fault. And certainly the media dropped the ball for not asking halfway intellegent questions. . . or any questions at all. . .)I think that Bush and Donald Rumsfeld chose a style of leadership that marginalized desenting points of view, and I think that their unwillingness to listen led us to make catastrophic mistakes. I also think that they were pretty willing to willfully distort intellegence. The more we find out about the sources of the intellegence that was used to make the case, the worse Bush looks. (Although to be fair, it is disingunuous to say that Bush invented the idea of WMD's in Iraq. Everybody thought he had 'em, and everybody knows that he did at one time, because he used them on more than one occasion.)

I also think Bush has had less heat for his corruption not because he's less corrupt that other politicians (you're pretty much right that everybody cheats in politics. . . that's why they call it politics), but because he's served over an absurd Republican Congress that hasn't done it's job of oversight very well. The laundry list of scandals that are being investigated right now by the new Democratic Congress should have been dealt with as they happened. It's pathetic that we have people from Pat Robertson's law school were serving in high ranking positions in the justice department, and its more pathetic that Congress is just beginning to complain about it.

I'm not saying one party is better than the other. I'm saying that the two have to have some back and forth, or one group will run amuck. I hate the Republican party with a passion right now because they have had a remarkable amount of leeway for the past few years, and they have been remarkably abusive. People like Karl Rove and Tom Delay have no business in positions of authority. Had Bill Clinton served over a Democratic Congress for a longer period of time (he caught the tail end of a bloated, ridiculous Dem legistature that was going down) he might have made just as many mistakes as Bush. Bush had a lot of power to do what he wanted, and he chose to screw up. He's got no excuses.

Jamie -- Hi, you've got a lot of good things to say. As far as establishing stability in Iraq, I don't think that can be done as long as the "bad guys" are still running wild. It's like trying to landscape your lawn without getting rid of the weeds. I don't think it is an either/or situation or even that one is more important than the other. The two are depended on each other. Clearly, we've got to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, but some form of military presense will surely be needed for years to come, both to help protect the country and their democracy, and to maintain some sort of working relationship. Bush has always said this was a long term project, that we had to be prepared to be in for the long haul. I think the Democrats play on the American demand for instant gratification and easy answers.

Jimmy Carter's recent remarks about Bush being the worse president history (ironic, considering the source), has me thinking about Bush's so-called incompetance. Perhaps Carter's biggest fiasco in office was his attempt to recue the hostages: the mission failed and several soldiers were kill, not due to bad planning, but due to unforseen problems. But had the mission been successful, Carter would have been a hero and quite possibly won another term. That is the risk that you take with any miliary mission; you can't forsee all that can go wrong and more things can go wrong then one can imagine. Carter put his administration on the line and failed, but it wasn't necessarily his fault. He took a shot. Bush did the same thing, but people seem to forget just how smoothly the original invasion went. Saddam's regime fell very quickly and with relatively little violence. Bush did fail by overestimating the gratitude of the Iraqi people, but then we Americans always do. Hindsight is always 20/20, and always unprovable. Had he used a different strategy, things might have worked better, or they might have been a total disaster. For every general or other expert who said "let's do it this way," there was probably another who said "let's do it another way." The "cowboy" approach may seem wrong now, but may have been the most logical and promising option at the time.

Nobody "chose(s) to screw up;" I'm sure he had is reasons for picking whatever options he had, and those reasons may not coincide with yours or even mine. It always gets to me when someone claims that Bush started the war to avenge his father's reputation or make profits for Haliburton or because he is religious conservative. When I hear that I immediately discount the credibility of anyone who says that. Going to war is never one man's choice and it is never made lightly, no matter who the president is. There are too many people involved and to many complications -- and no one starts a war because he thinks it will increase his standing in the polls, because wars are never popular (except in hindsight if we win).

Also, you argue that "It's pathetic that we have people from Pat Robertson's law school w