Since my blog has moved, I can no longer use Bloggers "Follower" gadget. If you are a part of NetWorked blogs, which includes a Facebook page, you can follow through NetworkedBlogs, and I can follow you back. Please come to my new blog - MaggiesNotebook.com, see the NetworkedBlogs widget in the right sidebar and click follow. I will follow back.
"I learned that in extreme situations when human lives and dignity are at state, neutrality is a sin. It helps the killers, not the victims." Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor who lost his family in the Holocaust - Nobel Prize Author
Socialism - Liberalism Quotation
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." – Norman Thomas
American socialist, 1948
Showing posts with label O'Reilly/Factor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label O'Reilly/Factor. Show all posts
O'Reilly asks Sarah Palin if she had a "big beef" with the President's speech tonight. Her answer: "I kinda have a big beef with you too, Bill if you don't acknowledge that Obama is wrong on his call for a need for energy policy. We see a pattern here: everyone thinks O'Reilly is more wrong than he is right these days. See the video
Sarah Palin
Bill had to pretended he didn't feel that verbal knife, expertly wielded by by one of the few public personalities who does know something about energy, knows many others who know more, and competently points out that Obama knows squat and showed it tonight.
O'Reilly works till to a sweat to keep Obama seeing The Factor as the only on-air Fox option for his regime. He worked just as hard to recover from Palin's scathing assessment of the Oil Czar Speech with the focus on new Cap and Tax, as well as his own lame view. Fortunately for Bill, he was off camera more than he was on.
Laura Ingraham argues with O'Reilly that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is over FEMA, and Big Sis needs to go. See the video below.
Laura Ingraham
She points out that we don't need the top musicians at the White House (Paul McCartney). We need the top engineers from all over the country. Laura has the cojones to tell Bill "this is the spin zone," and it wasn't a slip of the tongue. Then she held up the Kool-Aid. It ends with Laura saying: "I'll give you a Salazar and I'll raise you a Napolitano and a Holder."
O'Reilly was stunned, and tried to cover. He told Laura he saw the Kool-Aid delivered to her house. Lame. Really lame. Really embarrassing for Bill, because Ingraham is saying what many of us are saying about Bill O'Reilly's Factor. Thanks to The Right Scoop.
Laura Ingraham and Bill O'Reilly on Spin and Kool-Aid (video)
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) was on O'Reilly tonight to explain why he took a couple of shots at FOX News recently. The background to the story is an Oklahoma woman in a Townhall setting in Coburn's district asked the Senator about a penalty in the health care law that could result in a jail sentence for failure to buy health care and/or failure to pay a penalty. Coburn told her there was no intention to put anyone in jail. Then he unleashed on her. He accused her of watching FOX News. See new video below.
So tonight on O'Reilly Coburn tries to tell Bill that his constituents watch FOX, and if she thought there was a jail penalty, it had to come from FOX. He actually said: "she didn't make that up."
O'Reilly opined that his staff had done their homework and no one on FOX ever said there were jail penalties in the health care law. Coburn didn't know what to say to that.
But here's the real story: In the House bill there was a jail penalty! The Senate took the language out. The woman should have been praised for knowing her stuff. Afterall, how could any of us keep up with the thousands of pages in the House bill, in the Senate bill, and in the House reconciliation bill? It was very difficult to know what actually passed - as Pelosi warned us by saying, "we need to pass health care so you will know what's in it."
Either Coburn is ill informed or disingenuous. He is my Senator. Most of the time I am very proud to have him represent me, but his attitude was unfortunate. He owes an apology to the woman and to all Conservative Oklahomans, whom he seems to think knows nothing unless we get it from FOX News.
Bill O'Reilly and Tom Coburn - What Coburn Forgot (video)
I'm not so patiently awaiting Senator Tom Coburn's appearance on O'Reilly tonight to tell us just why he blamed and blasted FOX News this week. So while I am waiting, I see that little Greggy Giusti's 83-year-old mamma says FOX News made her darlin' boy threaten House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - death threats, apparently. Of course, she also slips in that her darlin' has a history of mental problems.
Gregory Giusti
"Greg frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas and that are not consistent with myself or the rest of the family, which gets him into problems," she said. "I say Fox News, or all of those that are really radical, and he, that's where he comes from."
Shame, shame on this woman. Liberals cannot own up to anything. Both mother and son are from San Francisco, but...still...this is downright ignorant. Did I mention that little Greggy has a..."past?"
2004 criminal threats conviction: 1 year in country jail, 3 years probation, mandatory counseling
Hamilton Square Baptist Church: A current lawsuit, filed in February 2010 - a campaign of harrassment against Church members
BART sued him for non-payment of fares
1992 convicted for Welfare Fraud and Petty Theft
It's about time this mother take responsibility for her own, or label him the nutjob that he is. Blaming FOX News is just...well, ignorant. And Tom Coburn is ignorant too.
Gregory Giusti Threatens Nancy Pelosi and Ends Up In the Slammer (video)
Earlier this week, Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly discussed the Westboro Baptist Church's picketing of the funeral of Albert Synder's son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, a Marine who was killed in action in Iraq. O'Reilly and Kelly have differing opinions on how to interpret the 4th
Circuit Appeal Court's dismissal of a case that the Snyder's originally won. A couple of days later, Ann Coulter weighed in. See videos below.
Megyn Kelly
Ann Coulter
The 4th Circuit Court ordered the Snyders to pay $16,000 in court costs to the obscene Westboro agitators. The Snyders appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and SCOTUS took the case. In the third video below, O'Reilly says Kelly is "desperately" wrong, and he says if the Snyder's lose at the Supreme Court he will pay the $16,000 for the Marine's family.
There are three videos below, beginning with O'Reilly and Ann Coulter - who are in agreement with the action SCOTUS will probably take, and what law might back-up that decision. The second video is O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly - after Bill's conversation with Coulter. The third video is Bill and Megyn with their original discussion. This is obviously a First Amendment issue. What do you think the Supreme Court will do?
Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter on Westboro Baptist Church (video)
Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly on Westboro Baptist Church (video)
Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly: First Discussion of Westboro Baptist Church (video)
Fellow-blogger and author, Kevin Jackson, was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly about racism in Tea Parties. Kevin, who blogs at the Black Sphere, and authored The Big Black Lie, does conservatives and conservatism proud. Watch how he holds his own with O'Reilly - and watch to end for his comments about Tea Partiers using racial slurs.
Pullout Quote:
The tea party outrage over health care reform, deficit spending and entitlements run amok is no fringe concern..and it is insulting to all voters to suggest that criticism of President Obama, even by people who want to throw him out of office, is motivated by racism. ~ Kevin Jackson
Kevin Jackson
Bill O'Reilly and Kevin Jackson - Racism in Tea Parties
Mike Malloy, a "progressive" radio talk show host in Atlanta, Georgia calls for the deaths of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. Malloy expects the "rat bastards" to be the cause of another Murrah Federal Building.
Mike Malloy - Murrah Federal Building
Mike Malloy on Rat Bastards Limbaugh, Beck and O'Reilly (video)
George Stephanopoulos interviewed Bill O'Reilly. Several interesting things in this. The interview begins with health care. O'Reilly says the President's bill will cost far more than the Democrats claim of $1 trillion - instead it will be between $2 trillion and $6 trillion. See the video below.
Stephanopoulos says you sound more and more like Ross Perot. You are representing the angry people in the middle.
Sarah Palin - they play a clip of Jeb Bush saying she needs to take the personal charisma and add some principles of the complexity of the way we live today. O'Reilly said Palin needs to go to political college, and she is doing so, she has hired the people to bring her up to speed.
O'Reilly says, hey, you don't think Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid are genuises? They're afraid to come on my show. They're not genuises.
Bill O'Reilly interviewed by George Stephanopoulous (video)
Bill O'Reilly discussed Obama Bashing and Socialism this week, and compared the Bush Bashing of the last administration, to that of what speakers at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) are doing this week in Washington, D.C. Rush Limbaugh worked this latest O'Reilly fetish into his program today. See two videos below.
Bill O'Reilly interviews Barack Obama
Does Obama Bashing accomplish anything, O'Reilly asked. One of his examples of bashing at CPAC, was Mitt Romney announcing that Lindsay Vonn lost her Olympic Gold Medal because Obama is going downhill faster than her. There were more pithy quips, but you get the idea.
O'Reilly is dead-on perfect when he talks about children, the crimes against children, the punishment of those who abuse children, and the judges who enable the abusers...there is nobody better than O'Reilly, but when he wants an interview with an important personage, he is tolerant of mammoth indecencies, and he desperately wants another interview with Barack Obama.
O'Reilly fails to grasp the urgency most of us feel about this President. He doesn't see the edge of the precipice that you and I see looming. He doesn't see Obama standing there, signing executives orders or worse, with Nancy and Harry, none-too-gently dragging us to the extremity of the world we know, where the President will plant his well-heeled size 12 Allen Edmonds on our posteriors, and tip us over into the spirit-stifling cosmos of socialism, where statist omnipotence cannot be escaped.
When O'Reilly speaks of Socialism, he characterizes it correctly, as you'll see in the second video below, but he is far too mild about the dangers we face. He spends a lot of time talking about out-of-control government spending, but fails to tie it to the agenda of a committed Socialist, or worst. The two are not separate. Socialism depends on mammoth spending.
So here is where Rush Limbaugh comes in. Today a caller said she and her husband began listening to Limbaugh about one year ago when Barack Obama advised the country to stop listening to people like "Rush." You know how O'Reilly states his position, and then asks his guest where he is going wrong? Rush tries that with the caller, Sharon. She doesn't play along well, but that isn't important. Here is where Rush went with conversation:
RUSH [pretending to be O'Reilly]: Well, we just don't like all this Obama bashing here at The Factor, that's for these extreme right-wingers, this Obama bashing, it's not productive, the Bush-bashing wasn't productive. We're going to give socialism and the destruction of the country a fair examination, and if we determine that Obama's destroying the country, we'll report it fairly.
Look, all I'm telling you is that we've gotta give socialism a fair shake for the folks, I'm not going to sit here and condemn it like these right-wingers are. We've gotta give socialism a fair shake, and we here at The Factor are going to give socialism, even communism, a fair shake. We'll do an in-depth investigation, and we'll report back because we're not knee-jerking, and we are looking out for you, the folks.
So, I'm not the only one that loathes O'Reilly's faux pandering, in the name of enlightened wisdom. He simply sounds foolish these days.
The first video below is O'Reilly on Obama Bashing and the second on Socialism, sans alarm bells.
Also of interest are O'Reilly's views on gun confiscation and the Second Amendment:
Elizabeth Trisler, a 19-year-old Ohio woman, won a National Oratory Contest for her delivery of a pro-life speech. Ohio Rep. John Adams asked to present Ms. Trisler with a "Resolution" from the floor of State House of Representatives. At least one Democrat found that idea offensive.
According to Bill O'Reilly's Factor this evening, he began investigating Speaker Armond Budish who effectively said this "resolution" was not appropriate for this House floor. The O'Reilly investigation changed Budish's mind.
Elizabeth Trisler and her mother appeared on O'Reilly tonight. Hear her story in the first video below. Ms. Trisler is cool, calm and collected. God bless her for standing up for life.
The day Trisler should have received her "Resolution," Budish presented Taylor Wayne, a young girl, with a Resolution for her Martin Luther King, Jr. oratory. See that in the second video. Do you think Taylor is using a teleprompter?
O'Reilly and Elizabeth Trisler (video)
Taylor Wayne Receives Resolution from Budhish (video)
Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Constitutional attorney, says that the Islamic terrorism perpetrated against this country is not a legal "act of war." He bases his opinion on the fact that al-Qaeda is not a government. Of course, there was no "declaration of war," as there was in WWII.
In this argument, there must be a way to acknowledge the fact that this religion of Islam is also a government, and that government governs the religion. Nothing is done without the sanction of Islam, and Islam sanctions jihad.
For all the many peaceful Muslims living in the U.S. who do not want to hear this, who go to their neighborhood mosque and hear no radical ranting - would never think of a violent act against anyone, the fact is, if you wanted to be a jihadist, Islam will support you. Not the locals - who want to live peacefully in America, raise their children here, educate them, and live the American dream...but if you want to be a jihadist, again the Koran will support you. It's a problem for you and problem for us.
I think Judge Napolitano is right. I also think the Founders would not have thought of this reality we are living today. We need to fix it.
Bill O'Reilly and Judge Andrew Napolitano on Acts of War and the Constitution (video)
Last night, attorney Liz Wiehl appeared on Bill O'Reilly's The Factor. The discussion was about attorney Orly Taitz' $20,000 fine for a frivolous lawsuit seeking to have Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate released. I was shocked to hear Wiehl say that Congress has "investigated" Barack Obama's natural born status. I'm asking when, and who, investigated, where is the report, and how does Wiehl know this? See video below.
Liz Wiehl
She makes other irresponsible claims about "birthers" that she does not back up, and O'Reilly is clueless in his constant reminders that Obama is natural born - again with nothing to back it up. When O'Reilly tells his audience "we" have investigated, and Obama is natural born citizen - I want to smack him. He says "we" have seen the birth certificate, but he never engages in a full discussion of what is really known or not known. Let's have that full discussion, Bill.
I do not believe Bill O'Reilly has seen Obama's long-form birth certificate, and I certainly do not believe Congress has investigated. If someone knows differently I hope they come forward.
You'll see in the video below that O'Reilly asks all the wrong questions. Notice that this conversation asserts that the Obama administration loves the focus on the birth certificate. The problem is, this should have been solved before there was an Obama administration - an arrogant administration, according to O'Reilly.
The questions should be: Who has seen Obama's long-form birth certificate? Why has Obama not released his long-form birth certificate? Why does Congress not always vet a presidential candidate, as they did John McCain?
There are times I like Juan Williams, and times I'm shaking my finger (index finger), but in this interview, I feel his frustration and unbelief that racism has no avenue for civil discourse. Warren Ballentine, a radio talker Chicago-born and bred, ended an interview with "you can go back to the porch now Juan." See video below.
Juan Williams
Although I heard the interview, I did 'catch it' - it was almost inaudible unless you are listening for it. Had I heard it, I wouldn't have known what it meant. Rev. Ken Hutcherson, a former NFL player, says "go back to the porch," is the same as calling someone a house negro. Juan says it means an "Uncle Tom, house negro, lazy, a tool of slave owners.
Ken Hutcherson
Ballentine's website says he has three hours of "thought radio," daily and he is "the People's Attorney."
Warren Ballentine
Rev. Hutcherson, "a close friend" of Rush Limbaugh, said Ballentine's statement is one of the most racist statements he has ever heard. Hutcherson points out his friend, Rush Limbaugh, was "lied upon," - or lied about. That's fairly simple. Someone was lied about, and skin color doesn't matter when your principles are grounded.
Juan Williams put it this way to Rev. Hutcherson: "God help you, God help me, we are the targets of attack for being less than faithful to all that has happened with to black people in America - and we are made out to be house slaves. " (A slight paraphrase.) I agree with Juan, God help us all.
Geraldo was on O'Reilly tonight and as usual, when Geraldo talks, and you just try to ignore him, he says something really stupid that makes your head snap-to. The conversation was about John Edwards. Here's one more example of the disingenuous grandstander, Geraldo Rivera:
Geraldo Rivera
The discussion started with John Edwards and his mistress and his wife, and whether or not his wife, Elizabeth, knew about Rielle Hunter, his mistress - not only if she knew but when she knew.
From there they discussed one of Edwards' campaign workers, Andrew Young, who having sharpened his stupidity in the company of John Edwards, stepped up and fell on "it," when the affair and the baby were made public.
Young said Hunter's child was his.
Time passed, book offers flooded in and Andrew Young decided the baby wasn't his after all. That made his wife very happy. Young's memory was refreshing itself, and guess what? He remembered that John Edwards made a sex tape, and he remembered that it was stashed away in his own house or office, and he knew exactly where that tape was stored.
The discussion moved to descriptions of what a miserable sack of something John Edwards is and about the charges he may be facing.
Geraldo said something very close to this (paraphrased):
Bill, if this had not gotten out and Edwards had been the Democrat candidate, and if Edwards had won the presidency and moved himself into the Oval Office, what Bill, would we have done if China or someone got hold of that tape...
I think Geraldo might have shuddered at the monstrous thought of a U.S. president being blackmailed. Righteous anger dominated the conversation.
I remember that feeling. Blackmail was my real concern about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. But no one in Washington D.C., on either side of the aisle, seemed concerned about it. I'm not sure about those outside the U.S., but silly girl - of course Monica wasn't blackmailing our President.
Geraldo "hit the motherlode" with the Lewinsky-Clinton affair. The New York Observer call him the Master of MonicaGate. Remember when Geraldo suggested 9-11-01 may have never happened had CIA and FBI not been sidetracked by MonicaGate?
O’Reilly told Rivera "there’s a residual anger" against him from FNC viewers over his defense of Bill Clinton. Rivera defended his defense: "It was a huge national distraction, going after a guy who lied about getting oral sex from a woman he wasn’t married to and I think I know a million guys who get sex from a woman they weren’t married to and to impeach the President over that just didn’t see appropriate."
Yes, certainly no big deal to Geraldo when his chum, President Bill Clinton kept Yasser Arafat cooling his heels in the White House Rose Garden until he finished with Monica, or the other way around.
Later, after we knew all we would know about MonicaGate, thanks to Ken Starr, Geraldo told FOX News' Shep Smith that he never did get an interview with Bill:
Smith noted: "You were out there for him."
Rivera agreed: "I really was. I think if there were one journalist -- you know, and I understand your viewers' wrath if there's one journalist who really helped save Bill Clinton's behind, it was me.
I don't regret it. I really, when push comes to shove, he was a liar, a perjurer, but he was basically an adulterer. I think that's, he had a character flaw. He may still. But that's basically what it was about. Had he been guilty of peddling nuclear secrets or doing something more blatant, something more profoundly affecting the well being of the republic, I would have been on the same side as the majority of my colleagues in the fourth estate.
When Clinton was out in 2000 and Bush was in, Geraldo had ideas about how things should have gone:
Geraldo Rivera after humming the theme from Rocky over footage of Clinton’s pre-speech hallway walk at the Democratic convention, August 21, 2000 Rivera Live on CNBC: "You’re going to miss that guy. Don’t tell me you’re not gonna miss that guy. This is a master. He may be a rogue, but he is an artful and pleasant rogue and done a hell of a job as President. I’m gonna miss the guy...He should’ve been the vice presidential candidate."
The quotes in defense of Bill Clinton's liason with Monica go on and on, after all, as Geraldo said so many times, "it's only sex."
I don't know how anyone supported John Edwards even before we knew about Ms. Hunter, but I know close friends who did until...and then they supported Barack Obama. I have nothing good to say about Edwards so, I not defending him, I'm bashing Geraldo.
I mentioned that O'Reilly is a disingenuous grandstander too. While I like many things that O'Reilly does, especially when he is after judges givinf leniency to child predators, I appreciate what he does. He is good at it, but I've about had it with his continual comments about the amazing prowess of the Obama campaign. Hey O'Reilly, it's over, and now we've got him in the Oval Office. Keep your eye on O-man.
While you couch everything you say about Obama with generosity and moderation, and then ding his ideas, well...wake up. They ARE his ideas and they are extreme ideas. How can you be so generous and so moderate about a man who hatched these particular plans for America?
You are a disingenuous grandstander sometimes, O'Reilly...either that, or this is your way to get Obama back for an interview.
And John Edwards, the disingenuous, lying, cheating scumbag of a grandstander whose ostentatious faux magnanimity gluts his every interview, there is this chat with Katie Couric in December 2007, and she asks how important Edwards believes fidelity is to the character of a president:
COURIC: Harry Truman said, "A man not honorable in his marital relations is not usually honorable in any other." Some people don't feel comfortable supporting a candidate who has not remained faithful to his or her spouse. Can you understand their position?
EDWARDS: Of course. I mean, for a lot of Americans-- including the family that I grew up with, I mean, it's-- it's fundamental to-- how you judge people and human character-- whether you keep your word, whether you keep what is your ultimate word, which is that-- you love-- your spouse, and you'll stay with them.
COURIC: Do you think-- what-- what about people who use that as a way to evaluate a candidate? In other words, there have been a number of fine presidents according to some analysts...who have certainly not been sort of exhibited the greatest moral character when it comes to infidelity...I guess is what I'm getting at.
EDWARDS: Yes.
COURIC: So how important do you think it is in the grand scheme of things?
EDWARDS: I think the most important qualities in a president in today's world are trustworthiness-- sincerity, honesty, strength of leadership. And-- and certainly that goes to a part of that. It's not the whole thing. But it goes to a part of it.
COURIC: So you think it's-- an appropriate way to judge a candidate?
EDWARDS: Yeah. But I don't think it's controlling. I mean, I think that, as you point out, there have been American presidents that at least according to the-- to the stories we've all heard-- that were not faithful, that were in fact good presidents. So I don't think it controls the issue. But I think it's certain-- something reasonable for people to consider.
This is December of 2007. Edwards hired Hunter in 2006 to begin a series of documentary shorts for political purposes. In October 2007, Sam Stein writing for Huffington Post tried to access the "webisodes." Strange thing - they had disappeared. The Edwards camp, now gearing up for campaign mode, said they didn't have them. Rielle Hunter's partner said the Edwards group had them. Stein began wondering who Rielle Hunter was. The hunt for the smoking gun was on.
The Couric interview makes one think that perky Katie knew exactly the position in which she was placing this disingenuous grandstander.
Dennis Miller got serious on Bill O'Reilly this week. The subject was Nancy Pelosi and the dinner she is throwing at her Napa winery. O'Reilly said, sure he would go, if invited, "just to cause chaos." Miller had a far more thoughtful answer, delving deeper into some fairly repugnant feelings he has for the Speaker.
Reports are abuzz that not only is Rielle Hunter's baby's daddy definitely the former Senator John Edwards', but there was a sex tape made as well. See 1-29-10 Update Below.
John Edwards - Rielle Hunter
Edwards has been out of the spotlight since his affair with Hunter was discovered during his 2008 run for U.S. President. You might remember that the National Enquirer "got it right," as they often do these days. The Enquirer reporter got all the info and hung at the hotel. They reported that Edwards was not only visiting Hunter, but a baby was part of the story also. The next day when Edwards tried to leave, he was confronted by National Enquirer reporters.
Shocked to see a reporter, and without saying anything, Edwards ran up the stairs leading from the hotel basement to the lobby. But, spotting a photographer, he doubled back into the basement. As he emerged from the stairwell, reporter Butterfield questioned him about his hookup with Rielle.
What a story that was. So here's what happened next:
Andrew Young, a former aid to John Edwards claimed that Hunter's baby was his during the 2008 campaign - not Edwards. That was before the Young's book deal was signed. Funny thing, Andrew subsequently moved to a new home, unpacked and guess what he found? A videocassette:
Hunter had been hired by the Edwards campaign to videotape the candidate’s movements, but this one is said to have shown him taking positions that weren’t on his official platform.
The purported sex tape confirmed to Hunter that Edwards was even more reckless than he thought.
According to our source, Hunter confided to Young that she and Edwards talked about getting married should the candidate’s cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, pass away, even discussing what music they’d play at their wedding.
John Edward's wife, Elizabeth, was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer while John and Rielle were filming their fun. I just have to ask: how did Andrew Young end up with the tape?
I predict Young's book will be a bestseller.
Other Commentary on the despicable Edwards affair:
Track-A-'Crat
Well...listen (copying that from Senator Obama) Obama cannot be definitive on Iran because of the two differing networks: Shia and Sunni. This is incredibly lame coming from a Presidential nominee.
Obama speaks of the perversion of the ideology and faith of Islam - as though this is something new. The problem is, it's not a perversion. The ideology of Islam demands the faith of Islam to jihad. Jihad is centuries old. The difference between now and centuries ago: they live among us and they have transportation to reach the shores of the free world. Obama's words are intellectually dishonest.
You will hear Senator Obama not wanting to comment on "hypotheticals." He says everything is hypothetical. Planning for the quashing of the Iranian nuclear program is not hypothetical. We have only so many options. Obama ducks it.
Best quote:
O'Reilly: OK. We'll assume you're going to ratchet everything you can ratchet. But I'm going to assume that Iran is going to say, "Blank you.
Transcript below the video.
Video courtesy of Youtube.com
O'REILLY: Well, first of all, thanks for being a man of your word.
BARACK OBAMA, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You bet.
O'REILLY: But I was worried there for awhile. It's been nine months since we last met in New Hampshire.
OBAMA: It took a little while. I've had a few things to do in between, but I appreciate you having me on the show.
O'REILLY: OK. Let's start with national security. Do you believe we're in the middle of a War on Terror?
OBAMA: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: Who's the enemy?
OBAMA: Al Qaeda, the Taliban, a whole host of networks that are bent on attacking America, who have a distorted ideology, who have perverted the faith of Islam, and so we have to go after them.
O'REILLY: Is Iran part of that component?
OBAMA: Iran is a major threat. Now, I don't think that there is a — the same — they are not part of the same network. You've got Shia, and you've got Sunni. We've got to have the ability to distinguish between these groups, because, for example, the war in Iraq is a good example, where I believe the administration lumped together Saddam Hussein, a terrible guy, with Al Qaeda, which had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein.
O'REILLY: We'll get to that.
OBAMA: And as a consequence, we ended up, I think, misdirecting our resources. So they're all part of various terrorist networks that we have to shut down and we have to destroy, but they may not all be part and parcel of the same ideology.
O'REILLY: But I still don't understand — and I'm asking this as an American as well as a journalist — how threatening you feel Iran is? Look, if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, OK, to me, they're going to give it to Hezbollah if they can develop the technology. Why not? And they'll say, "Well, we didn't have anything to do with it."
So therefore, the next president of the United States is going to have to make a decision about Iran, whether to stop them militarily, because I don't believe — if diplomacy works, fine, but you've got to have a Plan B, and a lot of people say, "Look, Barack Obama is not going to attack Iran."
OBAMA: Here's where you and I agree. It is unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon. It would be a game changer, and I've said that repeatedly. I've also said I would never take a military option off the table.
O'REILLY: But would you prepare for one?
OBAMA: Well, listen...
O'REILLY: That's the question though, senator. Anybody can say option. Would you prepare for it?
OBAMA: Look, it is not appropriate for somebody who is one of two people who can be the president of the United States to start tipping their hand in terms of what their plans might be with respect to Iran. It's sufficient to say I would not take the military option off the table and that I will never hesitate to use our military force in order to protect the homeland and United States' interests.
But where I disagree with you is the notion that we've exhausted every other resource, because the fact of the matter is that, for six, seven years, during this administration, we weren't working as closely as we needed to do with the Europeans to create...
O'REILLY: Diplomacy might work. You might be able to sanction economically.
OBAMA: …sanctions.
O'REILLY: Maybe.
OBAMA: Maybe.
O'REILLY: But that's all hypothetical.
OBAMA: Everything is hypothetical, but the question is, are we trying to do what we need to do to ratchet up the pressure on them, to change their...
O'REILLY: OK. We'll assume you're going to ratchet everything you can ratchet. But I'm going to assume that Iran is going to say, "Blank you. We're going to do what we want." And I want a president, whether it's you or McCain, who says, "You ain't doing that."
All right. Let's go to Iraq. I think history will show it's the wrong battlefield, OK? And I think that you were perspicacious in your original assessment of the battlefield.
OBAMA: I appreciate that.
O'REILLY: I think you were desperately wrong on the surge, and I think you should admit it to the nation that now we have defeated the terrorists in Iraq, and the Al Qaeda came there after we invaded, as you know. We defeated them.
OBAMA: Right.
O'REILLY: If we didn't, they would have used it as a staging ground. We've also inhibited Iran from controlling the southern part of Iraq by the surge, which you did not support. So why won't you say, "I was right in the beginning. I was wrong about that"?
OBAMA: If you listen to what I've said, and I'll repeat it right here on this show, I think that there's no doubt that the violence is down. I believe that that is a testimony to the troops that were sent and General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated, by the way, including President Bush and the other supporters. It has gone very well, partly because of the Anbar situation and the Sunni awakening, partly because of the Shia military. Look...
O'REILLY: But if it were up to you, there wouldn't have been a surge.
OBAMA: Look...
O'REILLY: No, no, no, no.
OBAMA: No, no, no...
O'REILLY: If it were up to you, there wouldn't have been a surge.
OBAMA: No, no, no.
O'REILLY: You and Joe Biden, no surge.
OBAMA: Hold on a second, Bill. If you look at the debate that was taking place, we had gone through five years of mismanagement of this war that I thought was disastrous. And the president wanted to double down and continue on an open-ended policy that did not create the kinds of pressure on the Iraqis to take responsibility and reconcile.
O'REILLY: But it worked. It worked. Come on.
OBAMA: Bill, what I've said is — I've already said it succeed beyond our wildest dreams.
O'REILLY: Why can't you say, "I was right in the beginning, and I was wrong about the surge"?
OBAMA: Because there's an underlying problem where what have we done. We have reduced the violence.
O'REILLY: Yes.
OBAMA: But the Iraqis still haven't taken responsibility, and we still don't have the kind of political reconciliation. We are still spending, Bill, $10 to $12 billion a month.
O'REILLY: And I hope if you're president, you can get them to kick in and pay us back.
OBAMA: They've got $79 billion.
O'REILLY: I'll go with you.
OBAMA: Let's go.
O'REILLY: We'll get some of that money back.
All right. Let's go to Afghanistan. Look, there's no winning the Taliban war unless Pakistan cracks down on the guys that are in Pakistan.
OBAMA: You and I agree completely. Right.
O'REILLY: We all know that.
OBAMA: Right.
O'REILLY: You gave a speech in Denver — good speech, by the way.
OBAMA: Thank you.
O'REILLY: But you bloviated about McCain not following him to the cave. You're not going to invade Pakistan, senator, if you're president. You're not going to send ground troops in there. You know it.
OBAMA: Here's the problem. John McCain loves to say, "I would follow them to the gates of Hell."
O'REILLY: But he's not going to invade either.
OBAMA: And the point is what we could have done...
O'REILLY: No, not could. Let's stay in now.
OBAMA: What we can do...
O'REILLY: Yes.
OBAMA: ...is stay focused on Afghanistan and put more pressure on the Pakistanis.
O'REILLY: Like what?
OBAMA: For example, we are providing them military aid without having enough strings attached. So they're using the military aid that we use to Pakistan, they're preparing for a war against India.
O'REILLY: So you're going to pull it out and let the Islamic fundamentalists take them over?
OBAMA: No, no, no, no. What we say is, look, we're going to provide them with additional military support targeted at terrorists, and we're going to help build their democracy and provide...
O'REILLY: We're doing that now. Negroponte's over there, and he's doing that.
OBAMA: That is not what we've been doing, Bill. We've wasted $10 billion with Musharraf without holding him accountable for knocking out those safe havens.
O'REILLY: So you are going to — again, more diplomacy, and we need it, absolutely, trying to convince the Pakistan government to take a more aggressive approach. If you don't, we're going to pull…
OBAMA: And what I will do is, if we have bin Laden in our sights...
O'REILLY: Yes.
OBAMA: ...we target him, and we knock him out.
O'REILLY: But everybody would do that. I mean, that would be the biggest win Bush could have.
OBAMA: Of course.
O'REILLY: If you send ground troops in, all hell breaks loose.
OBAMA: We can't — we can't have — and nobody talked about some full-blown invasion of Pakistan, but the simple point that I made was we've got to put more pressure on Pakistan to do what they need to do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'REILLY: All right. Again, the rest of the interview will be seen on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week [September 8, 9, 10], and it is lively.
FAIR USE: This blog may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner or may be authorized or licensed for publication at this site only. Permission to copy, republish or reproduce such material must be obtained from the original copyright owner.
Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Important Notice
Patrons of this Blog are advised that they will be held responsible for any unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, or harmful material of any kind or nature posted by their respective ISP. Patrons are cautioned not to transmit via comments, including links to any material that encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation. Comments here are typically unmoderated and unedited. The fact that particular comments remain on the site in no way constitutes the site owner's endorsement of commenters' views.
![Twitter](<a href="http://www.twitter.com/maggiesnotebook"><img src="http://twitter-badges.s3.amazonaws.com/follow_me-b.png" alt="Follow maggiesnotebook on Twitter"/></a>){kind=small}
