February 7, 2006 12:03 PM
Bill O'Reilly on Stephen Colbert:
Even Colbert's most obvious targets don't mind being mocked. "He does it without being mean-spirited, which is a refreshing change," says Fox News anchor O'Reilly. "Ninety percent of them are just vicious and they use their platform to injure people, but it doesn't seem that Colbert does that." Does he see himself in Colbert's character? "Yeah, sure," O'Reilly says. "The formula of his program is, they watch the 'Factor' and they seize upon certain themes that work for him. He ought to be sending me a check every week, 'cause we're basically the research for his writers. I feel it's a compliment."
O'Reilly wants royalty checks from Stephen Colbert (02.07.2006)
Next Entry: Fixing problems...sometimes it's not so hard. (02.08.2006)
Previous Entry: The State of the Union is RAD (02.06.2006)
Tom from Madison:
It's nice to see O'Reilly be such a good sport about Colbert kicking his a$$ each and every night.
Stephen Colbert flat-out rocks. He's a serious talent and effectively reduces "traditionalist" diatribes to their logical absurdities.
I have to disagree with Bill O'Reilly about watching his the Factor. I used to watch O'Reilly a lot more. Now that the Colbert Report is on I don't bother. Stephen is much more entertaining and has righeousness on his side. This is television at it's best!
Tue Feb 7 2006 12:22 PM
scott:
i think bill is much funnier, and has a lot more integrity than colbert et al. both shows are merely entertainment, but bill's points of view are not padded by a satirical format like colbert. acts like colbert and stewart defend themselves by saying that their show is just a joke, but at least in stewart's case, he takes himself (and his anti-right views) far more seriously than he would like to admit.
Tue Feb 21 2006 2:33 PM
Mike of the Great White North:
No, i think the difference is that Stewart admits he's not 'real' news... unlike Bill. Stewart indeed takes himself seriously and uses his show to parody news to point out the deficencies of 'mainstream' media. O'Lielly truely takes himself seriously as a 'journalist' and being factual and 'no spin' which he and his masters know is all a crock of shit, but unlike Stewart, he wont own up to it.
Tue Feb 21 2006 3:37 PM
angie:
there's a colbert fan site here: http://www.colbertrocks.org
Thu Feb 23 2006 2:42 AM
Anonymous:
whats wrong with views "padded by a satirical format"?
Wed Jan 17 2007 12:14 AM
Geoff:
Colbert and Stewart get the "between the lines" fact to the people, the comedy is more than padding, it's armor, because it's "satire" they can bring the truth to people under the radar so to speak. Rock on guys. Fight the power.
Fri Jan 19 2007 12:40 AM
Cold in 'Sconsin:
I watched my first ever espisode of the O'Reilly Factor today and was entertained, but I'm confused by some of the above comments. Isn't Bill's show a satire in the same vein as The Report and Daily Show? His "journalism" and "no spin" is, er, an act, right?
Fri Jan 19 2007 1:55 AM
California Liberal:
Here's why I don't like Fox News:
1. They labeled Mark Foley as a democrat twice
2. They always get the first spin on anything coming from the White House!
3. According to nearly all American Polls, people watching Fox News believe that Saddam had WMDs. They still do!
Fri Jan 19 2007 5:46 AM
Anonymous:
if he didn't have wmds, how did he call all of the kurds? oh right, he did have them before he didn't have them. so now we know he didn't have them cause, oh wait i feel like john kerry. haha. when will liberals learn?
Fri Jan 19 2007 9:48 AM
Andre:
"When will liberals learn" what? How can we "learn" if you can't spell out the lesson? Unless yours is one of those meaningless blanket statement without any real examples?
Fri Jan 19 2007 11:19 AM
Anonymous:
To answer the above question. Saddam killed the kurds in 1988 with chemical weapons procured with technology from European companies. This was done after President Reagan removed Iraq from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1983 and sent Donald Rumsfeld to establish stronger ties with Saddam's government. U.N Resolution 687 was passed in 1991 (Iraq to disarm and comply with inspections). The subsequent, and current, invasion of Iraq appears to show that Iraq was indeed in compliance with the 1991 resolution. The U.S. knew Saddam had WMD's in 1988 because our government helped him obtain those weapons. We are in Iraq today because Bush tried to convince the American public that Iraq STILL had those WMD's, which we all know by now they didn't.
Saddam was a bad man. So is Casto. So is Kim Jong-Il. So is Ahmadinejad. But one thing is clear, Saddam ran a secular state that allowed (forced) Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis to live together without allowing Iran's influence to spread throughout the Mid-East (see Iraq/Iran war 1980-1988). Take Saddam out of the equation, and, well, we all have seen what happens.
So, to complete your sentence from above: "...he did have them before he didn't have them. so now we know he didn't have them cause" inspectors went in to Iraq and didn't find them, and the United States invaded Iraq and didn't find them. Does that help, you ignorant neo-con?
Fri Jan 19 2007 11:40 AM
Orbitus:
Well put, above statement.
We must keep certain things in mind when we talk about the government and the media. First is that the government, in war, has explicit control over who gets the news. Battlefields are dangerous places, and any reporters on them are hand-picked for their safety and for the safety of the units they are embedded in. This, incidentally, also gives the government control over who gets the truth, and what facts are withheld. If CNN spills the beans on the massive malnutrition in Iraq, CNN is replaced by Fox, who is willing to lie to America to get news to the headlines first.
The Bush administration learned well from conflicts like Vietnam, and knows how to control the media to prevent the kinds of massive anti-Bush protests that occurred on British, Argentinian, and other foreign soil. For instance, I was hoping that international organizations such as the Red Cross (or their arab counterpart the Red Crescent) would report loudly on the horrible results of this occupation and point out the tremendous and unacceptable civilian casualties in Iraq, but Bush wisely escorted these objective viewers to the border upon seizing control of the nation.
Keeping these things in mind, we understand that Bill O'Reilly is just doing his job. Hell, maybe he's oblivious and actually believes his own lies.
Sat Jan 20 2007 10:39 PM
Mike of the Great White North:
Glad to see there are still some sane people out there ready to take on these retarded neo-con, freetards and the same bullshit they peddle over and over.
To Cold in Sconsin, NO, O'Lielly's show isn't satire. He's playin for real.
I will give Bill one bit of credit though. He actually took the humour well and wasn't a complete asshole on either his or Colbert's show. A far cry from any other day tho.
Keep up the fight against the misinformed. If you really REALLY want to see how bad it is in certain parts of your country, i suggest you go check out http://www.freerepublic.com
These people walk among you. Be afraid.
Sun Jan 21 2007 11:42 PM
Countergod:
I really have to say that the 'enlightened' liberals here really dont seem enlightened to me. Someone makes a not well formed thought here, and people jump on him calling him a 'retarded neo-con', both insulting someone who made the effort to add something coherant to the conversation AND labeling him in as bigoted a manner as black people were labeled inhuman two hundred years ago. Some enlightenment.
To respond - coherantly - to all this flack about Iraq (which funny as it is, has nothing to do with Bill O'reilly vs Steven Colbert), everybody seems to forget several points:
1) Bush's 2003 state of the union address had 5 (read that FIVE) items that he used as justification for invasion of Iraq. WMD was but one. The others were sponsoring terrorism (paying $25,000 to every palestinean suicide bomber's family and harboring and giving medical care to Al-Zarkawi after the invasion of Afganistan being two prime examples), his gross humanitarian record (UN estimates put his final deathtoll at 3 million people), and finally the constant attacks on US warplanes patrolling the UN mandated no fly zones. Any one of those alone in my mind is justification for war.
As for Mr. Anonymous who was saying that Iraq was proven not to have WMDs: you're right, i think its been pretty well proven... AFTER THE FACT. back in 2003, there were exactly zero intellegence agencies which said that Saddam did not have WMDs. The CIA, MI6, KGB, french, AND Chinese intellegence agencies all said he did. The only people who said Saddam DIDNT have it was Chirac, who apparently accepted 10s of millions in bribes FROM Saddam. Its a lovely web there.
Now getting back to the Bill O'reilly vs Steven Colbert topic... I enjoyed that a lot. I watch both shows as religiouslly as possible. I disagree with a lot of what Bill says, but there are other things i agree with. I laugh at all of the hypocracy that Steven points out, and for that fact, Jon Stewart. I am glad to see that, even though Bill was annoyed (see his show from tuesday night, Jan 23, where he invites someone to analyze his body language and the guest in quesiton repeatedly pointed out that he was annoyed), they both could have a civil, and humerous discussion. Anybody who thought that any of the actual conversations was in any way not in jest or humor needs to pull a stick out of his @$$.
Wed Jan 24 2007 3:01 PM
Dave E.:
"back in 2003, there were exactly zero intellegence agencies which said that Saddam did not have WMDs."
Check this statement, because it's a false assertion. Nobody knew for certain whether Iraq still had WMD's or not. Your statement is false and misleading, and I wish I was paid for everytime I heard or read it. No official intel agency ever said Iraq expressly had no WMD, and most agencies had a healthy skepticism on the issue. Admittedly, no one will ever no for certain. But driving foreign policy based on such uncertain grounds...the so-called "1% Doctrine"...is madness and neurosis fit only for totalitarianism. The Final Solution followed the same logic, fer chrissakes.
Let's deal in facts: The UN teams did their job, found nothing, and reported as such. It was not dispositive of the issue and by no means was grounds for all-out preemptive invasion and subsequent occupation. Invading was simply reckless. Operation Southern and Northern Watch was high-maintenance, but it worked. It was hellaciously costly on the citizens and children of Iraq, but when has the US really cared about them anyway, except when our own guilt needs countenance. Then just throw a pic of a purple finger up, and presto. Also, keeping Hussein contained wasn't costly because the Saudi's paid the bill...until they booted us out. Happening suspiciously close to the decision to invade Iraq.
Anyway. The facts are unassailable and freely available for anyone with an open mind to digest. Form your own conclusions, because the subject has been so twisted and forced into partisan form that it's perverted beyond reason.
For instance, research the DOD's "Office of Special Plans" for details on how a staff of Rumsfeld politicos framed as plausible case as possible out of low-grade intel-intel typically discredited and discarded as unactionable because it comes from drunks and frauds like curveball-to sell the war. Add regular visits to Langley to unduly pressure the CIA by the VP himself (an unprecedented action), toss in the handful of words about a mushroom cloud in the fucking State of the Union address for a good measure of fear, and Jr's got his war.
And here we are, still arguing about WMD's. Despite how this post appears, I've basically quit arguing the subject because the argument would be considered cartoonish if it wasn't so tragic and dispiriting.
Wed Jan 24 2007 11:31 PM
Countergod:
["back in 2003, there were exactly zero intellegence agencies which said that Saddam did not have WMDs."
Check this statement, because it's a false assertion. Nobody knew for certain whether Iraq still had WMD's or not. Your statement is false and misleading, and I wish I was paid for everytime I heard or read it. No official intel agency ever said Iraq expressly had no WMD, and most agencies had a healthy skepticism on the issue. Admittedly, no one will ever no for certain. But driving foreign policy based on such uncertain grounds...the so-called "1% Doctrine"...is madness and neurosis fit only for totalitarianism. The Final Solution followed the same logic, fer chrissakes.]
Forgive me, but the way i read that, you say its wrong then say the same exact thing i just said, in the exact opposite manner. I said no Intel agencies said Saddam had no WMD, and then you come around and say that no one knew for certain EITHER WAY.
Sometimes you cant check the facts, sometimes you jsut dont have all the intel and data. And infact, 99.9% of America does not have more than 5% of the intel and data. You said it exactly, its become a partasan issue, and since most of the things are still classified (for good reason) we wont know for decade - if at all. Trying to judge 'Jr' on something which you have no knowledge of smacks of the same closed mindedness someone accused the other person of somewhere up there.
The UN inspectors were sent in, and after an incredibly short time (just a few months, when the origional UN team took years) the head of the second UN inspection mission (who was known to have taken money directly from the Iraqi government in the past totaling well over 1 million dollars) repeats his assertion from 1996 that there are no WMDs, when all of his peers in the 1996 expidition disagreed. Saddam stonewalls access to several trucks with US satalites watching as trucks drive away from sites as the UN inspectors are kept waiting. Yep... the job was done real well, just like the Oil for Food scandal, and just about everything else under Kofi Annan's watch.
I also like how you ignored the other 4 points which i mentioned. You're right, arguing about WMD has long passed gotten boring. The same vaunted UN's final numbers indicated that three million people had died, between direct executions in Iraq, WMDs used on Southern and northern Iraq, WMDs used on Iranian troops and civilians, and starvation from the same Oil for Food scandal. That is three MILLION. The last time someone was responsible for so many deaths was Hitler and Stalin, and yet for some inexplicable reason, you think that going to war to remove this murderous madman was wrong? And I suppose his sponsorship of terrorism means nothing either (remember that whole "war on Terror" thingy?)
Thu Jan 25 2007 3:30 AM
Mike of the Great White North:
Countergod... there have been too many instances where people have EARNED the tag of neotard. It's not up for debate because there is nothing to debate. When one defies logic and reason and forgoes truth just to placate his subservience to a man or party, willfully, blindly and foolishly then they earn it. At least here you get your chance to discuss, unlike neotard central www.freerepublic.com where you get your posting rights revoked if you fail to see things their way.
On to you 'other' points.
1.Sponsoring Terrorism
A truth on its face, but grossly misconstrued to 'FIT' the ideological course you're on. Did he give money to Palestinian bombers families? Yes. This justified the war? No. Palestinian acts of violence are relegated to the state of Israel, hence a regional conflict with no connection to the 9-11 attacks or the faux 'war on terror'. Strange that the U.S. covertly aids Iran's MLK terror group which is ON the State Dept.'s list of terror groups. But i guess when it serves US interests, terror is a good thing. Hypocrisy at its finest. The other part, Al-Zarkawi getting medical treatment, im pretty sure that a.) Saddam didn't invite him there for that treatment and b.) received said treatment in the northern part of Iraq, where the Kurds had control and Saddam had little influence. You don't think its that hard to sneak someone into the country? Might i remind you the mighty U.S.A. has had 12-20 million people sneak in that you simply have no clue as to their whereabouts. More double standards and hypocrisy.2.His Gross Humanitarian Record
True, he was a bastard. Bastards do not make a case for war. I've argued this time and again with other neotards. If the pecking order of bastards were listed in terms of fostering war.. Saddam is at the tail end of the list. Gross humanitarian records belong to N.K, China, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, a good chunk of Africa... need i go on? At the VERY LEAST, under Saddam, Catholics could freely worship, woman had the highest rights of any arab country, and was the most modern and secular of them all. Were things perfect? Hell no, but Iraqis would have and should have stood up to make that change on their own.. not you. And if human rights are the end all be all for starting wars... drop a couple of bombs on yourself for abhu ghraib, guantonimo and cia dark prisons in europe, because your hands are fast becoming unclean.3.US Imposed No-Fly Zone
One word. ‘ILLEGAL’. I could drone on about it, but ill let a libertarian tell you exactly what im talking about.
“..supposedly to enforce UN resolutions on Iraq. There was one big problem, however: The United Nations never authorized the no-fly zones to be established.”
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0211h.asp
Poof. Another justification right out the window.You said “Any one of those alone in my mind is justification for war” , and you wonder why us ‘left leaning liberal elitists’ (im libertarian btw) think we’re so much smarter, better, Elitist if you will. You don’t leave us much choice… you’re continual use of fallacies and inaccuracies for your arguments bewilder us. The information is THERE, out in the public record, yet you refuse to read it, lest it destroy your worldview. It amuses me to no end when silly little neotards continue to wave their hands in the air screaming ‘EVERYONE BELIEVED HE HAD WMD’ or when Condi Mushrooom Cloud Rice says ‘nobody in our circle knew about the intel, maybe someone deep in the bowels of the CIA, but not the higher up’ you people just end up looking stupid. You chastise France for rightly telling you what ‘I’ knew, and pretty much simply for being right and making you look stupid. You say France was bribed by Saddam. I don’t doubt France had key interests in Iraq that they didn’t want shelled into oblivion. Can they not look out for their interests? Every country has their own interests that are not beholden to U.S. interests.
What this diatribe boils down to is this. If you’re not willing to look into the mirror, ask yourself the hard questions, do the research and see your errors, admit them, LEARN and move on… then you do not have the capacity to enter a ‘reasonable debate’ and become useless to the discourse. That’s when you become a neotard, or a freeperturd, or my personal fave, Ann Coulter.
If I had a chance to vote in ’08, it’d be a toss up between Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Jim Webb (D-VA).
And here’s my new slogan for 08. ‘Hillary Clinton: Just say no!’
Thu Jan 25 2007 2:44 PM
RicoFromRico:
it's tv, people, relax.
lol!
Tue Feb 6 2007 9:10 AM
Anonymous:
Has anyone mentioned the obvious point yet? The reason the Bush administration was certain that Saddam had WMDs is because we were selling them to him back in the '80s. You can't blame them for assuming he still had a few.
Thu May 17 2007 3:47 AM
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