O'REILLY's Pathological Denial (9-11 Commish, Shrub)

[UTUSN]

It is familiar to all here far and wide that O’REILLY claims to be an Independent in politics, this despite it’s being obvious that he will assert and defend any Shrubbite position while ripping any Dem thing.

Last night he hosted the 9-11 commishers KEAN and HAMILTON, gushing over (mainly) KEAN that the commission had done a fabulous, stupendous, magnificent job------subtext, “BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T FINGER SHRUB.”

He would pivot from gushing over KEAN to sneering at the hapless Dem. He tried to get HAMILTON to take a stand on the Iraq attack, saying with dripping disdain, “And now, CONGRESSMAN Hamilton, I’m going to put you on the spot.” Lee managed to get out that this commission was about 9-11 not Iraq.

He had prefaced this whole circus by saying the report was that much more fabulous-stupendous-magnificent for NOT BEING PARTISAN, that SOME POLITICIANS out there were at this very moment scouring the report for some PARTISAN use they could put it to.

So the he scooted the two old tools out and immediately/brazenly hosted, WHO? Why his pal Dick MORRIS, of course, the cousin both to Roy COHN and Jules FEIFFER, upon which O’REILLY and MORRIS sat kicking around how the report would help or hurt Shrub.

At what point does O’REILLY’s denial get declared as pathological?

[Jack_Dawson]

1. Did he ever apologize for the WMD thing?

Has he ever admittted a mistake? Remember when NPR's Terri Gross put a whoopin' on him and he ran away like a little girl?

[redqueen]

3. I don't think he has, as he said he would. Did he promise?

I also seem to recall many Dems agreeing with O'Lielly that Terri was too harsh.

:eyes:

[Jack_Dawson]

4. Terri was too harsh? Waaaaaahhhhhh

Little old Terri Gross? Bwahahahahaha.

Ever seen him interview people?

[democrat_patriot]

5. I haven't heard it.

I emailed him 4 times asking for it. No response. He must be busy or something.

[fearnobush]

2. To Hell with O'Splochly, Last night, more than half the people at our

local Kerry meetup were all NEWBIES!!!! Over 100 people crowded the small hall in a REPUBLICAN leaning Jersey town.

[Brotherjohn]

6. Never watch him. Did so for 1 minute last night and I'm still pissed!

He was using the 9-11 Commission Report through his own warped prism to say that Bush was RIGHT to invade Iraq.

He said the 9-11 commission proved Iraq and Al Qaeda were in cahoots and that since we all KNEW (or legitimately thought, anyway) that Iraq had WMDs, ANY president would have done what Bush did!

Oh so wrong on oh so many points.

First, the 9-11 Commission specifically said there was NOT an operational relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda; as did the Senate Intelligence Committee, the CIA, and just about everyone else (except Dick Cheney and O'reilly himself). O'Reilly cherry-picked one quote about an attempt at a dialogue to say the Commission proved a relationship.

Secondly, who says we all thought Iraq had WMDs??? I am REALLY tired of hearing this canard!! Many thought, including our intelligence and other governments, that Saddam MAY have had some form of WMDs (likely existing chem or bio ones past their shelf life) or some resumption of programs. But the same intelligence sources Bush was relying on to give him that "maybe" (that he must have misheard as "definitely") were heavily loaded with caveats, which he chose to ignore. Our intel and other sources were even shooting down much of the evidence he repeatedly cited as key to the case for war (case in point, the Niger claim, which the CIA repeatedly argued against).

But even if he did a piss-poor job at glossing over and cherry-picking the intelligence he was given (which at best makes him incompetent), the reason we sent the U.N. Inspectors back in was to FIND OUT the status of Iraqi WMDs. Problem for Bush was, they were fast finding out that there were none. They conclusively stated before the war that there was NO resumption of a nuclear weapons program and no nukes, and were well on their way to doing the same for chem/bio weapons (the only remaining doubts being whether iraq had destroyed all the old weapons they said they had, which again, were past their shelf life anyway). He simply chose to ignore the U.N. Inspectors as well.

And lest you denigrate the U.N. and say we couldn't trust them... um, who argued that they be sent in? Umm, and, umm... oh yeah, who ended up being right?

Contrary to what O'Reilly claims, Bush KNEW that Iraq had no WMDs and Bush KNEW that Iraq was NOT in cahoots with Al Qaeda. Or he was delusional. Take your pick.