Andrew Sullivan's Open Challenge to O'lielly: Debate Me

[babylonsister]

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/09/embarassed-by-beck.html

Embarrassed By Beck?
Andrew Sullivan
30 Sep 2010 10:57 am

snip//

Just a few obvious points. O'Reilly lumps Obama into the "progressive values" camp and claims he is moving still further to the "left". What is his evidence for this?

He says first that in foreign policy, progressives believe that America is a "bully" and "too aggressive." Obama, however, has retained most of Bush's executive powers against al Qaeda (except, critically, torture), has poured more troops into Afghanistan than was ever the case under Bush, has ramped up the drone campaign in Pakistan, retained Bush's defense secretary, stuck to Bush's withdrawal timetable in Iraq, and embraced targeted killings of al Qaeda operatives, even US citizens. On Iran, Obama has managed to get a far more comprehensive and global set of economic sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards, and has refused to take military force off the table. Obama, moreover, went to Oslo to defend the necessity of war while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. For this record, O'Reilly says Obama represents the pursuit of "peace at pretty much any price." There is no other description of this than a travesty of the truth.

O'Reilly says that Obama, as a progressive, also wants open immigration, when, in fact, illegal immigration has gone down on his watch and many more law enforcement agents are now on the border. Obama, moreover, favors roughly the same immigration reform once backed by Karl Rove, George W. Bush and John McCain. Is Karl Rove an avatar of "progressive values"?

O'Reilly then says that Obama believes that a society "based on individual freedom has led to an unjust society." To buttress this, he shows a clip of Obama celebrating how through American history, African Americans, women, and workers fought to bring social change through their own efforts - and succeeded through organizing in a free society. His campaign and candidacy was based on a theme that America's freedom allows individuals to come together to make a better world. His argument is therefore the precise opposite of what O'Reilly claimed.

O'Reilly then says that Obama believes that a "big government" should impose the dream of a good education, a decent job and a house to live in, and thereby bankrupt the US. The only things that are truly bankrupting the US are entitlement programs that have been in place for decades, a new Medicare entitlement pushed through by George W Bush, and a soaring defense budget that O'Reilly supports. The debt Obama has added was the minimum necessary to prevent a second Great Depression, which would have added more to the debt than any short-term stimulus.

snip//

I'm not Dee Dee Myers. I am not a progressive. And I think your version of this president is a caricature so unfair it deserves a real thrashing out on air, in public.

[rurallib]

1. Is there anyway we could help make this happen, you suppose?

Petitions, calls ????

[babylonsister]

2. I doubt it; o'lielly knows Sullivan is smarter than he is, unless

maybe he needs some publicity. :shrug:

[rurallib]

3. It would be so fun to see. Add in a truth checker on the set

and it could be some really fun entertainment.
It wouldn't have to be O'Lielly - it could be any one of the right wing interchangeable parts - Hannity etc.

[Mimosa]

4. Sullivan wants to perform penance now?

I remember when he was firmly in Bush's camp. ;)

*edited for spelling*

[MadMaddie]

8. He left that camp many years ago.

[The Wizard]

5. No one could have predicted

Bill O'Reilly would be selling extremist right wing propaganda on Pox News.

Note to Republicans: Military spending has drained the treasury and threatens to sink the economy. It happens to all nations that espouse empire.

[COLGATE4]

6. O'Lielly's way too crafty to ever allow a debate between himself

and anyone who can best him. His whole schtick is based upon getting people he knows in advance he can control. Someone like Sullivan is too dangerous by half for him to try it.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

7. Dil D'Oreilly wouldn't know the far left even if were giving him phone sex right now. He's either

breathtakingly ignorant or a compulsive liar. I'd say both.