If that isn’t an open and shut case of “undermining” the war against terrorism, I don’t know what is. Ordinarily, I’m opposed to capital punishment, but in this case I don’t think the court has any choice but to impose the maximum penalty provided by law. And I’m sure a patriot like Bill O’Reilly would agree.
Back to Main
June 24, 2005
WB: The O’Reilly Factor
Comments
Klaus Barbie and Bill O’Reilly share the same definition of terrorism.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 24 2005 15:50 utc | 1
So welcome aboard, Bill. I’m glad to have you on our side in this fight. I’m sure we can find a good use for an attack dog like you — or rather, for a corrupt partisan leg humper with more bark than brain.
Just as long as you stay away from my leg.
That’s quite funny (or I’ve had too much to drink). I’ve never heard of a leg humper before (or even know what it means). But I had a good chuckle anyway.
Posted by: DM | Jun 24 2005 16:00 utc | 2
None so indignant aas the scoundrel. None so patriotic as the chicken hawk.
Posted by: ken melvin | Jun 24 2005 16:07 utc | 3
None so indignant as the scoundrel. None so patriotic as the chicken hawk.
Posted by: ken melvin | Jun 24 2005 16:08 utc | 4
DM- maybe you’ve led a sheltered life, but there are some little male dogs who think that the human leg is a good substitute for Fifi the Poodle next door.
This species of dog, technically called “O’Reilly Cain-I-us Fallafel Loofus” wraps its front legs around the calves of humans and, like a tick, cannot be shaken off until they fulfill their mastabatory fantasy that they are serious journalists.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 24 2005 16:13 utc | 5
One thing harming “liberal” attack on the president is lack of solutions offered by dissenters to what are undeniably big ME problems. For one, reproduced endlessly by the right, is “well, up to you we’d still have hussein.”
My hunch is, if we play the time-machine game, most of us would like to go back to 1917 and rectify the fuckups of Sykes-Picot and the Balfour declaration; or the coup in Iran installing the shah, or…
The problem is, for the left, a kind of terminal regressivity occurs when such questions are asked–we could regress infinitely in history to right the stupidities of the right. For the left, intercession into the chaos created by colonialism is daunting, to say the least; and isolationism, retreat, not an option. The right has the continuous advantage of positively reacting to the chaos created by themselves. For them the world, history, is the “always already.”
The only available solution for the left is international consensus. Billmon recently wondered why conservatives seem to hate international institutions, into crazed expiry. I think this fear is about what the right perceives as leftist international intervention.
All of this also to say: no real leftist anodyne to o’reilly et al. As the right continues to fumble history along by way of murder and robbery, the left has no easy “talking points” to do justice to the calamities of these hyaenas who make history.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 24 2005 16:37 utc | 6
I should also say: they, the right, fear internationalism because the consensus would certainly exclude robbery of Iraq’s economy and the installation of military bases, etc. In this sense the option of international consensus is inherently at odds with global capitalism, is intrinsically “leftist.”
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 24 2005 16:52 utc | 9
Glad to see O’Reilly on Board and Ship Shape.
Hey, Murdoch is turning.
.
Into what, I don’t know.
Posted by: Friendly Fire | Jun 24 2005 16:53 utc | 10
well, when billmon shows two million daily hits, then…
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 24 2005 16:54 utc | 11
BushCheney contributions to the international terrorist movement:
– provided a huge, modern urban-terrorism training camp with fairly extensive “live fire” facilities and 28,130,000 live targets;
– made available vast stockpiles of weapons and munitions, mostly or completely unguarded;
– provided many billions of dollars of funding, both left lying around by the former regime and by leakage from the current regime;
– freed up and drove out most of the trained soldiers of the former regime to join the terrorists;
– focused the attention of the world on the activities of the terrorists and imported substantial numbers of press and media people to report on their activities;
– bombed, strafed, jailed, and harassed the local population and made their living conditions and prospects worse than those under the former regime, driving many of them into the ranks of the terrorists.
Mission Accomplished!
Posted by: Bob Munck | Jun 24 2005 18:31 utc | 12
Excerpt from a piece by Kirk Stapp
Ryan is intensely staring at his hands; his fingers are claws. He wants to know why he shouldn’t enlist.
“Mr. Stapp, didn’t you enlist during the Vietnam War?”
“Yes!”
“Why did you enlist?”
“For the GI Bill, so I could go to college – my family was poor; because I thought it was the right thing to do; I didn’t know any better; I just signed up.”
Ryan unlocked his fingers, placed his hands palm down on the desk, extended his fingers, slumped in is chair.
“Ryan, let me ask you this: why wouldn’t the recruiter let you bring your enlistment papers to school for me to read?”
There is an tense silence. He still wants to know why he shouldn’t join.
“Okay – if you are going to enlist, make sure you get everything the recruiter promises you – in writing. Your enlistment papers are a contract with Uncle Sam. If they promise you enlistment bonus money, or free tuition money, or officer’s candidate school, make sure you get it in writing. And before you sign any enlistment papers, please bring a copy to school so I can read them and talk to you about what’s in them, what they mean. And one other thing, promise me – promise me – if you do end up in Iraq and you encounter a destroyed Iraqi tank or armored vehicle, stay the hell away from it. It was probably destroyed with depleted uranium munitions, which means if you breathe any of the contaminated dust, you could get cancer. Of course, the army will deny that DU can cripple you, but over 200,000 troops who returned from the 1991 Gulf War are now dead or debilitated with ailments ranging from leukemia to kidney failure to brain damage: all attributed to service in Iraq – that’s 1 in 3!”
“The recruiter said I would be stopping terrorism – stopping another 9/11.”
Iraq is not about stopping terrorism. Despite all the cognitive dissonance that makes it hard to think this thought, hard to think that our leaders would lie so lasciviously and calmly, the war in Iraq is about increasing terrorism. They are vampires, the real kind, and they cannot actually survive without new blood from our children, our beautiful young children.
Posted by: citizen | Jun 24 2005 22:43 utc | 13
I appreciate your outrage, Citizen.
The DU question in itself is a mind boggler in that it continues to just slide under the radar — I’m just a half-edjukated idjet myself and knew at once that “depleted” uranium was safe in the sense that Marlboro “Lite”s are “safe” to smoke.
But that is my point: it is the satire, the droll humor which bilmon demonstrates in this piece as well as in the pieces he has posted sortly after in “Situation Holpess” and “More Deadpan Humor” — that is the weapon we need to use — and not just in blogs but in our daily interaction with other people.
Slothrop says, yeah, “when bilmon gets two million daily hits” — the point is what do the x-thousand hits he does get result in?
Thing is, don’t youse guys got contacts with other people — you know, like live real people who are concerned about their lives and their kids’ lives? You can and should transmit the word — it’s not a question of “convincing” people, pin pricks of sarcasm and humor can do it also.
Reality can be contagious in small doses.
We certainly do not need a “leftist anodyne to Bill O’rielly”, if by that is meant a screaming idjit propaganderist like him — nothing is achieved by a leftist dumbing down.
What we need is, “Sir, have you no shame?” multiplexed into a forest of indignation.
Posted by: BarfHead | Jun 25 2005 5:24 utc | 14