Bill O’Reilly Was Prepared To Attack President Obama Before Afghanistan Speech

Fox News right-wing talker Bill O’Reilly, who remains consistently dishonest about his political bias, already had his talking points prepared before President Obama’s speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. O’Reilly was already prepared to attack the leader of our nation before even hearing a word the man had to say about the war effort in Afghanistan.

Here is how Media Matters documents what O’Reilly said as he hosted a show to supposedly analyze the president’s speech on Afghanistan:

Following President Obama’s speech at West Point addressing the war in Afghanistan, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly criticized Obama for supposedly not “saying, ‘Look, these are bad guys. We’re fighting evil” and for not warning Americans that “[i]f we lose, this is going to lead to more bloodshed all over the world.” In fact, Obama referred to Al Qaeda as “extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam … to justify the slaughter of innocents,” he called the Taliban “a ruthless, repressive, and radical movement,” and he warned that withdrawing from Afghanistan now “would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies.”

This is crazy even by Bill O’Reilly’s standards. Additionally, it proves he is a right-wing hater who will never be satisfied with much of anything this president does (after mostly kissing George W. Bush’s ass for eight years). He hammers the president for not using the exact language he wanted him to use (even though the president’s message was clear and strong).

Check out how Media Matters breaks it down and illustrates how O’Reilly’s prejudice paralyzes him in pretty much any discussion about President Barack Obama.

This is from Steve, who authors The O’Reilly Sucks Blog:

FACT: Obama referred to Al Qaeda as “extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam to justify the slaughter of innocents,” he called the Taliban “a ruthless, repressive, and radical movement,” and he warned that withdrawing from Afghanistan now “would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies.”

OBAMA: We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people. They struck at our military and economic nerve centers. They took the lives of innocent men, women, and children without regard to their faith, or race, or station.

Were it not for the heroic actions of passengers on board one of these flights, they could have also struck at one of the great symbols of our democracy in Washington, and killed many more.

As we know, these men belonged to Al Qaeda — a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter of innocents.

Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban — a ruthless, repressive, and radical movement that seized control of that country after it was ravaged by years of Soviet occupation and civil war, and after the attention of America and our friends had turned elsewhere.

O’Reilly also claimed that Obama didn’t put any urgency behind his words, like, ‘If we lose, this is going to lead to more bloodshed all over the world. Let’s wise up everybody and get in there and win it.’ “I didn’t see any of that.”

FACT: Obama said “new attacks are being plotted” from region, and withdrawal now would “create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks.”

OBAMA: I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by Al Qaeda.

It is from here that we were attacked on 9-11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders, who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror.

And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards and Al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on Al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region.

Of course, this burden is not ours alone to bear. This is not just America’s war. Since 9-11, Al Qaeda’s safe havens have been the source of attacks against London and Amman and Bali. The people and governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan are endangered. And the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that Al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them.

These facts compel us to act along with our friends and allies. Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.

To meet that goal, we will pursue the following objectives within Afghanistan: We must deny Al Qaeda a safe haven; we must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government; and we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s Security Forces and government, so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.

Basically O’Reilly only saw what he wanted to see, and he was dishonest about that. As he claims to be fair to Obama, while him and Rove sit there and lie about everything he said in the speech.

Again, we see that O’Biased had a predetermined attack ready to unleash and it barely mattered what the president said. It’s kind of like when the President gives the State of the Union and the opposing party already has a predetermined counterattack ready to go. O’Reilly and others want to portray the president as being tough on terrorists in Afghanistan. Even as he pledged to send more troops to Afghanistan, the conservatives were all ready with new attacks.

You can’t please these right-wing nuts so don’t even try.

Media Matters:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200912010047

The O’Reilly Sucks Blog:
http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/

Greg Gutfeld’s Criticism Of President Obama Is A Head Scratcher

When will some of these hardcore conservatives wake up and realize that we need to work to stay out of the business of another country? Our military already is spread thin thanks to, among other things, conflicts going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. North Korea is stand out out there as an unknown potential threat and then there’s Iran. With our own eyes, thanks to various forms of media (including social media like Facebook and Twitter) we’ve seen the violence that has erupted since the highly-disputed (due to what many people feel is possible widespread voting corruption) reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran. Protests immediately erupted in Iran and, as expected, the government has tired of these protests and begun to put them down, violently so.

This brings me to a blog written by Greg Gutfeld (posted at Big Hollywood). Like a good number of conservatives, Gutfeld is whining because President Obama didn’t respond strongly enough or soon enough to suit his tastes.

Here is part of what Gutfeld wrote in a blog titled “The Bystander in Chief”:

“We don’t know how this thing is going to play out.”

Somehow, that statement doesn’t blow your mind like “hope and change,” but that’s exactly how Obama feels about Iran.

For Gutfeld, that is not good enough. What does Gutfeld want: missile strikes, ground troops, a nuclear bomb? Who knows? President Obama is not one of these hardcore right-wingers who want to invade every country that even looks like it is stepping out of line. The president is a man who wants to proceed carefully and now run into Iran with a cowboy hat on, bomb first, and ask questions, later (of those who survive).

“We don’t know how this thing is going to play out.”

Which, as you know, is a stance that has never stopped our President from immediately re-imagining health care, trying to end enhanced interrogations, or reducing carbon dioxide emissions via something ridiculous called cap and trade legislation.

I want a president who is concerned about issues more directly related to the American people. Issues like health care may not be so important to Greg Gutfeld, but they are to others who are barely making ends meet. We may not solve the health care crisis, but it’s a better issue than getting involved in the affairs of Iran (which will come back to bite us in the butt as some in that country will use it to further demonize the United States of America  as evil and self-righteous meddlers). President Obama is trying to erase that false image of the United States that exists abroad.

“We don’t know how this thing is going to play out.”

I imagine you can use that excuse on pretty much anything. Except when it comes to press conferences. Which is why Obama does him. And now that our President has recognized that he’s potentially on the wrong side of history – he gave us a press conference designed to blunt criticism, as opposed to blunting the persecution of innocent people.

He’s on the wrong side of history, huh? I don’t think the American people see it that way. I certainly don’t think they see it that way after the previous eight years.

“Bearing witness,” as Obama calls it, is all it takes, apparently. But I’m not so sure. If you were being mugged, you’d really like a cop to shoot the bastard, instead of bearing witness. If you’re lugging five bags of groceries up four flights of stairs, “bearing witness” does no good. Lend a hand, champ.

Ugh, where does all the violence come from? President Obama is working to change things for the better and clean up the mess left for him by the previous administration. Of course, it makes it difficult with the Grand Obstructionist Party standing in his way and doing everything within its power to trip him up. President Obama is trying to lend a hand to working-class and poor people through health care reform, champ. It’s too bad Republicans won’t settle for simply bearing witness instead of obstructing. This is why the GOP has gone from champs to chumps.

So I disagree with Obama – we’re not seeing a “debate” in Iran. We’re seeing a brutal, ruthless crackdown. Something tells me that stopping that is more important than reducing carbon emissions to fight a questionable threat.

Look, I like the fact that he’s finally – although reluctantly – stepping up, but I wish Obama felt as immediately outraged about Iran as he did over the murder of an abortion doctor.

So, now we see what this is all about … our conservative friends are still whining about the murder of Dr. George Tiller (allegedly at the hands of an anti-abortion extremist). Just as Fox News correspondent Major Garrett asked a stupid question about the president’s response, so too does the rest of Fox News continue running down the football field with the ball – in the wrong direction. When you commit football suicide and run out of the back of the end zone … we’ll take the two points.

“We don’t know how this thing is going to play out.”

It would have been closer to Obama’s real concerns, if that quote ended with “for me.”

No, “for our country” is a better way it might end. The last thing we want to do is further damage the reputation of the U.S. worldwide and put more troops in harm’s way in another country. We did enough of that during the Bush-Cheney years in the White House.

What’s next: North Korea?

Big Hollywood:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/06/23/daily-gut-the-bystander-in-chief/