Olbermann exposes O’Reilly, Yet Again

Olbermann: The bodies at Malmedy were not found until a month later. There were 84 of them, all, American soldiers. More than half showed gunshot wounds to their heads. Six had received fatal **blows** to the head. Nine were found with their arms still raised **above** their heads.

The fact that O'Reilly got these horrible facts completely backwards -- twice -- offended even his own usually compliant viewers. From his program **Wednesday** night...Wrong answer.

When you're **that** wrong -- when you're defending Nazi War Criminals and pinning their crimes on Americans, and you get **caught** doing so -- **twice** -- you're supposed to say 'I'm sorry, I was wrong'... and then you should shut up for a long time. Instead, Fox **washed** its transcript of O'Reilly's remarks Tuesday -- its website claims O'Reilly said "In **Normandy**..." when in fact he said "In **Malmedy**..."

The rewriting of past reporting -- worthy of Orwell -- has now carried over into such on-line transcription services as Burrell's and Factiva. Whatever did or did not happen **later**, in supposed or actual retribution... the victims at Malmedy, were **Americans**, gunned down while surrendering -- by **Nazis** in 1944 -- and again, Tuesday Night and Wednesday Night -- by a false patriot who would rather be loud than right.

"In Malmedy, as you know" Bill O'Reilly **said** Tuesday night, in some indecipherable attempt to defend the events of Haditha, "U.S. forces captured S.S. forces who had their hands in the air and were unarmed and they shot them dead, you know that. That's on the record. And documented."

The victims at Malmedy in December, 1944... were Americans. **Americans** with their hands in the air. **Americans** who were unarmed. That's on the record. And documented.

And their memory deserves better than Bill O'Reilly.

We **all** do.
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Full Transcipt

O'Reilly vs. Gen. Wesley Clark
Olbermann's editorial

O'Reilly proves again that he deserves no less than a public stoning and no more than a mental hospital. Worse than O'Reilly are the people who irrationally defend him without comprehension or individual thought. There is nothing wrong with being a republican, not innately, and there is nothing wrong with Fox News, at least on how it typically presents itself. The frequent circumstances where this "news" outlet provides propaganda to sabotage public opinion does as much to illustrate its own lack of integrity as it does to demoralize the opposition desperately seeking for comprehensible debate. Not emotionalism eloquently phrased, and certainly not patriotism cleverly concealing political rhetoric. This type of banter is destructive to both sides.

Watch O'Reilly ignorantly attack General Clark's factual data, and then blatantly disgraces the same American soldiers he professes to care about.

Watch Olbermann ostracize O'Reilly and his incompetence for the who-knows-how-many time.

This is not a matter of orientation, it never is, it is a matter of comprehension of what is said, and as usual O'Reilly illustrates the incapability of extremists to be rational. People who don't see him as a political extremist are political extremists.

Above you have the data, and my question is as follows: Is it possible to view O'Reilly as credible and concerned or is it more plausible to associate him to a new discerning style of yellow journalism?
You decide.


If I were to add another wish to my list it would be this:

I'd like for July 2nd to be a celebration of civil and political freedom where effigies of Bill O'Reilly are burned in the streets.

To Doug McIntyre

I accept the apology. I guess I can half-cross that of my list of things I want .

What else is on my wish list?

I'd like an apology from Al Gore for losing his own state.
I'd like Hillary Clinton cloned numerous times, so every American can kill her as much as they please.
I'd like to see Dick Cheney shoot another person, preferably a small diabetic kid.
I'd like to see someone in my state government talking about health care and social security instead of homosexuals and illegal immigration.
I'd like to stop using an improper contraction, but I can't 'cause I'm an idiot.
I'd like to elect Bush for a third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh, and eighth term in order to secure a permanent scapegoat to all my problems; after all, it isn't like I have the power to do anything about government policy in a democratic country.
I'd like to outlaw smoking in public places because I don't smoke, smoking has negative effects, and I'm in the majority.
I'd like to ban gay marriage because I'm not gay, homosexuality has negative moral effects, and I'm in the majority.
I'd like to see someone step up and say rebuilding a city on continually sinking ground is as brilliant as an idea to construct a town below a glacier or aside a dormant volcano.
I'd like a 10-foot pole to poke and prod inmates at my local and state prisons; if we aren't going to rehabilitate them, why can't I taunt and harass them with a large stick?
I'd like to kick the person in the nuts that trapped a rabbit, cut off its foot, and declared it to be lucky.
I'd like to watch as the US George H.W. Bush sets sail for the first time before promptly docking at an oil rig.
I'd like to know what is happening to Saddam Hussein instead of hearing about Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and their child.
I'd like a cookie.
I'd like Penn and Teller: Bullshit! to air on NBC instead of Showtime.
I'd like to elect Arnold Schwarzenegger to be governor of my state.
I'd like to be there when the wall across the United States-Mexico border is completed, and the next illegal immigrant wades into the water to go around it.

Now that I think of it, I really don't care that a person apologizes for making the wrong decision years after making it. It is worse for people that made the decision twice. I'm glad such a person has grown or changed or whatever, but I really don't care. I didn't care that Tookie was sorry for starting the crips (though he was jailed for killing a couple people during robberies he never asked forgiveness for), and I don't care about people salivating over the possibilities to come in the next election as if there is nothing the public can do to get a failing government official out of their position (see: Richard Nixon, Gray Davis, and Bill Clinton).


If there are actually people with bumper stickers stating, "2007: The End of an Error," to them I would say, "Go drive into an arroyo!" I'd rather they read, "2006: Impeach the mother****er!"

Lazy reactionary lemmings.

Who wants to fix problems as they arise anyway? It is much more fun to watch shit run its course.

Bin Laden? He'll die eventually, and then we have justice!
Saddam Hussein? **** man, his sons are dead, isn't that punishment enough?
Catholicism? Kick priests found having gay sex with each other or abusing their patrons out of the religion; that will fix the problem.
Homosexuality? What bad behavior could arise when the public agrees in restricting the rights of a minority? Seriously, what could happen?


Nothing is new in this apology; nothing is over the edge; this is just a revelation. It is not that it is nice that he has learnt something, but it is like knowing the material for a test the day after you took it. It is too late to do good on the test, so even though you know what you need to, you are already screwed. The worst part of all of it is that he is a sucker. Smart enough to make rational decisions based on factual material, but not smart enough to avoid peer pressure and conformity.The question for Doug is: What good does knowing you're a sucker do you now?



P.S. Oatmeal and Raisin

Doug McIntyre's Apology

Doug's apology

AN APOLOGY FROM A BUSH VOTER

By Doug McIntyre

Host, McIntyre in the Morning

Talk Radio 790 KABC



There’s nothing harder in public life than admitting you’re wrong. By the way, admitting you’re wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you don’t believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, it’s out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.



So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.



In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasn’t sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.



For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.



Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.



And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.













I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, that’s where the Taliban was, that’s where al-Qaida trained the killers, that’s where Bin Laden was.



And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.



Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.



I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, “The Project for the New American Century.” It’s been around since ‘92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, “Democratizing the Middle East” and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, “pre-emptive war” Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous.



But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, “The next smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud’ At least that’s what I thought at the time.



I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked with a guy, Frank O’Brien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.



But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.



I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war won’t be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and can’t do on the ground and any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in some cases, maligned.



I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the “waning days of the insurgency” And I started wincing again. The President says we have to stay the course but what if it’s the wrong course?



It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to victory. We’re about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. It’s unspeakable. The liberal media didn’t create this reality, bad policy did.



Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably accurate take on a President’s place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush will be celebrated as a visionary genius.



But we don’t live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes we cast and the leaders we chose now.



After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.



Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding-” the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and that’s assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.



And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let’s talk for a minute about President Bush’s domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the public’s money. We’re drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren’s credit cards. Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?



Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or environmental protection, and/or worker’s rights.



I’ve talked so often about the border issue, I won’t bore you with a rehash. It’s enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; he’s debased the work ethic itself. “Jobs Americans won’t do!” He doesn’t believe in the sovereign borders of the country he’s sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President’s January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him in 2004. And I’m glad I didn’t.



Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any American’s lifetime.



You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and you’re right, history remembers you well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the White Sox, and you use the same gut to send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.



None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It requires it. It doesn’t work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center where all healthy societies live.



Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I don’t believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. And that’s one of the many problems with the Democrats.



The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.



I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapse. It’s currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money.



We’re being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. They’ve learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.



This is painful to say, and I’m sure for many of you, painful to read. But it’s impossible to heal the country until we’re willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.



With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, it’s almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?



It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that I’m all wet about everything I’ve just said. But I’m putting it out there, because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I don’t say any of this lightly. I’ve thought about this for months and months. But eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.



I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and it’s rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.



So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn’t generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn’t be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?



Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he’s down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.



You were right, I was wrong.