THOSE WHO CANNOT REMEMBER THE PAST...

BILL O'REILLY


What a lucky break for Bill-O. He got himself invited to the White House to have a sit-down with Bush. Nice "get" there, buddy. It's about time that someone put Bush in your patented no-spin zone. You go give him hell, O'Reilly!

Or not...

See, Bill-O neutered himself as he prefaced how things were going to go during the interview.
He started off by saying, "You cannot be confrontational with the president of the United States. You can be direct, but you can't be disrespectful." The question that popped into my head (well several did, but I'll focus on this one first) was how do you define confrontational? Was Matt Lauer confrontational during his stroll around the Oval Office with Bush? Is confrontational defined by any question that gets Bush out of his comfort zone of talking points? If an interviewer causes Bush to stammer and lose his composure, is that being confrontational? Was this caveat about being non-confrontational an excuse for Bill to softball Bush for an interview to be stretched over three nights? After all, we wouldn't want to be confrontational with poor, delicate Georgie.
I would like to ask Bill-O if he thought Chris Wallace was confrontational with President Clinton during their infamous interview a few weeks back? I thought that was as "in-your-face" as one could get, but I would tend to think that Bill-O would think that Wallace was just being direct.

O'Reilly also defined the parameters of his sitdown with Bush by claiming that due to time constraints, he could only focus on the present and the future and that there would be no looking back when Bush entered the no-spin zone. From a transcript provided by Think Progress:

Over the next three nights, President Bush will have his say. You will know exactly where he stands on the most vital issues facing america and the world. Because every presidential interview is finite — time is always a concern — I decided to concentrate on the conflicts — Iraq, Iran, North Korea and terror — rather than on domestic issues. Also, I think it’s important to look ahead rather than to look back. what good does it do to rehash WMDs? Does that do you any good?

Um, yes, Bill. I think that looking back might actually do some good. Did you not consider for a moment that perhaps by looking to the past, you might be able to discern Bush's motives and decisions as they pertain to the looming threats of Iran and North Korea? Foreign policy does not happen in a vacuum, Bill. Decisions made in the past have a great bearing on decisions to be made in the future. So, you don't choose to broach the subject of WMDs? How about in the context of faulty intelligence and how we can avoid falling into a similar pitfall as the rhetoric of war with Iran is currently being ratcheted up? You didn't think that a look back at the past might have made for a more effective interview?

Of course, that's the whole point now, isn't it? It is never the intention of any bobble-head at Fox News to openly question Bush and his policies; their's is the role of cheerleader, a role they have honed these ten years on the air. It's not Fox News' job to actually do, you know, journalism; it is paint Bush in the best possible light during his hour of most desperate need, namely when Bush's party is set to lose the majority in one or both houses of Congress and his presidency officially enters into its lame duck phase.