There is always sacrifice involved when someone's child goes off to war. My son's wife and their three children sacrifice. If something were to happen to Ken, it would not be out of the ordinary considering that is what warfare is all about, two or more sides out to kill each other. I think some people are in a state of denial or have watched too much Walker: Texas Ranger to think that the good guys consistently come out of conflicts unscathed.

I am up-front about this--this Iraq war is not worth my son's sacrifice, or anyone else's kid's sacrifice for that matter. And if we applied that particular measuring stick to every conflict the U.S. got involved in, we would get involved in fewer conflicts. Wars seem to be worth fighting when it's someone else or their child involved in making the sacrifices.

And that was Michael Moore's point. It was a theme of Fahrenheit 9/11. Try as he might, O'Reilly could not come up with a rebuttal to it. Is the Iraqi occupation worth losing one's child? Each of us has to consider the answer. Talk can be incredibly cheap.

A distiction without a difference. In order to "purposefully mislead" someone. The misleader has to know the direction he she is leading in is incorrect.

I agree it is impossible to prove so one has to go with the preponderance of evidence. This to me suggest Bush believed WMD were there, so no lying involved.

That is the point O'Reilly made which Moore refused to acknowledge.


Talk about cheap, Moore's question was frankly disgusting. O'Reilly is not the president of the US. He has no responsibility over who goes to war except over himself which is why he answered the way he did. I would say the same thing, I would not sacrfice anyone else because it is their descision.

If Moore would have phrased the question so that O'Reilly was to assume he was in charge of the armed forces and that said child had voluntarily signed up it would be a different story.

As it is, Moore was just pulling a cheap emotional gag, the only card he played throughout the debate.

Not necessarily Turnea, the leader doesn't have to consider the direction incorrect to purposely miselad.
Purpose - To remove Saddam, for reasons only known to President Bush
Question - Is it necessary, legal or ethical to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force?
Action - Bush plays up the "threat" of Saddam. Bush also made a big issue of the WMD Saddam allegedly had in his possession, in fact that alone was the legal basis (from a UN persepective) of going into Iraq in the first place.

Now in hindsight it could still be argued that Saddam was a bad person, but the WMD argument is false. This is where Bush "mislead" everyone. In trying to answer the question posed above, Bush put his flimsy and circumstantial evidence out there about WMD in order to allow him to act on his purpose. Had Bush never claimed Iraq had WMD, the United States probably would not have invaded (at least until he found another excuse to invade). I don't think that was accidental Turnea, Bush knew exactly what he was doing. If you think he didn't then I have a bridge you might be interested in buying in Arizona.

I wish I could change my vote on the poll, I forgot to consider one factor. O'Reilly lost because he violated Godwin's Law

Semantics again?

Very well, let the grammar grousing begin!

Ahem... In the term "purposefully mislead" the adverb purposefully is used to qualify the verb mislead.
A definition brought to you by Dictionary.com (the price was right)...

Definition
I believe the first definition applies here. When applied to mislead therefore the phrase indicated the subject had a purpose(purposefully) and that said purpose was to "mislead".

Note the word is synonymous with "intentional".

In other word to unintentionally mislead with a purpose in mind is quite different from purposefully misleading someone.

If you believe "Bush knew what he was doing" when he mislead the nation, you imply he lied, that simple, though not supported by the facts.

On the other hand, if you believe he simply didn't try hard enough to determine the truth, that I suppose you can call incompetence. Moore could have done the same, he didn't. He continued to cling to his "Bush Lied" rhetoric despite overwhelming evidence.

Point is, the accusation of lying by Moore is a character attack, which Bill headed off with evidence. Despite the humorous rules of some Usenet groups, on the facts O'Reilly wins this one hands down.

Oh, but it is supported by facts. Let me provide some supporting evidence to the scenario I outlined in my last post.

Back in 2000 the Republican Platform called for the Removal of Saddam Hussein in so many words:


Hmm, I don't know how much more clearly you can say that you are going to remove Saddam Hussein than that, Turnea. Therefore my statement about their purpose is completely valid. The Republican party considered the removal of Saddam Hussein to be key to their strategy and vision for America, they just didn't have a good reason to do so.

The GOP could not have convinced Americans to go to war with Iraq in 2000 or early 2001, but after 9/11 this presented a perfect opportunity. People were scared of terrorism and they were receptive to military action to stop it.

So, why does it not surprise me that one of the first things Bush asked Richard Clarke after 9/11 is - find out if Iraq is responsible for this in any way. In other words, give me an excuse to invade them. That didn't turn out to be the case, so we went in to Afghanistan.

After that, Bush focused on his priorities yet again, and started to try and build this case for WMD. In the platform it says "We will react forcefully and unequivocally to any evidence of reconstituted Iraqi capabilities for producing weapons of mass destruction." Enter hans Blix, the weapons inspector. Blix goes and starts investigating the country and his preliminary reports indicate there are no WMD to be found, furthermore Iraq has been nothing but cooperative. Well, Bush just couldn't have that, so he started presenting speculative CIA reports as "evidence" of Iraqi WMD. Do you remember that speech where Bush is describing in exact detail what kinds of WMD Iraq had? I do, here's the speech.

So, where exactly is this 500 tons of VX exactly? Wouldn't we have found something like that with our unfettered access before the invasion and access to government documents afterwards? Where did this report come from in the first place?

It seems to me this was an unsubstantiated report, along with several other things in this particular speech. Bush is presenting this stuff as "evidence" that Saddam Hussein was a menace so he could remove him. If Hans Blix had been allowed to deliver his report stating that there was NO WMD, then Bush would yet again have no cause to "remove Saddam Hussein", which was one of his major goals. I don't possibly see how you could think that Bush didn't "know what he was doing". The other alternative is that he is incompetent, and that isn't a much better alternative is it Turnea?

In short he lied, purposely mislead, whatever you want to call it Turnea. You are the one arguing semantics, I am arguing intent and the intent is pretty clear. Personally I see no distinction between the two terms.

If that is the case CJ, then are you saying in every thread on Americas Debate where somebody compares Bush to Hitler, they lost?

I just want to make sure you are being consistent here.

Cube Jockey:
You do know that the "Iraq Liberation Act" was a Clinton administration proposal that put into law the goal of "Regime Change" in Iraq, as first coined by Sec. Madeline Albright do you not?

The removal of Saddam was always a bipartisan policy of the US.

Not really...
I started a discussion on Iraqi "cooperation" below, even Blix notes cooperation was not satisfactory.
Iraq's Cooperation

Is the report was unsubstantiated, that was the fault of those who wrote and researched it, not Bush who claimed to believe it. Anymore than it is the fault of Congress for believing Bush. The false information came to them from the same sources.

The lack of evidence is what does it for me

I though you just said you did...

Does a liar need to know what he or she is saying is false to lie?

1) Who do you think had the upperhand in the debate/interview?

Me. Because I saw right through both of them. What a travesty of a debate!


2) Did O'Reilly give a fair interview?

No, it was not an interview at all. It was some sort of argument designed to make the other party look foolish.

My first observation upon reading the provided article was how few answers there were and how many questions.
This seems to be how people debate now. I suppose because the facts are so vague and convoluted and open to interpretation its become almost impossible to nail down the truth.

For example; Did GW Bush lie about WMD's? If he didn't, if he was telling the truth as he understood it, then it means he paid no attention to the UN inspectors on the ground. Hans Blix had said countless times that there were no WMD's in Iraq, so why did George W Bush choose to ignore him?

Well, it seems quite clear to me that GW Bush ignored Hans Blix because GW Bush did not want to know what Hans Blix was saying. Instead he put his faith in the CIA, because of course the CIA were saying what he wanted to hear.

And Tony Blair did the same thing, but although Blair was also aquitted, any one with any interest will know that the intelligence he was presented with came with specific warnings... warnings that he failed to pass on to the British public. (Something which O'Reilly chose to ignore.)

Which means that he did lie. It was not what he said that was a lie, but what he failed to say.
It was the same with Bush. At no point can he be proved to have said a lie, but the simple fact of the matter is that he had the same information at his disposal as I did (Hans Blix's preliminary report) and if he had waited another three months he would have had a finished report from the UN showing clearly that Saddam Hussein did not have WMD's.

There are many ways to lie. You can lie by with-holding the truth and giving a false impression by means of your silence, and that is what Bush and Blair did.

They lied and every body knows it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aquilla



...And 9.8 million people live in Los Angeles County, so quite how do your figures relate to the

130,000?

...US troops in Iraq.

1) Who do you think had the upperhand in the debate/interview?

Neither I was thoroughly bored during it. Both echoed empty rhetoric I've heard a thousand times from both sides. I wanted some fire from one side or the other, this was like watching a bridge club discussion during afternoon tea


2) Did O'Reilly give a fair interview?

Yes, but dull

Countless?

I would be infinitely surprised if anyone could dig up one quote, from before the war, of Blix claiming there were no WMD in Iraq.

All he said was, he found no evidence of existing stockpiles and that previously disclosed weapons were unaccounted for. It's not much of a leap to believe that Bush thought this was due to Iraqi concealment efforts. They had done so in the past with surprising success.

Not a chance.
With so many weapons unaccounted for, it would have been grossly irresponsible of Blix to state Iraq had no WMD without proper documentation of their destruction as ordered by the resolution.

It's not a lie if the speaker is convinced it's the truth...

Turnea that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and once again you are not holding a leader to the proper standards. You have not given me one convincing reason why Bush should be excused because the intelligence reports were wrong, other than repeating it numerous times.

You are suggesting that the President should believe everything he hears from those in his administration and if he actions end up being correct then it wasn't his fault, he can blame the subordinates? I'm sorry but that doesn't fly. The buck stops at the top.

As a liberal who recognizes O'Reilly as a conservative......Moore was obliterated.

Moore doesnt seem to know any nations. He cannot cite examples. He lacks a fundamental understanding of WWII the Cold War and South Africa. Now if Al Franken was there....... It might have been even handed. O'Reilly was pretty open to attack. I hope this doesnt sound bad but i do not think Moore is really a bright or informed person. In the absence of facts Moore avoided and made the argument emotional. He was against the cold war weopens build-up which did speed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He countered this with no it didnt "the people rose up". He doesnt stop to entertain the reason the people were able to raise up. He alludes to a brutal dictator overthrown in S. Africa??? That is not how aparteid ended. Moore makes emotional and factless arguments. He can cite nothing and for some reason thinks the US could have prevented Hitler from coming to power. I am willing to bet Moore has never heard of the Treaty of Versailles. I wish democrats would distance themselves from Moore. I feel that he is the lefts Limbaugh. A factless out of touch drone. He wasnt given the comfort or softballs the sympathetic foreign press gives him and the result was predictable....he looked silly and out of touch with reality.

O'Reilly gave a fair interview. O'Reilly is combative and argumentative but for Foxnews Standards I find him to be as fair as possible. O'Reilly reminds me of Citizen Kane in well Citizen Kane. When the reporter friend writes a scathing review of Kane's wife Kane ruins him but from his own sense of pride and honor allows the article to run even though it will upset his wife. Kane is O'Reilly. A man I may be at odds with but has a certain sense of honor that I notice for the most part.

Wow - I'm astonished that this thread ran as long as it did. Frankly, I thought this was one of the most tedious, lackluster fifteen minutes of tee-vee that I've ever seen in my life. It was like turning up for the Rumble in the Jungle to find Ali and Foreman sitting in armchairs knitting.


Who do you think had the upperhand in the debate/interview?

Bill O'Reilly. The interviewer always has the upper hand - especially an interviewer like O'Reilly who has been known to tell people to "shut up" or even pull the plug on their mike.

Did O'Reilly give a fair interview?

Sure, yeah. He asked questions and actually waited for answers. Pretty unremarkable for most interviewers, though admittedly quite a triumph of the will for Bill O'Reilly.


As to the poll question, I answered "neither". I was watching an interview, not a contest - though I did think there might have been a semblance of debate. As I stated at the outset, I was singularly unimpressed by both. There was a total of two questions, one asked by each, and neither one got a direct answer. Both participants could have soundly trounced the other, given the silliness of the questions, and neither did. Afterwards, I decided I needed something a bit more stimulating. So I turned the television off and stared at the blank screen for a few minutes, a far more satisfying experience.

Mega-dittos to that, Wertz.

The fact that this "debate," which had about relevance to the real world as a noisy squabble between two neighbors, has drawn such a outpouring suggests than either Americans don't recognize genuine debate anymore or are starved for it.

It will be interesting to see if the Presidential Debates will draw similar interest or people will only tune if if Joan and Melissa Rivers grade the candidates for their fashion sense.

I'll offer a different theory. Seeing as I think that one hardly applies to members of this site.

The fact that a man with such a tenuous grasp of the facts as Michael Moore has actually drawn such attention is what the draw is to this thread IMO.

I'm an O'Reilly fan, but I thought he was pretty weak in this debate. I suspect it's because he only had Moore on to appease his fans who voted to have him appear and really didn't put much effort forth.

Moore on the other hand was interesting. The man made not a single rational point throughout the entire debate.

...and yet he makes millions.

Where's my camcorder?...

I couldn't disagree more & I voted Moore. Before I elaborate, I should say that I saw this to be neither a “debate” or an “interview”. I agree with those who saw this as theatre, staged between two media celeb types, who earn a living further entrenching the opinions of their respective audience.

The discussion appeared to be stuck on the morality of the war (i.e., lie vs. truth; misinformed vs. deception; right vs. wrong) with each exchange in this regard, hitting a brick wall over semantics. ("It's not a lie if you believe it to be true," O'Reilly said.)

Moore persisted until O’Reilly finally admitted that the WMD claim was a “mistake” and when challenged by Moore to apply the same moral standards (removing a brutal dictator) to other despots of the world, O’Reilly changed the subject:



At this point, I thought Moore had the upper hand. If only he had pressed forward with the discussion, who knows…

M: Don’t change the subject. How do you determine who’s good and who’s bad, and who is deserving of a preemptive American strike and who is not? Why not North Korea? Why not Iran? Why not Venezuela? Why not even China, for that matter, considering their human rights record?

O: Idealism has nothing to do with what brutal dictator gets singled out for moral retribution.

M: Then what are you saying? The decision to wage war on Iraq was not based on morality?

O: C’mon. It was determined by the naked self-interest of the American government-

Did O'Reilly give a fair interview? He tries to be the master of one-upmanship. This “interview” was no exception. O'Reilly was in rare form when he referred to Moore as "President Moore" and called him Saddam Hussein's "biggest defender in the media."

Then the question remains, what rational point did Moore make? There was mutual agreement that the justification for war was WMD and that it turned out to be false. No points to be made there.

Moore insisted upon calling it a lie, which according to the evidence O'Reilly presented (which Moore could not refute) it wasn't.

Maybe this?

Context...
O'Reilly interjected because Moore had already asked his question and then changed it into another question. It was simply O'Reilly's turn. Was he to allow him to have a third question in a row?

Of course Moore eventually did just that, breaking the rules he put forward for the debate.

Bottom Line: Whereas O'Reilly wasn't exactly giving the highest level of intellectual debate, Moore had nothing but emotionally loaded question divorced from the facts of the matter.

I think O'Reilly was right in saying the soldiers died to remove a brutal dictator.

A difference does exist between what politicians declared a war for and for what the troops actually fight for.

Do you think black troops who fought for the union in the civil war did so because they wanted the union to remain intact?

O'Reilly is simply saying that they didnt die for nothing that they accomplished something. The troops do not have control or influence over the political reasons for war. O'Reilly admitted the WMD claim was wrong. He isnt saying the war was worth it because Saddam was removed he is saying that the troops had purpose.

Moore has a problem with seperation. He cannot differentiate from the political reasons in which war was waged and from the reasons the troops continued and still continue to fight and die despite the fact they (WMD's) were never found. Just because the war was fought over WMD's does not mean that that the elimination of Saddam cannot be counted.

Moore further sheds light on his inability to seperate when he asserts that accidental death and intentional death are just as heinous. Moore does not see a difference between when someone is killed on accident as opposed to someone who is murdered. He sees the person or persons responsible for the death as the same thing.

Just like the man he criticizes he is not a complex thinker but rather a man feeding of the emotional.

The fact remains however that O'Reilly was unable to answer Moore's emotional question. In his film Moore made the same challenge to members of congress. I'd be interested to know how supporters of the war would respond to Moore's question if it were put to them.

The answer I think O'Reilly should have given is:

"Sacrifice my child? - what parent would say yes to that? I'm not going to tell any child of mine to enlist and go to Iraq - that's a decision he has to make for himself. But if he did enlist to support this cause, I would be proud of him. And in that case - yes - I would be willing to see him risk his life to secure Fallujah."

I agree that would have been a better response than simply "I would sacrifice myself."

But O'Reilly elaborated on that in the radio show the next day. He says he was concerned that Moore would grab a soundbite and twist it into "O'Reilly wants children to die in Iraq" or some such nonsense that would make the rounds on the internet.

That said, I still give Moore no credit for coming up with that (painfully obvious) loaded question. A fallacious argument should score no points. Bill was right to avoid it, he let Moore hang himself with his own weasely tactics.

The fact is, neither Moore, nor O'Reilly would be willing to sacrifice themselves. If what Moore said was actually true " I would be willing to sacrifice my life to track down the people that killed 3,000 people on our soil.", he would be spending actual time (and money) devoted to that end. Likewise, O'Reilly would be spending his time and money towards the securing of Fallujah. Instead, they invest their time writing books or making movies and making money talking about how they would be willing to sacrifice themselves.

This is why I don't watch television. Just a lot of hot air from a couple of windbags. I voted 'neither'.

I don't think there was "mutal agreement" in the "debate" that justification of the war based on WMD was "false". If this had come out in the discussion, it would have played to Moore's larger point of false pretenses leading up to the war, or un-truths, further solidifying his notion that President Bush "lied". O’Reilly never admitted to anything being “false”.



As “evidence” I assume you are referring to the following:



The key line here is “This is not a lie if you (referring to Bush) believe it to be true…” This calls for the assumption of facts not supported by evidence presented. O’Reilly gives us no “evidence” that Bush believed it (presence of WMD’s) to be true.

This segment of the discussion is ended with O’Reilly asking his original question:


Once again, the two are locked in a battle of semantics ("lied" or "misinformed").


I will concede that Moore provided no “evidence” showing that Bush “lied” (that Bush knew the intelligence was suspect but acted upon it anyway). But O’Reilly provided no “evidence” that Bush did not lie (that Bush did not know the intelligence was suspect before acting upon it). Whether you side with Moore (Bush lied) or with O’Reilly (Bush was misinformed), the salient point to this exchange is that the issue of WMD being a basis for war was discounted (or at least significantly marginalized), as O’Reilly stated that it was obvious that he (Bush) had made a mistake (regarding WMD’s); agreed that Tenet had done a poor job in his “slam dunk” conclusion and did not dispute that the US had a questionable intelligence system prior to 9/11. For this reason, I give the nod to Moore.



As I see it, the discussion was in two segments. The first being O’Reilly’s question of Moore calling Bush a “liar”. This was concluded:

The second segment began with Moore asking what O’Reilly would say to parents who had lost children in the war. It was in the beginning of this exchange that O’Reilly alluded to the “dictator” issue:

In the subsequent exchange, O’Reilly once again marginalized the WMD issue, calling it a “mistake” but never did answer Moore’s question regarding the “dictator” issue that he had brought up.


We never find out, in O’Reilly’s remaining comments, how he would define “circumstances” where moral retribution would be a cause for war. Moore does however:

If O'Reilly admits to justifying the war based upon WMD is "a mistake" then he is admitting the WMD claims to be false. This does not play to Moore because his insistence is that the Bush administration was lying. Something he simply couldn't support.

I believe O'Reilly took it as common knowledge that Bush claimed to believe there were WMD. That is evidence enough, without proof that Bush is a liar.

In this case, semantics makes a world of difference, the difference between a president who lies on matters of national security as get people killed (a war criminal) or simply a victim of a poor intelligence system.

1. The burden of proof is on Moore to prove deception, Bush is innocent until proven guilty so to speak.

2. I don't see how Moore scores a point here. The idea that the WMD justfication was a "mistake" or "questionable" was never part of his argument (it was O'Reilly's idea).

That's because O'Reilly never claimed moral retribution was cause for the Iraq war, he simply said that it is what he would put forth to the families as solace. He admits that this would not be sufficient.

Turnea


Not at all. The Burden of proof is neither on Oreilly or Moore. One can still go with the "preponderance of the evidence" If this were court there would be a such thing as circumstantial evidence. as well. Let's look at what we know.

1. Moore knows that Bush said there were stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. Now this is likely going to be proven false and as of yet it has been false. Therefore we know as of today that Bush made a statement that is false.

2. We know nothing of the evidence that Bush had to make him conclude that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD, outside what the international community and Iraq could not account for. That evidence was highly disputed by weapon inspectors who gave eyewitness testimony that 90 percent of Iraq's WMD was destroyed. There was intelligence that concluded that Iraq's WMD had a shelf life that was expired or would shortly expire. There was intelligence that showed Iraq had no delivery system to attack America. There was intelligence or a lack of intelligence that showed Iraq had an alliance with Al Queada to attack the U.S. There was evidence that many things this Administration officials, to include rumsfeld, rice, Cheney, powell were false. Time and time again in the build up to war, intelligence in support of the administration was found to be false or inaccurate. Whether it was mobile labs that turned out to be hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons....or aluminum tubes that were supposedly meant for enriching uranium that turned out to be tubes for conventional rockets. In the end there was plenty of evidence refuting the idea that Iraq was a threat or that they had stockpiles of usable WMD or that we were under any threat, imminent or otherwise. So as evidence goes I listed quite a few of why the idea was skeptical, how much can you come up that showed Iraq had stockpiles of WMD that could be a threat to the U.S.

3. With all the evidence that counters evidence of there being stockpiles of WMD what are we to believe?? It would seem to me that Bush would have had to cherry pick information to paint Iraq as a threat, rather than all the evidence showing Iraq to be a threat, forcing the President to make a difficult decision. To call Bush misinformed I get the feeling that one has to put his hands over his/her ears and eyes. But I have to concede to the fact that for Moore to call Bush a liar is an unprovable. In the same way Orielly claiming Bush was simply misinformed is just as unprovable. Why?? Because both deal with what is in Bush's head and no one knows that, but Bush. So no one has a burden of proof because both are making unprovable statement, which is why we must look at the preponderance of the evidence.

No. O’Reilly describes the intelligence as “bad information”. Bad: as in poor, inferior, flawed, or shoddy. Not “false”: as in untrue, incorrect, made-up or fabricated. If he had describe it as being “false”, that would mean that the intelligence that Bush based his decision on would have been a lie, once again, playing to Moore’s point. There is no way that O’Reilly would make this mis-step.



Oh really? What might have been “common knowledge” in this “debate” was the evidence that O’Reilly did provide-the intelligence was “poor” and that it was a “mistake” for Bush to use it as a basis for war….but what evidence did he provide to show that Bush did not know the intelligence was suspect before acting upon it, thereby making it common knowledge?



Agreed. But as far as this “debate” is concerned, O’Reilly & Moore could not get past the semantics.



This would be right if O’Reilly had posed the question this way: “You have accused President Bush of having lied to the American people with regards to WMD in Iraq as a basis for going to war. What evidence do have that the President lied?” He did not.

Instead, O’Reilly cited evidence that he felt was sufficient to dispel Moore’s accusations, and then asked him if he was ready to “apologize” to the President. Moore then challenged O’Reilly’s “evidence” because once again it does not prove that Bush did not know the intelligence was flawed before acting upon it.



Just the fact that O’Reilly now concedes the “mistake”, is in of itself, a point.



O’Rielly answered when Moore asked for the reason why US soldiers were killed: “They were removing a brutal dictator who himself killed hundreds of thousands of people.” I believe he was alluding to moral retribution, that in and of itself, was not sufficient solace to the families who lost loved ones, but sufficient to justify the war?

I'll tell you who lost this debate- the American public, for two reasons:

1. Basically nothing was said. Semantics, semantics, semantics, 0 real answers, not even many intelligent thoughts. Left knowing nothing I didn't come in knowing, maybe even with a few IQ points shaved off the top.

2. People watched O'Reilly and Michael Moore. Two of the most overrated "celebrities" in the politics business. And I say that while standing completely inside the "No-Spin Zone."

While reading through this thread, I couldn't help but notice that at least one person defined Bill O'Reilly as conservative.

O'Reilly cannot be defined as a conservative or a liberal, and it does get old when people insist on doing so. Why?

From The No Spin Zone, page 174-176:

I personally don't see how O'Reilly could have given a fair interview. First, O'Reilly wasn't himself. Note that he was particularly considerate and only afterwards do you find him on the air bashing Michael Moore. He was on his best behavior, but it wasn't typical O'Reilly who saves considerate interviewing for the likes of the First Lady Laura Bush.

Two, O'Reilly basically breathes the air his bosses tell him to breathe. We have learned that Fox News reporters are told exactly how to spin the news. Although this is most disturbing to some, did it impact on the interview: I think so.
Nothing important was learned, just the way Ruppert wanted it to go.

Three, there was not nearly enough time. There rarely is on any news interview.

Four consider some of O'Reilly's very own opinions, from a May 2004 O'Reilly speech at the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan:



Unless of course O'Reilly's opinions dramatically shifted in the space of a couple months more or less.

As usual, Fox viewers didn't get a fair look-see at the real issues or a debate between the two men. We did get a good look at how they both behaved toward on another on the air. Neither one had enough time to get into any question of substance beyond the emotional. And isn't this Michael Moore causing all kinds of emotions?

The only thing proven was that O'Reilly could keep his temper in check when confronted with the Conservative's worst nightmare.

I'm not going to read what everyone put, so I'm apologizing in advance for repeating what has been said.

Michael Moore was cornered by O'reilly when he asked him if he was President Moore what he would have done, given the intelligence Bush was given. He went on ignorantly insisting that Bush lied, even though the Senate Intelligence Report and the 9/11 Commission said there was no dishonesty, and O'reilly said this. All Michael Moore had was anti-war cliche rhetoric. Michael Moore refuses to acknowledge that 310,000 bodies have been unearthed from mass graves in Iraq, and that 1.3 million are still unaccounted for. If the deaths of a little over then 1,000 soldiers is the price to pay to stop mass-killing like this then so be it. I would have been proud to be one of the fallen soldiers in Iraq. When O'reilly listed the atrocities, repeated instances disrespect for the UN, and Iraqi death counts, Michael Moore just went back to "Thats not the reason they were given". He made himself look stupid. He should have stuck to his original plan and not appeared on the Factor. So much for what little respect I had for this man.

The ONLY argument one could bring up for a Moore victory is that O'reilly refused to say he would "sacrifice his own child", but it is not about sacrificing people or speaking for your children. It is about individual patriots fighting the good fight, freedom's fight.

Both asked unfair questions. Moore when he asked if O'Reilly would send his child and O'Reilly when he asked Moore what Moore would do if he was President.

How could Moore answer that question without getting into the "facts" of why the President went to war. The nine eleven report may have said the President had faulty information, I'm not sure that it did. Nor do I recall if the 9/11 report was out the time of the interview in question. Anyone know?

However we know the President was planning a war with Iraq well before nine eleven. The number of bodies unearthed has little to do with any country going to war, nor should it. There had to be several factors proven before we could decide whether or not to go to war and obviously faulty information was given, quite a bit. Bodies in a mass grave is not a good enough reason, unfortunately.

As an aside: (Anyone who hasn't seen Moore's movie, might want to wait until after seeing it before dismissing him as someone who lied, or is not respectible.)

And, to further illuminate how unfair O'Reilly is and to say that he is not fair and balanced, not by a longshot, I posit O'Reilly seems to like to interview controversial figures for the pure sake of saying he interviewed them in a debate. It doesn't matter if O'Reilly made a complete fool of himself in the debate or not. He debated someone on CNBC about FOX being a Ruppert controlled media, and from O'Reilly's own clips, shown yesterday on Fox, it appears that O'Reilly had nothing to say in defense of Fox. If he had any evidence to show that Ruppert is not sending out position memos on a regular basis, Fox surely would have shown these snippets on the debate's preview. The actual debate hasn't aired yet. But will on CNBC soon.