o'reilly vs moore on the factor tonite - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

#1 07-27-2004, 10:14 PM

i was trying to watch close-captioned at the gym.

what was the tone? did anyone's head explode? who won?

im sure theres a replay later tonite.

AustinsCE · #2 07-28-2004, 01:05 AM

Moore kept asking if oreilly would send his or someone elses "children" to iraq. I think bill sounded more intelligent so he "won". The children thing got me, he kept pushing it, and pushing it, as if bush is sending "kids" over there and they have absolutely no awareness of what a war is or why they joined the military. Moore dodged a bit, same old same old mostly. Nothing was really accomplished by either men. You'll have to catch it and decide for yourself.

KirkVining · #3 07-28-2004, 01:24 AM

O'reilly has been saying for months that if he could just get Moore on his show he would kick his ass. Instead it was at best a draw - of course I think Moore kicked his ass but I am biased - however I will give you some reasons why I thought Moore did very well indeed:

The children point is at the heart of the matter. The thing dearest in life to people are their children. Do you think the War in Iraq is worth the life of your kid? Less and less people think so. O'reilly played word games instead of answering the question directly, in other words, he "spun" the question. So much for Mr. Nospin.

The question of giving one's children is a question that more women are going to sympathize with than men. They give children life, and painfully do so I might add, and then do most of the work of raising them. The issue of whether after all that pain and love and work the payback to her efforts is going to be her 20 yr kid in a casket is a powerful question for these particular voters. For mom, you better have a damn good answer. O'reilly is no better at giving that answer than Bush is. I have yet to hear an answer from anyone on the right that justifies 1,000 dead in Iraq - for what is now a "mistake" caused by "bad intelligence".

The most powerful part of F911 is the mother dealing with the loss of her son in Iraq. No politics, no issues, just a mother with a dead 20 year old kid and a lot of questions and no answers. Moore is just continuing that line of politcal attack - conservative men are going to pooh-pooh it, but its not meant for them - in fact when they poh-pooh it they just re-inforce moms view that they are insensitive. O'reilly played right into his hands. Mom is going to start thinking that people who make mistakes that might result in the death of her kid might not be the people who should be running the country.

KirkVining · #4 07-28-2004, 01:31 AM

MICHAEL MOORE: That’s fair, we’ll just stick to the issues.

BILL O'REILLY: The issues… all right good, now, one of the issues is you because you’ve been calling Bush a liar on weapons of mass destruction, the Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler’s investigation in Britain, and now the 9/11 Commission have all come out and said there was no lying on the part of President Bush. Plus, Vladimir Putin has said his intelligence told Bush there were weapons of mass destruction. Wanna apologize to the president now or later?

MOORE: He didn’t tell the truth, he said there were weapons of mass destruction.

O'REILLY: Yeah, but he didn’t lie, he was misinformed by - all of those investigations come to the same conclusion, that’s not a lie.

MOORE: uh huh, so in other words if I told you right now that nothing was going on down here on the stage…

O'REILLY: That would be a lie because we could see that wasn’t the truth

MOORE: Well, I’d have to turn around to see it, and then I would realize, oh, Bill, I just told you something that wasn’t true… actually it’s president Bush that needs to apologize to the nation for telling an entire country that there were weapons of mass destruction, that they had evidence of this, and that there was some sort of connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11th, and he used that as a –

O'REILLY: OK, He never said that, but back to the other thing, if you, if Michael Moore is president –

MOORE: I thought you said you saw the movie, I show all that in the movie

O'REILLY: Which may happen if Hollywood, yeah, OK, fine –

MOORE: But that was your question –

O'REILLY: Just the issues. You’ve got three separate investigations plus the president of Russia all saying… British intelligence, U.S. intelligence, Russian intelligence, told the president there were weapons of mass destruction, you say, “he lied.” This is not a lie if you believe it to be true, now he may have made a mistake, which is obvious –

MOORE: Well, that’s almost pathological – I mean, many criminals believe what they say is true, they could pass a lie detector test –

O'REILLY: Alright, now you’re dancing around a question –

MOORE: No I’m not, there’s no dancing

O'REILLY: He didn’t lie

MOORE: He said something that wasn’t true

O'REILLY: Based upon bad information given to him by legitimate sources

MOORE: Now you know that they went to the CIA, Cheney went to the CIA, they wanted that information, they wouldn’t listen to anybody

O'REILLY: They wouldn’t go by Russian intelligence and Blair’s intelligence too

MOORE: His own people told him, I mean he went to Richard Clarke the day after September 11th and said “What you got on Iraq?” and Richard Clarke’s going “Oh well this wasn’t Iraq that did this sir, this was Al Qaeda.”

O'REILLY: You’re diverting the issue…did you read Woodward’s book?

MOORE: No, I haven’t read his book.

O'REILLY: Woodward’s a good reporter, right? Good guy, you know who he is right?

MOORE: I know who he is.

O'REILLY: Ok, he says in his book George Tenet looked the president in the eye, like how I am looking you in the eye right now and said “President, weapons of mass destruction are a quote, end quote, “slam dunk” if you’re the president, you ignore all that?

MOORE: Yeah, I would say that the CIA had done a pretty poor job.

O'REILLY: I agree. The lieutenant was fired.

MOORE: Yeah, but not before they took us to war based on his intelligence. This is a man who ran the CIA, a CIA that was so poorly organized and run that it wouldn’t communicate with the FBI before September 11th and as a result in part we didn’t have a very good intelligence system set up before September 11th

O'REILLY: Nobody disputes that...

MOORE: Ok, so he screws up September 11th. Why would you then listen to him, he says this is a “slam dunk” and your going to go to war.

O'REILLY: You’ve got MI-6 and Russian intelligence because they’re all saying the same thing that’s why. You’re not going to apologize to Bush, you are going to continue to call him a liar.

MOORE: Oh, he lied to the nation, Bill, I can’t think of a worse thing to do for a president to lie to a country to take them to war, I mean, I don’t know a worse –

O'REILLY: It wasn’t a lie

MOORE: He did not tell the truth, what do you call that?

O'REILLY: I call that bad information, acting on bad information – not a lie

KirkVining · #5 07-28-2004, 01:32 AM

MOORE: A seven year old can get away with that –

O'REILLY: Alright, your turn to ask me a question—

MOORE: ‘Mom and Dad it was just bad information’—

O'REILLY: I’m not going to get you to admit it wasn’t a lie, go ahead

MOORE: It was a lie, and now, which leads us to my question

O'REILLY: OK

MOORE: Over 900 of our brave soldiers are dead. What do you say to their parents?

O'REILLY: What do I say to their parents? I say what every patriotic American would say. We are proud of your sons and daughters. They answered the call that their country gave them. We respect them and we feel terrible that they were killed.

MOORE: And, but what were they killed for?

O'REILLY: They were removing a brutal dictator who himself killed hundreds of thousands of people

MOORE: Um, but that was not the reason that was given to them to go to war, to remove a brutal dictator

O'REILLY: Well we’re back to the weapons of mass destruction

MOORE: But that was the reason

O'REILLY: The weapons of mass destruction

MOORE: That we were told we were under some sort of imminent threat

O'REILLY: That’s right

MOORE: And there was no threat, was there?

O'REILLY: It was a mistake

MOORE: Oh, just a mistake, and that’s what you tell all the parents with a deceased child, “We’re sorry.” I don’t think that is good enough.

O'REILLY: I don’t think its good enough either for those parents

MOORE: So we agree on that

O'REILLY: but that is the historical nature of what happened

MOORE: Bill, if I made a mistake and I said something or did something as a result of my mistake but it resulted in the death of your child, how would you feel towards me?

O'REILLY: It depends on whether the mistake was unintentional

MOORE: No, not intentional, it was a mistake

O'REILLY: Then if it was an unintentional mistake I cannot hold you morally responsible for that

MOORE: Really, I’m driving down the road and I hit your child and your child is dead

O'REILLY: If it were unintentional and you weren’t impaired or anything like that

MOORE: So that’s all it is, if it was alcohol, even though it was a mistake – how would you feel towards me

O'REILLY: Ok, now we are wandering

MOORE: No, but my point is –

O'REILLY: I saw what your point is and I answered your question

MOORE: But why? What did they die for?

O'REILLY: They died to remove a brutal dictator who had killed hundreds of thousands of people –

MOORE: No, that was not the reason –

O'REILLY: That’s what they died for

MOORE: -they were given –

O'REILLY: The weapons of mass destruction was a mistake

MOORE: Well there were 30 other brutal dictators in this world –

O'REILLY: Alright, I’ve got anther question—

MOORE: Would you sacrifice—just finish on this. Would you sacrifice your child to remove one of the other 30 brutal dictators on this planet?

O'REILLY: Depends what the circumstances were.

MOORE: You would sacrifice your child?

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself—I’m not talking for any children—to remove the Taliban. Would you?

MOORE: Uh huh.

O'REILLY: Would you? That’s my next question. Would you sacrifice yourself to remove the Taliban?

MOORE: I would be willing to sacrifice my life to track down the people that killed 3,000 people on our soil.

O'REILLY: Al Qaeda was given refuge by the Taliban.

MOORE: But we didn’t go after them—did we?

O'REILLY: We removed the Taliban and killed three quarters of Al Qaeda.

MOORE: That’s why the Taliban are still killing our soldiers there.

O'REILLY: OK, well look you cant kill everybody. You wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan—you wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan, would you?

MOORE: No, I would have gone after the man that killed 3,000 people.

O'REILLY: How?

MOORE: As Richard Clarke says, our special forces were prohibited for two months from going to the area that we believed Usama was—

O'REILLY: Why was that?

MOORE: That’s my question.

O'REILLY: Because Pakistan didn’t want its territory of sovereignty violated.

MOORE: Not his was in Afghanistan, on the border, we didn’t go there. He got a two month head start.

O'REILLY: Alright, you would not have removed the Taliban. You would not have removed that government?

MOORE: No, unless it is a threat to us.

O'REILLY: Any government? Hitler, in Germany, not a threat to us the beginning but over there executing people all day long—you would have let him go?

MOORE: That’s not true. Hitler with Japan, attacked the United States.

O'REILLY: Before—from 33-until 41 he wasn’t an imminent threat to the United States.

MOORE: There’s a lot of things we should have done.

O'REILLY: You wouldn’t have removed him.

MOORE: I wouldn’t have even allowed him to come to power.

O'REILLY: That was a preemption from Michael Moore—you would have invaded.

MOORE: If we’d done our job, you want to get into to talking about what happened before WWI, woah, I’m trying to stop this war right now.

O'REILLY: I know you are but—

MOORE: Are you against that? Stopping this war?

O'REILLY: No we cannot leave Iraq right now, we have to—

MOORE: So you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah? I want to hear you say that.

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself—

MOORE: Your child—Its Bush sending the children there.

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself.

MOORE: You and I don’t go to war, because we’re too old—

O'REILLY: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it.

MOORE: Say ‘I Bill O’Reilly would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah’

O'REILLY: I’m not going to say what you say, you’re a, that’s ridiculous

MOORE: You don’t believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people across America for this?

O'REILLY: Look it’s a worldwide terrorism—I know that escapes you—

MOORE: Wait a minute, terrorism? Iraq?

O'REILLY: Yes. There are terrorist in Iraq.

MOORE: Oh really? So Iraq now is responsible for the terrorism here?

O'REILLY: Iraq aided terrorist—don’t you know anything about any of that?

MOORE: So you’re saying Iraq is responsible for what?

O'REILLY: I’m saying that Saddam Hussein aided all day long.

MOORE: You’re not going to get me to defend Saddam Hussein.

O'REILLY: I’m not? You’re his biggest defender in the media.

MOORE: Now come on.

O'REILLY: Look, if you were running he would still be sitting there.

MOORE: How do you know that?

O'REILLY: If you were running the country, he’d still be sitting there.

MOORE: How do you know that?

O'REILLY: You wouldn’t have removed him.

MOORE: Look let me tell you something in the 1990s look at all the brutal dictators that were removed. Things were done, you take any of a number of countries whether its Eastern Europe, the people rose up. South Africa the whole world boycotted---

O'REILLY: When Reagan was building up the arms, you were against that.

MOORE: And the dictators were gone. Building up the arms did not cause the fall of Eastern Europe.

O'REILLY: Of course it did, it bankrupted the Soviet Union and then it collapsed.

MOORE: The people rose up.

O'REILLY: why? Because they went bankrupt.

MOORE: the same way we did in our country, the way we had our revolution. People rose up—

O'REILLY: Alright alright.

MOORE:--that’s how you, let me ask you this question.

O'REILLY: One more.

MOORE: How do you deliver democracy to a country? You don’t do it down the barrel of a gun. That’s not how you deliver it.

O'REILLY: You give the people some kind of self-determination, which they never would have had under Saddam—

MOORE: Why didn’t they rise up?

O'REILLY: Because they couldn’t, it was a Gestapo-led place where they got their heads cut off—

MOORE: well that’s true in many countries throughout the world__

O'REILLY: It is, it’s a shame—

MOORE:--and you know what people have done, they’ve risen up. You can do it in a number of ways . You can do it our way through a violent revolution, which we won, the French did it that way. You can do it by boycotting South Africa, they overthrew the dictator there. There’s many ways—

O'REILLY: I’m glad we’ve had this discussion because it just shows you that I see the world my way, you see the world your way, alright—and the audience is watching us here and they can decide who is right and who is wrong and that’s the fair way to do it. Right?

MOORE: Right, I would not sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah and you would?

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself.

MOORE: You wouldn’t send another child, another parents child to Fallujah, would you? You would sacrifice your life to secure Fallujah?

O'REILLY: I would.

MOORE: Can we sign him up? Can we sign him up right now?

O'REILLY: That’s right.

MOORE: Where’s the recruiter?

O'REILLY: You’d love to get rid of me.

MOORE: No I don’t want—I want you to live. I want you to live.

O'REILLY: I appreciate that. Michael Moore everybody. There he is…

joshhol · #6 07-28-2004, 01:51 AM

Thanks for posting the transcript, I missed the interview tonight.

JimSmith · #7 07-28-2004, 02:19 AM

Kirk,

You get my vote that Michael Moore won.

I watched O'Reilly a few days ago when he had a rant going about the Canadians breeding a generation of America-haters. He had a Canadian flunkie there to support him, and a professor from some Canadian University to present the opposition. The whole premise was so absurd it was funny. O'Reilly's beef turned out to be that the Canadian Government, who allocates TV bandwidth to companies through some selection process that is not a "highest bidder" system, has refused to allocate Fox News any bandwidth and has granted Al-Jezeerha bandwidth.

O'Reilly considers this an affront to America. The professor explained to him that Fox News is basically indestinguishable from other purely commercial American stations, of which he noted there are more than four already broadcasting in Canada, and that Al-Jezeerha, while possibly offensive and definitely unique in their perspective, offered Canadian citizens some insight into the Arab/Islamic outlook on the rest of the world. The professor then noted he thought it might do Americans good to study this outlook and understand these people before attacking them again.

O'Reilly then jumped down his throat about some piece Al-Jezeerha had broadcast, asking the professor if he thought that was better for people to watch than Fox News and The O'Reilly Factor in particular, all the while noting his show is the fountain of truth. The professor told him he missed the point, the reason to watch the Al-Jezeerha station was to learn how we are percieved by this segment of the world's population, and then O'Reilly cut him off and went on another rant after dismissing the guy and patting himself on the back for being right.

This stuff is such crap, if you are not into the emotional part of the charade, it is actually very funny. If you just listen to what he says to Moore, he falls flat on his face, although I see a similar line of logic about lying. That one always gets me. He was given bad dope and he made a bad decison based on that. The excuse makes going to war about the same value judgement as picking your lunch from a Chinese menu. Bush owed it to the families of the dead soldiers, before he made the decison to take those Americans to war, to check his information and make sure he was right. The President was not picking his lunch. This cannot be a misunderstanding, or a bad translation. We cannot let it happen again, and right now, many people think it is ok to make such poor decisions and blame a bunch of nameless and faceless minions. I am glad to see Michael Moore accepted the challenge from the bullying, manipulating and self promoting O'Reilly. I am even happier to see O'Reilly had no more ammo in his empty gun that he had for the Canadian professor. Jim

djugurba · #8 07-28-2004, 02:20 AM

ugh. we're headed down a dark road when people refuse to admit they've made a mistake and correct the problem. We learn through our mistakes- read any basic ed. text. But apparently, we're blameworthy for life and should be written off if we are wrong about anything ever. So, just deny being wrong. What a rediculous system.

Amazing to me that any repo or neo-con or whoever is using Woodward's book as ammo for their defense. It paints such a disturbing picture of the goings-on, and is worse because the admin is proud of that depiction.

O'Riley needs to go back to Hard Copy tabloid bunk show hosting. Or maybe he deserves a Hollywood Square?
http://mediamatters.org/static/PECGuOZcXLgOuiqm-7t1mw/rws.html

-k

elau · #9 07-28-2004, 03:27 AM

Thanks Kirk. I have long since stop watching O'Reilly. I found a him totally mis-leading and nothing but a garbage mouth neo-con hides under the pretense of independence.

Base on your transcript, I think MM won the debate. Hands down.

#10 07-28-2004, 06:26 AM

O'reilly cites sources and MM just runs his mouth......reminds me of this place.

MS Fowler · #11 07-28-2004, 07:38 AM

I always have thought that replacing intellect with emotion is a poor way to make a decision. That is the basis of Moore's "argument". I think that is weak at best. It produces decisions that are totally emotional, but often wrong. Most of us would not/ could not make a conscious decision to kill our children--so that makes any military response to any situation impossible.

el presidente · #12 07-28-2004, 08:07 AM

So this is it? Judgment on whom to vote for in the upcoming election....based on a weak interview between Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly? Gimmie a break! Just more showboating by sideliners with the bullhorns.

I turned it off after the first minute...

Now for some meat and potatoes: If elected, what policies will John Kerry's Administration bring to the White House that will improve America?

JimSmith · #13 07-28-2004, 08:14 AM

I believe that is the point. Unless it is necessary for our survival there is no excuse for putting other parent's children in danger. Michael Moore's point was, the excuse of removing Saddam is not an adequate substitute for the lie of imminent danger from WMD. And, once you admit the premise of the war is bogus, how can you continue to oversee the slaughter of Americans for a mistake. Oh, I see, once you get caught lying you deny it, blame another government agency and then try to slip in a new reason to kill American kids. Yes, you need to make decisions facing the emotions. You have to be right when you decide to risk American lives, no matter how ordinary those Americans are. We do not have the right to ask for our youth to stand up and face these dangers to cover our mistakes. That is Michael Moore's point. And O'Reilly's sources and quotes are heresay. The Brits have admitted they erred. Tony Blair, in contrast to George W. Bush, actually admitted he was responsible and he made the mistake of believing the data.

I have to disagree, emotion, is a vital part of decision making that involves ending human life. It is inhuman not to consider the potential loss of human life when engaging in activities that will take human lives. Jim

djugurba · #14 07-28-2004, 08:52 AM

neither one of these guys have much argumentative integrity. neigher one is a very good spokesperson for the best positions of their own opposing viewpoints. They argue apples and oranges: MM: What about this feeling? (intent: kantian response regarding universal rejection of the feeling) BO'R: What about this fact? (intent: bury head in sand if fact is proven misleading, just keep on stating its a fact)

I could see either one of them failing to conceed that the following was a useless exchange:
MM, " Bill, have you quit beating your wife yet?"
BO'R, " I never started beating my wife"
MM, "That's not what I asked you, answer the question"

The style is to ask questions that presupose too much that is in question, and not to bother to ground these things prior to insisting upon answers. Works great on the playground, "Why are you picking your nose, Johnny? That's gross!" "I'm not!" "Answer me! I said WHY? "