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We Aren't The World: Nothing But The Troops
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By Paul Shrug, Section Columns
Posted on Sat Feb 5th, 2005 at 02:02:50 AM PDT
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This week, I'm really not doing much more for this column than transcribing an exchange between Bill O'Reilly and one of his callers on his talk radio show.
I was gasping for air when I heard it.
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| You'll recall a few days ago, Condoleeza Rice had to endure quite a few barbs from Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer during her confirmation hearing of Secretary of State. The Washington Times transcript of the relevant portion of this exchange went like this. Note the bolded keyword:
BOXER: ...Your own documents show that Al Qaida has expanded from 45 countries in '01 to more than 60 countries today. Well, with you in the lead role, Dr. Rice, we went into Iraq... I have... a State Department document that lists every country in which Al Qaida operated prior to 9/11, and you can see the countries. No mention of Iraq. And this booklet was signed off on by the president of the United States, George W. Bush -- was put out by George Bush's State Department and he signed it. There was no Al Qaida activity there. No cells...
Now, you rolled out the idea and then you had to convince the people as you made your case with the president. And I personally believe -- this is my personal view -- that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. And I don't say it lightly... Now, I don't want the families of those 1,366 troops that were killed or the 10,372 that were wounded to believe for a minute that their lives and their bodies were given in vain. Because when your commander in chief asks you to sacrifice yourself for your country, it is the most noble thing you can do to answer that call. I am giving their families, as we all are here, all the support they want and need. But I also will not shrink from questioning a war that was not built on the truth... (A)s much as I want to look ahead -- and we will work together on a myriad of issues -- it's hard for me to let go of this war because people are still dying. And you have not laid out an exit strategy. You've not set up a timetable. And you don't seem to be willing to, A, admit a mistake, or give any indication of what you're going to do to forcefully involve others. As a matter of fact, you've said more misstatements... (There is then a long list of documentation that you can read elsewhere, but for now, let's skip to the sum-up)
RICE: Senator, may I respond?
CHAIRMAN RICHARD LUGAR: ...Clearly, you ought to have the right to respond. And then, at that point, we're going to have a recess. But will you please give your response?
RICE: Yes. Senator... I have to say that I have never, ever lost respect for the truth in the service of anything. It is not my nature. It is not my character. And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before and what went on before and what I said, without impugning my credibility or my integrity.
That's all fine and well. Cut to this evening, when I was listening to this morning's Al Franken radio show on Mp3. Franken's last book of poltical satire, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, was a blistering diatribe at the right wing and mass media, in particular Fox News, even more particularly Bill O'Reilly of The O'Reilly Factor. Personally, I thought Bill O'Reilly was somewhat harmless -- even after I read Franken's book. Sure, O'Reilly's a bit of a demagogue, but for some reason I couldn't ascribe him the same kind of venom I reserve for Rush Limbaugh or James Dobson. But I sure don't trust O'Reilly that much, partly because he seems to have a selective memory, partly because he thinks felafel is some kind of sex toy. Which, in creative hands, it may actually be. But we digress, back to Franken's radio show:
Franken's guest was the proprietor of a website called Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly. They sell infant wear with that slogan on the front, by the way.
Franken played back tapes of O'Reilly challenging listeners on his radio show regarding the above exchange between Boxer and Rice. It was screamingly hysterical, and definitely shed light on O'Reilly's occasional penchant for malpropisms. After I heard it I could understand why he would erroneously think felafel was a bathroom sponge.
You are better off listening to the tape of the Franken show itself (the guest comes on at about the 37-minute mark), but just for fun, I thought I'd transcribe the two passages that Franken referred to.
I had to work a little harder because on the tape, Franken and his guests are laughing quite a bit:
FRANKEN: First of all, you remember that during the Condie Rice hearings that Barbara Boxer read Condie Rice a number of statements that she, Rice, had made, that contradicted themselves, and that were just wrong and dishonest. And so -- there was a long litany of these, and this was covered pretty widely on the news... and then it led up to this, in which she says the following: (plays portion of above exchange)
FRANKEN: Okay. "Overwhelmed your respect for the truth," and she went onto something. Now this becomes the bone of contention that... O'Reilly's just absolutely sure of something that's -- where he's dead wrong. But let's -- just play it.
(Tape of O'Reilly show is played):
O'REILLY: I don't have any problem with, uh, with Boxer grilling Rice. But when she says to Rice, "You allowed your loyalty to the president to override your concerns to the troops, for the troops," that's over the line. Don't you see that?
CALLER: Did she say for the "troops" or for the "truth"?
O'REILLY: (brief pause) No, for the troops.
CALLER: Okay, then...
O'REILLY: That's when she went over the line. (Franken starts laughing.) When she started to make it, "Hey, you're a craven politician who'll do anything for power, and you don't care about the guys dying in the sand" -- which is what she was saying --
CALLER: Okay... I thought she said "for the truth, because I --
O'REILLY: No. She was talking "the troops," and then you saw Rice get her back up, by saying "Don't you impugn my concern for those troops over there, I was involved with sending them there, and I -- da-da-da-da-da."
FRANKEN (cackling): I like "Don't you impugn my concern for the troops..." Rice, of course, didn't say that, she said "Don't you impugn my concern for the truth..." (snip) This is a good one. This one I love; this is gold:O'REILLY: Boxer comes in and says, "Your devotion to Bush, and your obsequiousness to the administration, um, was more important to you than the welfare of our troops." I mean, that's grossly insulting, is it not?
CALLER: I don't think she did mention our troops...
O'REILLY: Yeah, she did.
CALLER: They were just...
O'REILLY: Mary Anne, Mary Anne, ho-ho-hold... Yeah, she did. That's exactly what she said. And then Rice came back and said, "Don't you impugn my integrity. I have tremendous feeling for the sacrifices the troops made."
So Mary Anne, you gotta understand, if you're going to come on The Factor, and you're gonna say, "Barbara Boxer asked all the right questions and did all the right things," and then I say to you, "What about this?", and you say "I don't think she did it," when anybody following that hearing knows she did it... Lis Wiehl?
WIEHL (O'Reilly's co-host): Mm-hmm.
O'REILLY: Mary Anne, how could we possibly take your analysis seriously? And I'm not saying this to attack you. I want you to call in again, I want you to be a listener. But I'm trying to send a message out to everybody. If you're going to call in this program -- this isn't the usual talk show, where you can just blather about stuff you don't know anything about. I'm gonna ask you questions! I'm gonna ask you to back up your position -- with facts!
Now, Mary Anne didn't know about that exchange, which was the most contentious exchange and played on every news show!
FRANKEN: Well, that was... that's just hilarious.
Gotta go. This was so funny that I just spilled my drink, so I gotta go get a felafel to clean it up.
Here's a link to mediamatters.org and their coverage of this farce. |
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