NBC's Lauer to O'Reilly: Did Obama 'Erase' Idea of GOP Being Tougher on National Security?
Updated [3:18 ET]: Video added
During an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer cited recent foreign policy successes for President Obama and wondered: "Republicans have run on a perception that they are tougher on national security, that they're the ones who can keep Americans safe....has Barack Obama done a lot to erase that perception?" [Audio available here]
The O'Reilly Factor host replied: "I mean, it's all about the economy. I don't think foreign affairs is going to be much next year, although Iran is a wild card. If Iran causes trouble in Iraq because the President, you know, is withdrawing all of the troops at the end of the year, that could become a campaign issue." Lauer somehow twisted that response into this: "But right now, what you're saying is Republicans have no right to claim the mantle of 'We are the party that's tough on national security'?" [View video after the jump]
Later, Lauer turned to the 2012 GOP field and wondered if Herman Cain was a "serious candidate" or if voters were just "being taken for a ride" by the businessman. He also warned that if Mitt Romney won the election the Republican Party would be so divided that it would "make the John Boehner/Tea Party thing look like child's play."
Here is a full transcript of the October 25 segment:
7:00AM ET TEASE:
MATT LAUER: Lifelines. President Obama unveils his new plan to ease the housing crisis as GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry gets set to announce his flat tax proposal, and Herman Cain releases a new ad that features his chief of staff smoking a cigarette. This morning we'll talk about it all with the always-opinionated Bill O'Reilly.
7:01AM ET TEASE:
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: And the economy, of course, is the big issue in the presidential race. It's probably where this campaign will be won or lost, Matt.
LAUER: Some details are already emerging about the plan that Texas Governor Rick Perry will lay out in South Carolina today. It could give you an interesting choice when it comes to the amount of taxes you will pay. Will it help Perry regain some of the momentum he's lost during recent debates? That's just one of the topics we'll discuss this morning live with our friend Bill O'Reilly.
7:08AM ET SEGMENT:
LAUER: Now to politics and the race for the White House. On Monday, President Obama unveiled his plan to fix the housing crisis. Here to talk about that and the GOP field is Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News. He's also the author of the new best-seller, "Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever." Bill, good to have you back.
BILL O'REILLY: Thanks Lauer, I appreciate you having me in.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: The Factor; Bill O'Reilly on Obama, the GOP & Abraham Lincoln]
LAUER: It's always a pleasure. So President Obama unveiled this new slogan yesterday, "We can't wait." When you consider the economy right now and what President Obama is facing, couldn't that also be a Republican bumper sticker, 'We can't wait until November'?
O'REILLY: Yeah, I can't wait until the debates are over.
LAUER: You've had enough of the debates?
O'REILLY: 97 debates. You know, it's going to be a new cable channel, just Republican debates, all 24/7. Yeah, you know, they have their slogans, they have their little rallies, and you know, we've been doing this forever so it's nothing new.
LAUER: A couple – about ten days after he took the oath of office, sat down with Barack Obama, he said, "Look, if I can't fix this economy in three years it's going to be a one-term proposition." You look right now, there's 9.1% unemployment, 2 million homes fell into foreclosure this year, I think 10 million are underwater. Is there any reason right now in this snapshot in time that the Republicans should not be able to beat Barack Obama?
O'REILLY: No.
LAUER: In the election?
O'REILLY: If the election were held tomorrow, the President would probably lose. But you know, a year is a long time and the economy could get better, things could rise up and President Obama is a nimble guy, is a smart guy, so the Republicans would be foolish to count him out, but of course they have the advantage. I mean, the President's going in very weakened.
LAUER: Over the last 20 years or so, Bill, it seems Republicans have run on a perception that they are tougher on national security, that they're the ones who can keep Americans safe. We've seen that in campaign ad after campaign ad. When you consider over the last several months Barack Obama oversaw the killing of Osama Bin Laden and Awlaki and Qadhafi is now out of power and in fact dead, has Barack Obama done a lot to erase that perception, that idea that Republicans have run on for so long?
O'REILLY: Yeah. I mean, it's all about the economy. I don't think foreign affairs is going to be much next year, although Iran is a wild card. If Iran causes trouble in Iraq because the President, you know, is withdrawing all of the troops at the end of the year, that could become a campaign issue. But right now, it's all about the wallet.
LAUER: But right now, what you're saying is Republicans have no right to claim the mantle of 'We are the party that's tough on national security'?
O'REILLY: They can claim whatever they want, Lauer-
LAUER: But is it true?
O'REILLY: I think Mr. Obama's done a pretty good job on the war on terror, with the exception of Iran.
LAUER: How did he play Libya? When you look back now, hindsight being 20/20?
O'REILLY: Played it well.
LAUER: Played it well. He never put U.S. troops on the ground.
O'REILLY: We didn't lose anybody, you know, cost us between 30 and 50 million to bomb – you know, look, all of this is nitpicking. The big issue is America is on the down cline of its power, there's no doubt about it, but it's all economically based.
LAUER: We'll talk about economics in a second. On Friday – last Friday – President Obama announced that he'd pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, fulfilling a campaign promise from 2008.
O'REILLY: Right.
LAUER: When you heard him say it, Bill, did you think, 'Wow, that is great military strategy,' or, 'That is pure political strategy'?
O'REILLY: Look, the reason he had to do it is because the Iraqi government, Maliki, wouldn't give the United States troops a pathway to be tried by the USA. They wanted to try them in Iraq if somebody misbehaves over there. So no commander in chief could agree to that. So the Iraqis made it impossible for Mr. Obama to keep forces there. He should have kept, in a perfect world, 20,000 there to make sure Iran doesn't misbehave and Turkey doesn't go and brutalize the Kurds in the north. But he couldn't because the Iraqi government wouldn't give him that option. So he had to do what he did.
LAUER: Let's talk about the GOP field. If you look at a lot of the polls right now, Bill, you've got Herman Cain leading the Republican pack by a couple of percentage points. He's a guy, though, who has basically turned his back on the early primary states, New Hampshire and Iowa. He does not have an infrastructure to speak of. He's out selling a book. Is he a serious candidate?
O'REILLY: He's serious but he's doing it in an unorthodox way. And so, again, if the election were held tomorrow, Mr. Cain would not be the nominee.
LAUER: Serious, though, in terms of you think he really wants to be president?
O'REILLY: Yeah.
LAUER: 27% of the people who are polled on the GOP side say, 'We would vote for this guy.' Are they being taken for a ride by Herman Cain?
O'REILLY: No. I mean, Herman Cain is what you see is what you get. Who wouldn't want to be president? You get a jet, you get a big house, Herman Cain, you know, you're ordering pizza, somebody else pays for it. It's a great job as far as that's concerned. But Cain is running a populist campaign. I don't think can he win, but I was wrong last year. I didn't think Obama could beat Hillary.
LAUER: Can Mitt Romney win? Is he a true-
O'REILLY: Of course he can win.
LAUER: Is he a true conservative?
O'REILLY: I don't know whether he's a conservative or not. He runs as a moderate Republican, of course he can win. If he's smart he'll run as America's CEO that, 'I'll restore the economy and put people back to work.' That's all he's got to do, basically. All the other issues are small ball. Guys like you and me make a living out of it but the folks don't really care. They want somebody to get the economy back on track.
LAUER: But that's the question, let's say he goes on and wins the White House.
O'REILLY: Yeah.
LAUER: Is he, as a moderate Republican, going to face an incredibly uphill battle against conservatives? Is it going to make the John Boehner/Tea Party thing look like child's play?
O'REILLY: Look, Romney's been around for a long time. He makes deals, okay? He governed Massachusetts and he had to make deals with those pinheads there.
LAUER: But it's not particularly a deal-making period in our history.
O'REILLY: It doesn't matter, these guys make all kinds of deals. Could he govern? Yes. Can he win? Yes.
LAUER: Let's talk about Rick Perry. Rick Perry in the last eight weeks has lost about half of his popularity according to the polls. What happened to him?
O'REILLY: Well, he was in inarticulate in the debates and perception is reality. I got Perry coming on The Factor tonight for the first time. We tried to book him for months and he, you know, stayed away from the venue so we'll see what he's got tonight. Can he make a comeback? Yes. He's got a lot of money. He is much more conservative than Romney.
LAUER: Do you think his flat tax proposal that he's announcing today-
O'REILLY: I haven't heard it, I don't know.
LAUER: But do you think that's the kind of thing that can help him claw his way back?
O'REILLY: Flat tax is what people want. Tax code has to be revised. So if it's decent, he'll get some currency, pardon the pun.
LAUER: You've written this new book called "Killing Lincoln: The Shocking-"
O'REILLY: And you didn't even read it, Lauer.
LAUER: I haven't read it yet, no I have not.
O'REILLY: Because you're in bed at 5:00 in the afternoon.
LAUER: Because I'm reading things for other guests as well. But I'm-
O'REILLY: You're not reading things for other guests.
LAUER: But I'm going to get the title out here for you, okay? Because I know it's a best-seller, I know you haven't mentioned it on your show yet. "Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever."
O'REILLY: Right.
LAUER: Is there a Lincoln out there right now running for president?
O'REILLY: I hope so.
LAUER: Who is he?
O'REILLY: That's why I wrote the book, because we need leadership in this country and Abraham Lincoln is the gold standard, the best American president ever. We need to find somebody with that kind of fiber to bring us back. And this was a departure for me, I took less money for this book, but I wanted people to know in a very accessible way, it's not some pinheady book. You could actually read it. I'll send you an audio so you can listen to it, Lauer.
LAUER: Thank you. On my commute in, in the morning.
O'REILLY: When you're kind of dozing off there. He goes to bed at 5:00, he's old. It's 5:00 in the afternoon, he's in bed. But that's why I wrote it. I wanted people to really understand what good leadership is. It's not a knock on Obama or Bush or Clinton. It's just that we need somebody special now in our history to bring us back because we're on the decline, there's no question.
LAUER: Bill O'Reilly, always good to have you here.
O'REILLY: Alright, Matt, good to see you man.
LAUER: Matt, you called me Matt, you slipped.
O'REILLY: They told me-
LAUER: You slipped.
O'REILLY: Because they told me, "Lauer feels bad when you call him his last name."
LAUER: No, you slipped, that's it. I'm going with that.
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Comments
Indeed.
Submitted by NC Cop on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 10:53am.
Obama has given the order to kill OBL after the intelligence community spent years searching for him. Some of that intel coming from the prisoners at Gitmo and through methods that Obama himself has declared wrong.
NATO also led the operation to kill Gadahffi and suddenly this is Obama's foreign policy resume???
How about his administrations failure in Iraq that will mean withdrawing the troops this year when everybody knows what is going to happen when they do.
Smart power in action!!!
God help us all.
Turn it around...
Submitted by Grym on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:02am.
I wish that someone on the right would turn it around on them when the left tries to do this... They should immediately congratulate Obama on his achievements in the war on terror by continuing the policies of Bush/Cheney. Then say.. It's almost like we re-elected GW instead of electing Obama because he has continued to wreck the economy, which the left says about Bush while ignoring Congresses role, and continued to kill terrorist instead of bringing them to trial, kept Gitmo open troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and even set US forces into other countries.
Amen!...
Submitted by Paul G on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 1:07pm.
Whenever I talk to a kill Bush but I love Obama supporter, I ALWAYS bring those points up. It usually shuts them up....unless they start with the butbutbutbut..
Careful,
Submitted by hbnolikeee on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 3:56pm.
when you back a moron into a corner they could get violent.
You obviously don't browse lefty blogs, Grym...
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 4:04pm.
because there have been comments from progressives which are verbatim duplicates of the criticisms listed in your post--slamming Obama for those very reasons.
Jer
Most NB'ers don't have to peruse lefty blogs---
Submitted by matthewdean on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 5:39pm.
because you are right on top of their content in order to show us conservatives how unfair we are.
MD
And there it is.
Submitted by The Vet on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 9:41pm.
We are now expected to go out of our way to search out Stupid?
I see, so when a
Submitted by Grym on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 7:55am.
I see, so when a "Republican/Conservative Warmonger" is in the White House. Anti-War Progressives protest in the streets. When a "Liberal/Democrat/Progressive Warmonger" is in the White House..... Progressives "Comment on Blogs" that no one reads...
Unfortunately, #OWS those dissenting "Progressives" are like the Rich... about 1%.
Grym...
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 5:26pm.
If he were alive, LBJ would beg to differ with you.
But there are other points to be made. Obama had made clear during his campaign that he intended to increase our military footprint in Afghanistan. In the unlikely event he were re-elected and we continued to be bogged down in that conflict despite his assurances to the contrary, I believe you would witness a dramatic escalation in the protests--from both the left and the right.
The demonstrations against our involvement in Iraq gradually intensified as our mission appeared stalled, sectarian strife continued unabated, US casualties mounted, the WMD issue proved to have been a much lesser threat than originally believed, all of which caused and/or added to a pervasive disillusionment with the war.
BTW, the progressive-leaning blog, Huffington Post, one of the places where comments like the ones I described have been posted, is one of the most widely read political websites on the internet.
Jer
Umm
Submitted by ant on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 7:50pm.
You left out the part where the press no longer reports on the troop deaths, failed missions, rising insurgencies in these countries, costs, etc., since they got their boy in office.
And, if I remember correctly, some protests didn't need time to foment, as sons-a-bitches like Murtha, Durbin, et al began protesting the war effort mere months after voting for it. The other son-ofa-bitch's name escapes me now, because he's since been voted from office.
Umm, wrong..
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 8:33pm.
They absolutely do report on troop deaths and the difficulties in Afghanistan. I believe you meant "ferment", and I guess the name of the son-of-a-bitch could be Feingold or Kucinich since Ron Paul wasn't voted out of office. Correction: Neither was Kucinich.
Jer
More horse dung, Jer
Submitted by MrShy on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 9:07pm.
You're peddling more Democrat-friendly myths about the MSM's treatment of Bush and the wars and the constant casualty reports, which they gave us with every "milestone", from the 100's to the 1,000's, weekly and even daily. Same goes with even the slightest gas price spikes, and any/all other even-slightly negative things they could emphasize and tie to the Bush administration.
I wish all of the MSM was NB pre-last year, and we could dig into CNN's and MSNBC's (TV and Web), the NYTimes, et al, homepages / front pages / top-of-the-news archives dating back to just after 9/11, but we can't. But my brain is an archive, and I distinctly recall shaking my head as I constantly watched CNN (Web and broadcast) incessantly giving us Iraq (and Afghan) casualty reports, dating back to 2004 -- before it got out of hand in '05 and '06 (thanks, really, to the punks in our mainstream media fanning the flames as much as they could, saddling Bush with this "drawn out" war back to when it was in it's infancy.)
When all the dust cleared, Jer, we lost just over 4,000 soldiers over about 5-6 years of dealing mostly with outside suicide missions that came from the surrounding Islamic countries that hated what Bush/Co. were trying to do. Shocker there. We lost some 65,000 in Vietnam -- not 4,000, 65,000 -- and the totals only get worse with other major wars we've engaged in. Get where I'm going here? The MSM painted this war (and, naturally, lumped Afghan in with it -- "2 wars" yada yada) like it was THE worst ever, with "casualties mounting" daily.
But you gobble up the narrative, and spit it out to us. No surprise there.
- shy on vinyl
Join Mr. Shy and The 1* Percent
Typical Shy...
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 9:51pm.
ant makes the unqualified assertion that the media no longer reports on American casualties. I respond that they do. [Which is a fact].
You turn that simple exchange into a broad personal attack against me. But, no surprise there.
By the way, Mr. Archive Brain, Bush, as well as just about every senior official in his administration concedes that the strength and intensity of the insurgency and level of sectarian violence which occurred after Saddam was toppled had been unanticipated, and thus our existent Iraqi policies and military strategy which weren't designed to adequately address those eventualities had to be reshaped. Rumsfeld's departure was a notable consequence of that miscalculation.
Open up your mind, Shy, and think objectively for a change.
Jer
Oy vey, Jer.
Submitted by ant on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 10:24pm.
Mr Shy, IMO, is correct about the media's MO concerning the war in the Bush years. It WAS a constant barrage of negativity and despair aimed at disheartening the people and turning them on the administration. Now, there's barely a mention, even among the ranters that don't claim to be unbiased. If you have the stomach for it (I don't) check out episodes of Maddow, Shultz, et al in the Obama term and see how many rants against our Iraq/Afghanistan policy exist (that weren't backward-looking hate-Bush fests).
I find it laughable that you suggest our military strategies were ill-equipped/unprepared to deal with 7th Century fanatical goat-lovers. Any difficulty faced by our obvious superior military has more to do with our treasonous asshats in Washington tying their hands and making us 'fight fair', the usual crap we all know takes place when a war is fought from the office of a bureacrat (most often, Democrat) or we adopt policies approved by the cabal of scum residing at the UN. To suggest it was the strength and intensity of the violence of the insurgents has some merit, but then am I to assume noone knew the measures and level of violence they were capable of? They weren't from Mars, Islam has been the religion of cowardly slaughter for Centuries, I'm pretty sure we knew that going in.
PS. Not even a giggle for my Pelosi joke?
ant...
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 11:04pm.
Look, the scale of media criticism of the administrations and the degree of reporting casualties and strategic obstacles during the Bush and Obama presidencies was not the issue you raised. Once again, you made the unqualified assertion the media no longer reports on those matters at all. I disputed that claim--nothing more.
You can laugh all you want about the notion of a flawed military strategy. But it requires no other reminder beyond the fact of the eventual adoption and implementation of the surge plan over four years into the conflict to bring your guffaws to a screeching halt.
However, I'll gladly give you points on the Pelosi quip. She is no favorite of mine.
Jer
If you want to mince my
Submitted by ant on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 11:24pm.
If you want to mince my sentences, that's your party. I was in a position at work of seeing two and a half hours of local and National news a day and I can assert that I've witnessed weeks of news that might have included a few minutes of reportage. Compared to what it was when Bush was President it's pretty close to nothing. For someone who apparently is a fan of Obama you sure are a stickler for accuracy when it comes to posts here. That doesn't seem to add up, considering Obama's generous "economy with the truth".
You're second paragraph makes my point for me, besides Saddam's initial claim of the 'mother of all battles' being not quite even the 'babysitter of all battles'. Why wait to implement a troop surge? Perfect example of "Let's tie our hands and not use all our resources, so what if we lose a few people?" You can see that same philosophy in border-security and domestic oil resources. Let's suffer some, until it becomes insufferable. Pure genius!(sarc.)
I notice, ant...
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 11:36pm.
that you have moved from "no longer reports" to "the reportage...is pretty close to nothing". At least you're making progress. But, please note [and this is for Shy, too]: I HAVE NEVER MADE THE CLAIM THAT THERE HAS BEEN EQUIVALENT MEDIA COVERAGE DURING THE PRESENT AND THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS.
Jer
.
Submitted by ant on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 12:30am.
I regret nothing
Except not kissing that female friend in High School when I had the chance.
perspective, Jer
Submitted by MrShy on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 10:55pm.
And a whole bunch of it, is lost on you.
"By the way, Mr. Archive Brain, Bush, as well as just about every senior official in his administration concedes that the strength and intensity of the insurgency and level of sectarian violence which occurred after Saddam was toppled had been unanticipated, and thus our existent Iraqi policies and military strategy which weren't designed to adequately address those eventualities had to be reshaped. Rumsfeld's departure was a notable consequence of that miscalculation."
What does all this drivel have to do with the clear and factual point I'm making with respect to Bush's two wars (both, yes both, a response to the declaration of war by barbaric Islam in the Middle East -- a reshaping strategy for that region by the CiC, essentially) and how the MSM at ever turn worked to undermine him and the war(s) pretty much from the get-go? Are you trying to clue me and NB'er's in on how war can be hell? Thanks, we had no idea.
Major wars/engagements totals (approx):
Civil War - 213,000
WWI - 116,000
WWII - 405,000
Vietnam - 58,000
WOT - Iraq AND Afghan - *** 6,300 ***
Freakin' 6,280 (according to wiki) and you yak and yak about how the MSM had every right deconstructing and ripping into Bush on a daily basis, to the public and to the world -- especially considering our enemy was unlike one we'd every engaged before. Yeah, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld had to re-strategize, and Rummy was let go. Again, these guys were under assault themselves and had their own PR war going on -- against the MSM.
Like Ant is also painstakingly trying to spell out for you, the MSM did not give Bush any benefit of the doubt, when you consider these were the years immediately following 9/11 (Pearl Harbor II) and the dangerous world came crashing down on our soil. They hated the man (and Cheney even more) and gave him and his team a month or two of a honeymoon, tops.
I was very tuned in to all of this the past 10 years, both online and on TV, so I remember exactly how the narrative was drummed to the masses by the left wing, Bush-hating controled media. Their ideological agenda came first. Us winning those wars -- and the "hearts and minds" of the world -- came second.
- spinning shy
Join Mr. Shy and The 1* Percent
Shy...Here's a suggestion:
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 11:26pm.
Why don't you just continue to make up things I never said, but that you need to assume in order to argue your case over an imaginary dispute. You are determined to pursue your theme of 'Bush good/media bad' come hell or high water and regardless of what I say or don't say.
So knock yourself out.
Jer
BTW...you seriously understated losses during the Civil War: 600,000+
Jer
Submitted by MrShy on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 2:04am.
"You are determined to pursue your theme of 'Bush good/media bad'..."
Well, no, I'm not "pursuing" anything. I'm telling you (although you know this, but you want to keep pushing back because, well, you're a true ideologue) that Bush was, indeed, quite good when it came to the U.S.'s most recent, major theater of war -- the GWOT (Global War on Terror) -- with regards to casualties being staggeringly low when compared to other major conflicts.
It's why I gave you those casualty comparisons, although it always seems you're a bright historian in many areas, so it puzzles me that I have to do this. (Thanks for the Civil War correction, btw... again, why did I bother if you know all this?)
Add to that, he and his administration succeeded in three major objectives: 1) seriously damaging the Al Queda network (around the globe, not just in Afghanistan), 2) removing Saddam and his regime from power, and 3) installing a constitution and some semblance of a democracy in Iraq. In the process, we certainly killed many Jihadists who flooded Iraq from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran (who knows) during those "insurgent" years. You think those insurgents were locals that suddenly decided they missed Saddam? Um, no.
So, it's no "theme", unless I'm missing something. In this conflict -- a major struggle for this country and for the west, against barbaric Islam -- Bush did about as good a job as a CiC could, and the media was bad throughout it all.
Jer, you're a bright guy, along with someone who's got more tread on his tires than I have, but you choose to be a dim bulb with the most obvious stuff.
- shy on vinyl
Join Mr. Shy and The 1* Percent
Jer.
Submitted by ant on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 9:47pm.
Since Mr. Shy replied to you much better than I could have, I need only say two things. I remember now, it was Tom(?) Daschle. No, I meant foment, to cause or stir up trouble, there's probably a better word, like undermine, sabotage, blame, avoid responsibility for. Fermentation is what has happened to Pelosi's brain (chemical conversion into simpler substances).
ant...
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 10:05pm.
Then you misused the term--it makes no sense in the context of the sentence in which it appears in your post--but that's no big deal. On the other hand, Shy's response was absurd. It had very little to do with the brief and limited dialog between you and me. All he did was set up a couple of straw men so he could post his standard boilerplate rant.
Jer
"I mean, it's all about the
Submitted by MrSnuggles on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:09am.
"I mean, it's all about the economy"
Which is why the media won't talk about the economy.
Rest assured, had Bush been
Submitted by Smartypants on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:22am.
Rest assured, had Bush been in office when OBL and the others were killed, the media would not have painted it as a victory. We would have been hearing charges of civil rights violations, the lack of a jury trial, etc. Saddam Hussein was captured during Bush's term, was given a court trial, found guilty and executed under the laws of his country. Yet, Bush was given little or no credit for the entire episode; he was still the criminal that started the "illegal war," and that's the end of it.
Assasination is NOT foreign policy
Submitted by c5then on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:22am.
Are we now to assume that to the democrats and media a good foreign policy toward Iran would be to put out a "hit" on Amedinahjad? If Hugo Chavez starts to mouth off, should we dispatch some Predator drones?
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
Good points, c5!
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 12:10pm.
But don't forget....they trust Obama to judge who deserves to be killed.
And all that crap about trials for terrorists? Right out the window now. Obama is judge, jury, and executioner.
That's a war crime for a Republican president, but being "tough on national security" for a Democrat.
Right.
Submitted by Seashell on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 2:56pm.
Could you imagine if Bush had killed al-Awlaki, an American citizen? He would have be impeached!
Blame the conservatives
Submitted by dan iroticiv on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:46am.
Again, you can't just keep complaining about the liberals in the media. They don't hide their bias anymore. O'Reilly had a perfect opportunity to call Lauer out on his bias question. Instead he played nice, and will go on his show tonight and have bernie goldberg whine about the media bias.
Yeah, he's tough on national
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 12:07pm.
Yeah, he's tough on national security,
If THIS is what you consider "tough."
Syria: unimportant, Iraq: unimportant, but sending troops to Uganda furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy."
Exactly HOW, Mr. President?
Charen's got it right. There is no national security policy. It's all seat-of-the-pants.
And how the hell can liberals condone drone attacks as being "tough" when they think Guantanamo prisoners deserve a day in a US court?
Cash-countin' Bill
Submitted by greydawg on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 12:13pm.
O'Reilly rants (accurately) about NBC being a horrible Obama whore several times every week. But then when he has a book to sell, he crawls to the network and plays nice. You go, Bill. It's all about you. Just peddle those books and keep the cash register humming. I'm sure you need the money. What a self-serving hypocrite.
"You're saying the Republicans no longer have the right to claim
Submitted by ProudAmerican58 on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 12:33pm.
the mantel..." I think the Republicans have the right to claim the mantel of being smarter on national security but whatever.
What was O'Reilly's reply to Lauer's loaded question?
Mr. Nancy Pants is now macho...??!!?? ha ha ha ha ROFL
Submitted by wizardjr on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 12:39pm.
He sends in the military to bomb a 10th rate camel jockey so the vermin infesting his "nation" can then hunt him down, molest and then kill him. Oh yeah, that's really macho.
Or perhaps you're referring to his sitting in a room full of actual movers and shakers and taking hours and hours to merely nod his head and allow the SEALS to go into the midst of a military city and take out a bad guy? Oh yeah, that's real macho.
Perhaps literally bowing and scraping before foreign heads of state is now macho?
Now if we were talking about Michelle Antoinette, the First Klingonette....
Code Pink
Submitted by kata on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 12:45pm.
must be madder than wet hens.
Dick Cheney must be laughing his @$$ off.
Dumbest Question of the Year
Submitted by HardRightTurn on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 9:27pm.
Assassination and murder does not constitute national security. It is lawlessness.
To more fully comprehend the Left, one must read “Leftism As Psychopathy” by John Ray, M.A., Ph.D. Caution, it might scare you a little bit.
http://jonjayray.tripod.com/psycho.html
Hmmmmm?
Submitted by ant on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:41pm.
Well, we have an administration that celebrates the death of a guy alllll the way in Libya but that releases 28 Iranians on American soil illegally back into the population. Which, I wonder, would be more important to National security?
Obama's foreign policy:
Submitted by P. Aaron on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 7:40am.
Creating power vacuums: Egypt, Libya, soon, Iraq, ...