O'Rielly disappoints again

OK, consider:

Fox news broadcasts to the 'faithful'. They present a spin on news which their viewers want to see.

Never, in a million years, would the average fox news viewer believe a government conspiracy, unless it was by a democrat administration, or the rate of income tax had been increased.

Bearing this in mind, fox is one of the few news networks which gives any time to the CTers.

The result is that, to the average god loving, gun owning, pension claiming, republican voting fox viewer the 9/11 conspiracy is promoted by them, you know ....liberals and democrats.

So fox can happily keep on presenting the CTers as being part of the enemy, ridicule them a little (but not too much or they won't come back on) and the viewers will 'tut tut' and reach for their copy of "10 great speachifications by G.W Bush" and be reinvigorated in their opposition to all and everything politically left of centre.

Just a thought

Excellent post! :)

Beats me why any rational person would take O'Reilly or the Fox network seriously. I mean, the guy sells his own mugs and T-shirts!

M.
 
I'd love to see a debate between space beam troofers and controlled demo troofers. That would be quite entertaining.
 
The mainstream of either party will not be the ones to stick their necks out on any fringe conspiracy theory. But their henchmen will "raise legitimate questions" to create the climate of debate and distrust of their opposition. In the case of Republicans we can see recent examples in the Vince Foster CT, the Swift Boaters For Truth, and Pat Robertson's New World Order. You won't see Bill Frist espousing their messages but he sure is glad they exist. FOX will be happy to demonize the Troofers so long as they can paint them with the Liberal brush.

Undoubtedly the Democrats do the same.
 
Just think: if 9/11 had happened under a Democratic President, the Truth Movement would be headline news every day. One Truther or another would be on Fox News every single second. There would be a huge investigation by Congress, impeachment proceedings--the whole bit. It's all we would be talking about.
Nothing about your statement is true. Clinton was impeached foy lying not conspiracy theories. Nixon was impeached on a ct, albeit a true one. Yes Republicans are more apt to believe a democrat conspiracy.
 
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I don't think the Repubs would accept the CT, but their approach would be different. They would not just dismiss the accusers as anti-american whackos, but would actually show that they are wrong.

You can't just dismiss them with, "Oh, you just hate the president and that's unpatriotic" when you yourself hate the president.
 
Nice words Valis. I'd try and top the way you destroyed uk, but why bother?
Beats me why anyone would take CNN seriously or CBS,NBC etc. etc. Funny how you all cry now that there is a differing opinion and not just "facts" from the MSM. You had it your way for a long time. Whatever happened to Dan Rather and that bogus story he was promoting? How about 60 minutes coaching Willy before his appearance when he first ran for Prez? Oh, I forgot Fox news is the devil, and it's all Bush's fault. What were those cable ratings again? Anyone? Bueller.... Anyone? Sorry boys and girls, your tantrums fall on informed ears now.

O'Rielly made Donahue look like the dried up has been he is. He also threw Jeremy Glick off the show when he claimed there was U.S. government involvement. This happened a few years after 9/11.
He also clearly stated last night that the reason he had Barret on the show was to let him make a fool of himself. It worked. He also said it was the last time he would be on.
The Swift Boaters were correct in their assessment of Kerry.
 
Chances are Valis and I would agree on a whole slew of issues. I support Bush (can't vote for him because I'm a canuck), believe in God, don't own a gun but support the right to keep and bear arms in both our countries and I choose to watch FOX news.

This is why I referred to O'Riellys lack of performance against Barret as a disappointment. I expected better of him.

But I think UK_Dave has a point as well. FOX very likely knows thier audience and that they don't have to work to gain thier approval.

Any philosophy, be it liberalism, conservatism or other, will only be as strong as the arguments made in support of it. Hysterical name calling, wether it by be or against froot loops and whackos will only create a weaker position. FOX is doing a disservice to conservatives and those who believe in the truth about 9-11 by not hitting these guys with factually sound, reasoned arguments.
 
I hesitate to comment on this because this is not the Politics forum, but it is about CTs, too.

We can point to a lot of wacky Clinton CTs all day long (the Clinton Death Lists, anyone?), but mainstream CT about Clinton was still quite dominant. Whitewater was a dead horse flogged endlessly in the media, and there was nothing to it when you got down to facts (nothing that implicated the Clintons in anything, I should say). Vince Foster's suicide got that wonderful "some people are saying it was a murder" coverage that tsk-tsks the idea, but gives it plenty of airtime. And then look at the recent Presidential campaigns. Gore was lied about constantly (inventing the Internet, Love Canal, the Love Story attribution, and on and on). And Kerry got the Swift Boat treatment, which included many media groups giving those liars uncritical coverage night after night.

And when Bush's Guard record finally breaks big in the media, attention is quickly diverted to the "memos", and not on the former Texas Lt Governor who confessed to pulling the strings to get Bush into the Guard!

As Perry has said, there is a well-funded well-documented machine out there generating mucho bad press for any viable left candidate for national office. That's not to say that the left doesn't have its own share of wackos! But I'd suggest the writings of Bob Somerby to anyone who'd like to see just how "liberal" our media is with the truth.
 
The day Republicans resorted to supporting a complete fantasy like the Truth Movement to support their own agenda and discredit a Democratic government would be the day the Republicans lost all support.

I am no apologist for the Republicans by any means, but this is almost as fantastic a claim as the Truth Movement itself.

I should point out the Clinton Death List. All CT there, right? Yet mainstream Republican TV hosts put that trash on the air and did not attack it, they mumbled about it being interesting. Need I point out Flowers going on Hannity's show? National TV and Hannity did not call Flowers a CT by any stretch. This was AFTER she had already been on HArdball and revealed her evidenceless death list theory. Hannity could not book her fast enough and even gave her the whole hour.

Lurker
 
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I should point out the Clinton Death List. All CT there, right? Yet mainstream Republican TV hosts put that trash on the air and did not attack it, they mumbled about it being interesting. Need I point out Flowers going on Hannity's show? National TV and Hannity did not call Flowers a CT by any stretch. This was AFTER she had already been on HArdball and revealed her evidenceless death list theory. Hannity could not book her fast enough and even gave her the whole hour.

Lurker
I would never claim that Republicans do not play dirty pool. I'm just saying that if the Republicans started backing a bad science-fiction story complete with holographic planes and Star Wars beam weapons, they would be in for a world of hurt by the American public.

Interesting though, I was reading a Snopes article about the Clinton Death List, and I found this section talking about techniques used to formulate the list:
  • List every dead person with even the most tenuous of connections to your subject. It doesn't matter how these people died, or how tangential they were to your subject's life. The longer the list, the more impressive it looks and the less likely anyone is to challenge it. By the time readers get to the bottom of the list, they'll be too weary to wonder what could possibly be relevant about the death of Clinton's mother's chiropractor.
  • Play word games. Make sure every death is presented as "mysterious." All accidental deaths are to be labelled "suspicious," even though by definition accidents occur when something unexpected goes wrong. Every self-inflicted death discussed must include the phrase "ruled a suicide," to imply just the opposite. When an autopsy contradicts a "mysterious death" theory, dispute it; when none was performed because none was needed, claim that "no autopsy was allowed." Make liberal use of words such as 'allegedly' and 'supposedly' to dismiss facts you can't contradict with hard evidence.
  • Make sure every inconsistency or unexplained detail you can dredge up is offered as evidence of a conspiracy, no matter how insignificant or pointless it may be. If an obvious suicide is discovered wearing only one shoe, ignore the physical evidence of self-inflicted death and dwell on the missing shoe. You don't have to establish an alternate theory of the death; just keep harping that the missing shoe "can't be explained."
  • If the data doesn't fit your conclusion, ignore it. You don't have to explain why the people who claim to have the most damaging goods on Clinton — Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starr — are still walking around unscathed while dozens of bit players have been bumped off. It's inconvenient for you, so don't mention it.
  • Most importantly, don't let facts and details stand in your way! If you can pass off a death by pneumonia as a "suicide," do it! If a cause of death contradicts your conspiracy theory, claim it was "never determined." If your chronology of events is impossible, who cares? It's not like anybody is going to check up on this stuff . . .
Sound familiar to anyone?
 
The only reason Fox lets on people like Kevin is to assassinate their character. They (mainstream media i.e. puppeteers) want to constantly teach the masses how to treat people who think independent of the system. It's so unbelievably predictable and comical...this characterization they paint of the backwoods, ufo cult member.

Don't think for yourselves people...you'll be an outcast...and shun from society. CONFORM.

Actually the lies come from Kevin and he assassinates himself! Debunked as he talks;

Kevin; the I don't know what happen CT nut case.

28th, when you or Kevin find a fact post it...
 
O'Reilly is a self-centered schmuck with very little knowledge about anything, and no real interest in anything except his own opinions. He thinks CTers are just anti-American fanatics, so that's all he needs to know to bring them on the show, just so he can tell them that. He's not going to waste time learning what he would need to know to debunk their claims because he assumes that the only reason anyone watches his show is to hear his opinions.
 
The only reason Fox lets on people like Kevin is to assassinate their character.
You're suggesting that Barrett has character that can be assassinated. He doesn't. I have twice asked him to correct egregious errors on his website (Silverstein said "we decided to pull" building 7, Silverstein hasn't built anything new at the WTC, Silverstein committed insurance fraud, etc). He hasn't done so.

Oh, and he's writing a book. From Wikipedia:

Barrett has written a largely autobiographical book covering the controversy, entitled "Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle against the 9/11 Big Lie," scheduled for release by Progressive Press in early 2007.

He's an epic ass.
 
A reality of twoofers is that many of them are opposed to Bush and the absolute stranglehold of one-party rule we've all had to endure and somehow survive in this country, since 2002. Lots of twoofers are not Republicans. They're anything but. Railing about an "inside job" has been an opposition catalyst, a desperate backlash and to me, understandable in that context. Flawed strategy, but understandable.

Fox "News", knowing this, exploits it when possible. Earlier there was an idiot versus idiot confrontation when Hannity had this Barrett on. Despicable as Hannity is, I could at least recognize his tactics. Let the lunatic rave, let him hang himself. Be condescending. And make a very subtle statement about how loony the Democrats are. This is Murdoch at his most conniving.

That's all O'Reilly (America's Most Arrogant Man) was doing. Identical tactics. Let America see what the "lefties" and the Democrats are all about.

You'll notice that prior to November 7th, the 9/11 Twoof Movement was behaving much as the neocons: In complete lockstep. After November 7th, we see the fissures rapidly appearing. Turmoil at Scholars. Turmoil at LC. The opposition to Bush can now being refocused and redistributed, in some twoofers' eyes, and I think we can expect to see some of them back off on more radical "inside job" positions.
 
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And Kerry got the Swift Boat treatment, which included many media groups giving those liars uncritical coverage night after night.

The Swift Boat Vets were not selling a CT, they were selling their opinions and their recollections. I spent more time looking into the SVBfT claims than all but about a dozen people on the planet, and I could not find a place where they lied. I did find places where the record was ambiguous, and even where I thought the record supported more Kerry's story than theirs--the first Purple Heart incident, for example. Against that you have to weigh the places where Kerry plainly lied and the SBVfT were telling the truth--the ridiculous Christmas in Cambodia story, which not even Brinkley would support for example, or the oft-changing tale of his rescue of Jim Rassmann. Check out the amazingly dramatic story that appears in the foreword of the Boston Globe bio, about Kerry and his crew delivering a breech-birth baby to a Vietnamese woman, and then search in vain for that same anecdote in Tour of Duty. Check out the story that both books repeat about VC the flying dog, where Kerry claims that a dog his boat had adopted was catapulted backwards by an underwater mine, and landed safely on another Swift Boat. Hey, I'm sure I saw that scene in a Dean Jones movie for Disney.

Kerry was a fabulist--a Baron von Munchhausen for our times. Susan Estrich was assigned the task of appearing on Fox News about the Swift Boat Vets and she called up the Kerry campaign for the talking points and was told there were none. There was a documentary out last year on the Kerry Campaign where one of the strategists admitted that the Swiftees were so devastating because they were basically right.
 
The Swift Boat Vets were not selling a CT, they were selling their opinions and their recollections. I spent more time looking into the SVBfT claims than all but about a dozen people on the planet, and I could not find a place where they lied. I did find places where the record was ambiguous, and even where I thought the record supported more Kerry's story than theirs--the first Purple Heart incident, for example. Against that you have to weigh the places where Kerry plainly lied and the SBVfT were telling the truth--the ridiculous Christmas in Cambodia story, which not even Brinkley would support for example, or the oft-changing tale of his rescue of Jim Rassmann. (....)

I am not sure I want to rehash this whole thing but plainly and simply you are wrong on many points. The first purple heart is a primary example. Schacte claims to have been there yet all three of hte other people on Kerry's boat (Runyon, Kerry, Zaladonis) say he was not there. Schacte claims there was a grenade launcher that Kerry used, both Zaladonis and Runyon say there was no grenade launcher.

Now, if the SBVfT had been honest, you would think they would include actual crew testimony in their book and let people make up their own mind. They did not do so, did they?

If you examine EVERY medal/heart incident and get all the eyewitness testimony you can, you will find that in EVERY case teh majority of eyewitnesses support Kerry's version of events. Every single record from the time also supports Kerry. The SBVfT had to "allege" every single item.

Even the XMas in Cambodia your friend O'Neill had to lie about. He quotes from Kerry's book yet convenicently took out the portion right before where Kerry discusses a long trip to get back to base.

I honestly have no idea if Kerry was in Cambodia. We know that the US did have forces in Cambodia only a short time later.

You claim to be one of the most educated people on this issue. Have you compiled a list fo all witnesses to each event? Have you seen how the SBVfT think initials like KJW somehow are intials for John F Kerry. Yeah, O'Neill used a very high level of evidence to support his charges. LOL!

Lurker
 
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The Swift Boat Vets were not selling a CT, they were selling their opinions and their recollections. I spent more time looking into the SVBfT claims than all but about a dozen people on the planet, and I could not find a place where they lied. I did find places where the record was ambiguous, and even where I thought the record supported more Kerry's story than theirs--the first Purple Heart incident, for example. Against that you have to weigh the places where Kerry plainly lied and the SBVfT were telling the truth--the ridiculous Christmas in Cambodia story, which not even Brinkley would support for example, or the oft-changing tale of his rescue of Jim Rassmann. Check out the amazingly dramatic story that appears in the foreword of the Boston Globe bio, about Kerry and his crew delivering a breech-birth baby to a Vietnamese woman, and then search in vain for that same anecdote in Tour of Duty. Check out the story that both books repeat about VC the flying dog, where Kerry claims that a dog his boat had adopted was catapulted backwards by an underwater mine, and landed safely on another Swift Boat. Hey, I'm sure I saw that scene in a Dean Jones movie for Disney.

Kerry was a fabulist--a Baron von Munchhausen for our times. Susan Estrich was assigned the task of appearing on Fox News about the Swift Boat Vets and she called up the Kerry campaign for the talking points and was told there were none. There was a documentary out last year on the Kerry Campaign where one of the strategists admitted that the Swiftees were so devastating because they were basically right.
Hi Brain -

When normal, decent people hear the term "conspiracy theorist", they roll their eyes and shake their heads. That is the correct response. CT has a well-earned negative connotation.

When normal, decent people hear the term "swift boated" they do the same thing. Also the correct response. What happened in the 2004 election was so reprehensible that the term "swift boated" made it into the American lexicon, complete with a well-deserved negative connotation.

This despicable group of vets - and I'm a vet myself so I can call them that - was born of an idea by Rove and funded - mostly - by Bob Perry, a Republican real estate baron in Texas. He gave tons of money to Our Current Leader, and also to the honest and forthright Tom Delay. And many many other Republicans. Funnelled millions to Repubs.

Anyone who is former military typically has some level of respect for those who are current or former military. When a military person has seen action - the level goes up. When it's Vietnam? Even higher. As a vet - I don't really care whether the individual stories or recollections of vets are absolutely 100% accurate. It's like being a fisherman. There's going to be embellishment and that's how it works. That's why we have the term "ah, he's telling sea stories again". All I know - as do other vets - is that if Kerry was over in that riverine war in the 'Nam, and he got 3 Purple Hearts? And was honorably discharged? Good enough.

Rove never served in the military, but he - in his sociopathic manner - knew he could score points by attacking Kerry for his military service. That's all this was. Political hatchet-jobbing, which is Karl's fix in life. It's really too bad that all of his sociopathic efforts were dashed to pieces on November 7th. Fortunately, enough Americans actually said: Enough. And when that happens, people like Rove have to make a path. Or as we used to say in the service: "Make a hole!"
 
I am not sure I want to rehash this whole thing but plainly and simply you are wrong on many points. The first purple heart is a primary example. Schacte claims to have been there yet all three of hte other people on Kerry's boat (Runyon, Kerry, Zaladonis) say he was not there. Schacte claims there was a grenade launcher that Kerry used, both Zaladonis and Runyon say there was no grenade launcher.

Now, if the SBVfT had been honest, you would think they would include actual crew testimony in their book and let people make up their own mind. They did not do so, did they?

If you examine EVERY medal/heart incident and get all the eyewitness testimony you can, you will find that in EVERY case teh majority of eyewitnesses support Kerry's version of events. Every single record from the time also supports Kerry. The SBVfT had to "allege" every single item.

Even the XMas in Cambodia your friend O'Neill had to lie about. He quotes from Kerry's book yet convenicently took out the portion right before where Kerry discusses a long trip to get back to base.

I honestly have no idea if Kerry was in Cambodia. We know that the US did have forces in Cambodia only a short time later.

You claim to be one of the most educated people on this issue. Have you compiled a list fo all witnesses to each event? Have you seen how the SBVfT think initials like KJW somehow are intials for John F Kerry. Yeah, O'Neill used a very high level of evidence to support his charges. LOL!

Lurker

Hi Brain -

When normal, decent people hear the term "conspiracy theorist", they roll their eyes and shake their heads. That is the correct response. CT has a well-earned negative connotation.

When normal, decent people hear the term "swift boated" they do the same thing. Also the correct response. What happened in the 2004 election was so reprehensible that the term "swift boated" made it into the American lexicon, complete with a well-deserved negative connotation.

This despicable group of vets - and I'm a vet myself so I can call them that - was born of an idea by Rove and funded - mostly - by Bob Perry, a Republican real estate baron in Texas. He gave tons of money to Our Current Leader, and also to the honest and forthright Tom Delay. And many many other Republicans. Funnelled millions to Repubs.

Anyone who is former military typically has some level of respect for those who are current or former military. When a military person has seen action - the level goes up. When it's Vietnam? Even higher. As a vet - I don't really care whether the individual stories or recollections of vets are absolutely 100% accurate. It's like being a fisherman. There's going to be embellishment and that's how it works. That's why we have the term "ah, he's telling sea stories again". All I know - as do other vets - is that if Kerry was over in that riverine war in the 'Nam, and he got 3 Purple Hearts? And was honorably discharged? Good enough.

Rove never served in the military, but he - in his sociopathic manner - knew he could score points by attacking Kerry for his military service. That's all this was. Political hatchet-jobbing, which is Karl's fix in life. It's really too bad that all of his sociopathic efforts were dashed to pieces on November 7th. Fortunately, enough Americans actually said: Enough. And when that happens, people like Rove have to make a path. Or as we used to say in the service: "Make a hole!"

Good response, gentlemen. The SBVfT thing was criminal, IMO. I just wish Kerry had fought back.
 

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