O'Reilly - Moore Debate
I hate to say it, but I think O'Reilly won this debate. Moore's questions were emotionally manipulative and missed the whole point of the argument - O'Reilly's answers were fair and reasonable, even if they weren't strictly speaking 'true'. So since Michael Moore couldn't do it convincingly, I thought I'd answer one of the questions O'Reilly raised.
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: 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?
First of all, let's not pretend that Weapons of Mass Destruction were anything more than a pretext - a veneer of 'respectability' that could be applied to the whole debacle. The many hawks in the Bush administration have had their sights set on Iraq for a long time. Wolfowitz was ready to invade scant weeks after September 11. Bush preferred to concentrate first on Afghanistan, but was perfectly happy with the overall picture. Rumsfeld has admitted that Regime Change in Iraq has been policy since the 1990s... ever since Saddam went from being a favoured despot to an unlawful dictator. As I've stated before, the war in Iraq was always going to be about oil - the other reasons were simply adopted after the fact.
Bill's point is that it wasn't a 'lie' to say that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but instead that it was a mistake based on bad intelligence - intelligence that was supported by MI6 and the Russian secret service. Obviously the President has to believe what his people are telling him, so there was no intent to deceive.
Well, perhaps it's true that the intelligence was 'corroborated' (see the Butler report for an analysis of the use of the word 'corroborated') - but where exactly does the buck stop?
Was it a lie to say that intelligence indicated that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? No, of course it wasn't.
Was it a lie to state unequivocally that Iraq had WMD, and not contextualise that assertion with any of the many caveats that the Intelligence services put on the data? Of course you can argue that it wasn't a lie - it was simply an omission.
Was it a lie to pass off plagiarised 'intelligence' as hard, corroborated fact? Well, perhaps not - but certainly deceptive.
But that doesn't mean that Bush hasn't lied - if he hasn't lied, then he has been grossly incompetent. This list shows some of the lies since the war itself. It's credible he didn't know any of the pertinent points prior to making the statements - but why on earth is that any better? Can we really excuse a president sending troops to war on the basis of his ignorance?
Also, why concentrate on the fact that MI6 and Russia had given Bush 'corroborative' evidence? Why not concentrate on the fact that the UN weapons inspectors, the IAEA and other such agencies had argued against the case for weapons in Iraq? Sure, it's easy to build a convincing case when you disregard all the testimony to the contrary. As Hans Blix said, the evidence was not an argument for an invasion - it was an argument for inspections.
Has Bush lied? Maybe not... but only in the purest of semantical senses. He deceived, he misled, he continued to assert known falsehoods as fact... perhaps he didn't tell any actual lies (although I don't believe this to be the case), but the intention to deceive was certainly there - and the truth of the matter is, that's what really counts, not the semantic justifications.
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: 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?
First of all, let's not pretend that Weapons of Mass Destruction were anything more than a pretext - a veneer of 'respectability' that could be applied to the whole debacle. The many hawks in the Bush administration have had their sights set on Iraq for a long time. Wolfowitz was ready to invade scant weeks after September 11. Bush preferred to concentrate first on Afghanistan, but was perfectly happy with the overall picture. Rumsfeld has admitted that Regime Change in Iraq has been policy since the 1990s... ever since Saddam went from being a favoured despot to an unlawful dictator. As I've stated before, the war in Iraq was always going to be about oil - the other reasons were simply adopted after the fact.
Bill's point is that it wasn't a 'lie' to say that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but instead that it was a mistake based on bad intelligence - intelligence that was supported by MI6 and the Russian secret service. Obviously the President has to believe what his people are telling him, so there was no intent to deceive.
Well, perhaps it's true that the intelligence was 'corroborated' (see the Butler report for an analysis of the use of the word 'corroborated') - but where exactly does the buck stop?
Was it a lie to say that intelligence indicated that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? No, of course it wasn't.
Was it a lie to state unequivocally that Iraq had WMD, and not contextualise that assertion with any of the many caveats that the Intelligence services put on the data? Of course you can argue that it wasn't a lie - it was simply an omission.
Was it a lie to pass off plagiarised 'intelligence' as hard, corroborated fact? Well, perhaps not - but certainly deceptive.
But that doesn't mean that Bush hasn't lied - if he hasn't lied, then he has been grossly incompetent. This list shows some of the lies since the war itself. It's credible he didn't know any of the pertinent points prior to making the statements - but why on earth is that any better? Can we really excuse a president sending troops to war on the basis of his ignorance?
Also, why concentrate on the fact that MI6 and Russia had given Bush 'corroborative' evidence? Why not concentrate on the fact that the UN weapons inspectors, the IAEA and other such agencies had argued against the case for weapons in Iraq? Sure, it's easy to build a convincing case when you disregard all the testimony to the contrary. As Hans Blix said, the evidence was not an argument for an invasion - it was an argument for inspections.
Has Bush lied? Maybe not... but only in the purest of semantical senses. He deceived, he misled, he continued to assert known falsehoods as fact... perhaps he didn't tell any actual lies (although I don't believe this to be the case), but the intention to deceive was certainly there - and the truth of the matter is, that's what really counts, not the semantic justifications.
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