Here Today... Gone To Hell!

This thread is not meant to be a new thread about Iraq, although that topic will no doubt, overlap into this. Anyway, Bush's approval ratings are somewhere in the 30s. Is it possible for him to bounce back? Historically, many presidents have had dips. Reagan was in the 30 during the Iran Contra scandal, and he bounced back. But can Bush? I tend to think he can't. His legacy is no doubt tied to Iraq, and I don't see that being resolved any time soon, much less in the next three years. Also, who knows where this Plame scandal will lead, possibly to Darth Cheney himself. I basically see Bush as a placeholder until Clinton, McCain, or whoever comes next.

No he can't.  There are too many forces against him, and he does not have the ability to battle back by selling his policies, conducting press conferences, and  fighting against the extreme fringes of this country.

Yeah, he's such a victim.

I hope not, but sometimes it amazes me what people "forget" when it comes to politics.  I do think it depends a certain amount on the economy though.  People will forgive alot of things if they are doing well and living well. 

Yes he can come back, if he just wins back all the support from the conservatives he will be back up to over 50 percent.

Clinton back in 94 I think it was had his approval rating drop into the mid 30's and they responded and he got back into the 60's in no time.

Gas Prices are dropping, that will help, but he has to come with something more to get them up, he cant sit on his ass and do nothing and expect anything to change, but It is possible for him to get them back up.

haha, yea everybody is just picking on poor ole W.  :hihi:


Sadly this is true. If the money is good and life is good for them, all the bad that is happening falls to the side.

Reagan's approval dipped down to around 40 percent for During Iran Contra (which many people quickly forgot as well). But his term ended with about the same approval rating as Clinton.

Bush is lower than Carter, and approaching Nixon's approval before he resigned. Chenney's approval is right at 30 percent the last I read. Don't even ask what the poll numbers show for black people's approval of Bush. One poll showed single digits, rightfully so.


The bottom line is this: You can not unspend the Billions and billions (like a drunken sailor Bush has spent). You can't bring 2000 troops back to life. You can't find WMD now. You can't take away the CIA leak (this hurt him more than anything I think, polls how people don't trust Bush any longer, don't feel he is honest) case. You can't take away his lack luster response to Katrina. You can't take away the fact that his own base is publicly disagreeing with him now, and voicing their frustration.  You can't take away the fact that W himself has no exit plan for a botched war in the middle east. You can't take the higher gas prices away. You can't take the higher heating costs this winter away. People are getting slammed financially, and they are starting to pay attention now. They are asking more questions, and trusting Bush less and less. You can't take hyper inflation away.

Can he bounce back? I highly doubt it. With 2006 around the corner I would not be surprised if Democrats grab a majority of seats and begin the impeachment process, sending his poll numbers even lower.

You think 'ole W. could be impeached? 2006, the downfall of W. and "Chinese Democracy." Could be a good year.

I don't think he will, but there is certainly plenty of rumbling about it. I would not be shocked if they tried to impeach him. Started the process, and through that more truth is on the table for America to see. Thus bringing his poll numbers even lower. The gig is up for him, he has been exposed too many times for lying and flip flopping on issues.

Impeached and CD? I have a better chance of hitting the lotto...... ;D

Can Bush bounce back?
The world hopes not.  :P

most likely he wont beable to bounce back clinton had some good spinners on his side that could spin a blow job into a great thing.... which it is.... as we have seen it either W's spinners are crap... or teh IQ of the nation is actualy starting to climb...... i go with the fomer... lol.... as SLC has said, '06 is coming up strong, and i would ot be surprised to see a large number of seats shift dramaticly across the floor.... impeachment..... thats a hard line to go for on bush...... he has managed to keep clean.... as close as it has gotten is to dick... but that was a stretch.... if you can impeach for being dumb then hes a gonner... but unless you can actualy find direct ties to him knowing that the intel was totlay worng on iraq hes safe...... nothing else you can get him for... if yo give it time... well ya never know

Suck it up, we only have three more years of this man and his administration.

If he changes his positions on immigration, health care, the war, and government spending, then ya I think he is due for a comeback.   ;D

I think the country works as long as one part is republican and the other is democrat.

I dont like the president and congress being controlled by the same party, I think that is where u get the most problems cause the true checks and balances gets corrupted when one party controls it all.

He can bounce back if he captures bin Laden and oil prices continue to drop and if 2 years from now we are withdrawing troops and we can declare a victory in Iraq.? If two of those three happens, he will bounce back over 50%.? Reagan and Clinton were in the 37-40% range at one time (same as Bush) and they bounced back.? Of course Bush senior was at 38% and couldn't bounce back.?

The bad news for liberals is he is in the last term and whether he bounces back or not is pretty much irrelevant...you are stuck with him for 3 more yeasr.

And if they tried to impeach him liberals would lose seats in the next election...it won't happen.

Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt ...
By Frank Rich
The New York Times
Sunday 27 November 2005


George W. Bush is so desperate for allies that his hapless Asian tour took him to Ulan Bator, a first for an American president, so he could mingle with the yaks and give personal thanks for Mongolia's contribution of some 160 soldiers to "the coalition of the willing." Dick Cheney, whose honest-and-ethical poll number hit 29 percent in Newsweek's latest survey, is so radioactive that he vanished into his bunker for weeks at a time during the storms Katrina and Scootergate.

The whole world can see that both men are on the run. Just how much so became clear in the brace of nasty broadsides each delivered this month about Iraq. Neither man engaged the national debate ignited by John Murtha about how our troops might be best redeployed in a recalibrated battle against Islamic radicalism. Neither offered a plan for "victory." Instead, both impugned their critics' patriotism and retreated into the past to defend the origins of the war. In a seasonally appropriate impersonation of the misanthropic Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life," the vice president went so far as to label critics of the administration's prewar smoke screen both "dishonest and reprehensible" and "corrupt and shameless." He sounded but one epithet away from a defibrillator.

The Washington line has it that the motivation for the Bush-Cheney rage is the need to push back against opponents who have bloodied the White House in the polls. But, Mr. Murtha notwithstanding, the Democrats are too feeble to merit that strong a response. There is more going on here than politics.

Much more: each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe.

The cover-up is failing, however. No matter how much the president and vice president raise their decibel levels, the truth keeps roaring out. A nearly 7,000-word investigation in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times found that Mr. Bush and his aides had "issued increasingly dire warnings" about Iraq's mobile biological weapons labs long after U.S. intelligence authorities were told by Germany's Federal Intelligence Service that the principal source for these warnings, an Iraqi defector in German custody code-named Curveball, "never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so." The five senior German intelligence officials who spoke to The Times said they were aghast that such long-discredited misinformation from a suspected fabricator turned up in Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations and in the president's 2003 State of the Union address (where it shared billing with the equally bogus 16 words about Saddam's fictitious African uranium).

Right after the L.A. Times scoop, Murray Waas filled in another piece of the prewar propaganda puzzle. He reported in the nonpartisan National Journal that 10 days after 9/11, "President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda."

The information was delivered in the President's Daily Brief, a C.I.A. assessment also given to the vice president and other top administration officials. Nonetheless Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney repeatedly pounded in an implicit (and at times specific) link between Saddam and Al Qaeda until Americans even started to believe that the 9/11 attacks had been carried out by Iraqis. More damning still, Mr. Waas finds that the "few credible reports" of Iraq-Al Qaeda contacts actually involved efforts by Saddam to monitor or infiltrate Islamic terrorist groups, which he regarded as adversaries of his secular regime. Thus Saddam's antipathy to Islamic radicals was the same in 2001 as it had been in 1983, when Donald Rumsfeld, then a Reagan administration emissary, embraced the dictator as a secular fascist ally in the American struggle against the theocratic fascist rulers in Iran.

What these revelations also tell us is that Mr. Bush was wrong when he said in his Veterans Day speech that more than 100 Congressional Democrats who voted for the Iraqi war resolution "had access to the same intelligence" he did. They didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief that Mr. Waas uncovered. They didn't have access to the information that German intelligence officials spoke about to The Los Angeles Times. Nor did they have access to material from a Defense Intelligence Agency report, released by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan this month, which as early as February 2002 demolished the reliability of another major source that the administration had persistently used for its false claims about Iraqi-Al Qaeda collaboration.

The more we learn about the road to Iraq, the more we realize that it's a losing game to ask what lies the White House told along the way. A simpler question might be: What was not a lie? The situation recalls Mary McCarthy's explanation to Dick Cavett about why she thought Lillian Hellman was a dishonest writer: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.' "

If Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney believe they were truthful in the run-up to the war, it's easy for them to make their case. Instead of falsely claiming that they've been exonerated by two commissions that looked into prewar intelligence - neither of which addressed possible White House misuse and mischaracterization of that intelligence - they should just release the rest of the President's Daily Briefs and other prewar documents that are now trickling out. Instead, incriminatingly enough, they are fighting the release of any such information, including unclassified documents found in post-invasion Iraq requested from the Pentagon by the pro-war, neocon Weekly Standard. As Scott Shane reported in The New York Times last month, Vietnam documents are now off limits, too: the National Security Agency won't make public a 2001 historical report on how American officials distorted intelligence in 1964 about the Gulf of Tonkin incident for fear it might "prompt uncomfortable comparisons" between the games White Houses played then and now to gin up wars.

Sooner or later - probably sooner, given the accelerating pace of recent revelations - this embarrassing information will leak out anyway. But the administration's deliberate efforts to suppress or ignore intelligence that contradicted its Iraq crusade are only part of the prewar story. There were other shadowy stations on the disinformation assembly line. Among them were the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, a two-man Pentagon operation specifically created to cherry-pick intelligence for Mr. Cheney's apocalyptic Iraqi scenarios, and the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), in which Karl Rove, Karen Hughes and the Cheney hands Lewis Libby and Mary Matalin, among others, plotted to mainline this propaganda into the veins of the press and public. These murky aspects of the narrative - like the role played by a private P.R. contractor, the Rendon Group, examined by James Bamford in the current Rolling Stone - have yet to be recounted in full.

No debate about the past, of course, can undo the mess that the administration made in Iraq. But the past remains important because it is a road map to both the present and the future. Leaders who dissembled then are still doing so. Indeed, they do so even in the same speeches in which they vehemently deny having misled us then - witness Mr. Bush's false claims about what prewar intelligence was seen by Congress and Mr. Cheney's effort last Monday to again conflate the terrorists of 9/11 with those "making a stand in Iraq." (Maj. Gen. Douglas Lute, director of operations for Centcom, says the Iraqi insurgency is 90 percent homegrown.) These days Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney routinely exaggerate the readiness of Iraqi troops, much as they once inflated Saddam's W.M.D.'s.

"We're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history," the vice president said of his critics. "We're going to continue throwing their own words back at them." But according to a Harris poll released by The Wall Street Journal last Wednesday, 64 percent of Americans now believe that the Bush administration "generally misleads the American public on current issues to achieve its own ends." That's why it's Mr. Cheney's and the president's own words that are being thrown back now - not to rewrite history but to reveal it for the first time to an angry country that has learned the hard way that it can no longer afford to be without the truth.

Think this will help Bush and Co?

Yet another one of his party caught up in FRAUD.  Imagine that?  :hihi: This is also why his poll numbers are falling. How many of his "team" are under investigation right now? Or charged with something? The country does not trust Bush after his lies about Iraq and the corrupt nature of his party in general.

Congressman resigns after bribery plea
California Republican admits selling influence for $2.4 million

(http://tinypic.com/hx269i.jpg)

(CNN) -- Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham said Monday he is resigning from Congress after pleading guilty to taking more than $2 million in bribes in a criminal conspiracy involving at least three defense contractors.

After entering his plea in San Diego, California, the eight-term California Republican said he was "deeply sorry."

"The truth is I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office," he told reporters, his voice strained with emotion. "I know I will forfeit my reputation, my worldly possessions -- most importantly the trust of my friends and family."

Asked by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns if he had accepted cash and gifts and then tried to influence the Defense Department on behalf of the donors, Cunningham said, "Yes, your honor."

Cunningham's plea agreement with federal prosecutors stemmed from an investigation of the 2003 sale of his California home to a defense contractor for an inflated price.

Under the agreement, Cunningham acknowledged a conspiracy to commit bribery, mail and wire fraud and tax evasion. He also pleaded guilty to a separate tax evasion violation for failing to disclose income in 2004.

Prosecutors said Cunningham had taken bribes from contractors, which enabled him to buy a mansion, a suburban Washington condominium, a yacht and a Rolls Royce.

A government statement said Cunningham received at least $2.4 million in bribes and will forfeit his $2.5 million mansion and about $1.8 million in cash, antiques, furnishings and other valuables.

The charges carry a potential penalty of 10 years in prison and up to $350,000 in fines. Sentencing is scheduled for February 27.

"The citizens who elected Cunningham assumed that he would do his best for them," said U.S. Attorney Carol Lam. "Instead, he did the worst thing an elected official can do -- he enriched himself through his position and violated the trust of those who put him there."

Cunningham, 63, sold his San Diego-area house in 2003 for $1.6 million to defense contractor Mitchell Wade, who then sold it for $700,000 less.

The transactions sparked allegations that the contractor had bought the house at the higher price as payback for Cunningham's pressing the Pentagon to award contracts to the defense contractor.

Cunningham, whose annual salary is about $160,000, then bought the $2.5 million mansion.

Over the summer, federal agents raided Cunningham's California home, a boat he lives on while in Washington and the Washington offices of Wade's former employer, defense contractor MZM Inc.

A decorated former Navy fighter pilot who shot down five MIGs in Vietnam, Cunningham served as an instructor in the Navy's famed "Top Gun" program.

"I learned in Vietnam that the true measure of a man is how he responds to adversity," he said. "I can't undo what I have done, but I can atone."

"I'm almost 65 years old and I enter the twilight of my life. I intend to use the remaining time that God grants me to make amends, and I will."

Cunningham would not respond to questions.

"This is now a personal matter for the congressman and his family," said Harmony Allen, his chief of staff, in a written statement. "The office will not comment any further on today's proceedings other than to say that we are praying for Duke in these exceedingly difficult times."

Cunningham was first elected in 1990. He represented the 50th District, which includes parts of San Diego and its northern suburbs. The district is solidly Republican.

He served on a powerful defense appropriations subcommittee that approves spending for defense programs.

Cunningham said in July that he wouldn't seek a ninth term next year; denying any wrongdoing at the time, he said that he intended to finish the remainder of his current term.

The congressman said then that he decided not to run for re-election in part because of the toll the investigation had taken on his family and standing in the community. (Full story)

"I publicly declared my innocence because I was not strong enough to face the truth," he said Monday. "So I misled my family, friends, staff, colleagues, the public, and even myself."

In a written statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the case "is just the latest example of the culture of corruption that pervades the Republican-controlled Congress, which ignores the needs of the American people to serve wealthy special interests and their cronies."

Politicians on both sides can be corrupt. It doesnt matter if he was a republican or not, a scumbag is a scumbag no matter how you look at it.

Shhhh.  In his world only the republicans can be corrupt.  Don't ruin his fantasy.

And you sure have a bunch of them in the white house right now...........

How quick you are to say this when it's your guys getting their hands caught in the cookie jar.

Anyway, my point is that the right wing is getting hit with one scandal after another right now. This is only going to hurt bush more, since people already don't trust him.

This guy's actions are not tied to Bush.  He is obvious corrupt and guilty of accepting bribes, but there is no tie in to Bush that I can see other than he is a republican. 

I will say that the republicans in politics are taking a good size hit at this point.  I would be shocked if the liberals don't secure more seats in congress next year.  This is their opportunity.  The question is will they know what to do with the ball now that they have it or will they fumble it away like they did in the presidential election by nominating poor candidates. 

Bush could give a ratts ass what anybody thinks about him.
Thats not how a leader operates.
Take note

Yeah, they don't care what people think, that's why they conduct all the polls that they do.

Um, while I'm sure the white house DOES do it's own, internal polling...

The polls referenced in this thread are run by Newsweek.  They're widely considered the "best" polling numbers.  Even past administrations have used them in place of internal polling on some issues.

So he should do what he thinks will make him popular in the polls?
Im not sure Im following your reasoning here.
Because you sound as if you think he carers about he polls

If Bush cared what the people thought, he would do something about illegal immigration. 

First off, I don't think there is anything humanly possible for Bush to do that would make him popular.  Secondly, if you are trying to say that the White House et al do not care about poll numbers then you have taken a very short cut to thinking.  The Alito nomination was a direct result of the poor numbers in polls about Miers.

(http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=harriet+miers/v=2/SID=e/l=IVI/SIG=12sn6dn39/EXP=1133372885/*-http%3A//us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/cpress/20051028/capt.w102802a.jpg)

 : ok:

And you actully have the nerve to talk about others wearing blinders.

By the way, didnt you leave us "kids" (http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=22706.msg397093#msg397093) a few months back?  I guess you just lack the resoluteness of your hero.

The poor woman didnt have a chance,
besides, my theory is that she was a decoy anyway.
Now you get Alito, carefull what you ask for.

but we digress dont we.
My 'point' was, that if Bush bowed to every poll,
or made the popular decision on every issue we wouldnt be much of a world leader now would we.
We would be like, well like France, or Canada, or Italy.

And my earlier post has not been per line challenged once.
And I wonder why that is.
And "Booker", do I know you? son? Your mom doesnt wear Red garters and chew gum all the time does she?

He cares.  And if you have even the most tenuous understanding of politics, you'd understand why.

However, as I've said before, I'm not going to educate you any longer.  If you can't connect the dots between the Republican parties need for public support and good will to the president and his need for Congressional Support to get anything accomplished during the rest of his term perhaps it might be best if you did as you said you were going to do awhile back...

 :hihi: ?

Please explain this conspiracy theory.


No. ?You said this:


The Harriet Miers farce alone disproves that. ?Not to mention that if that silly, romanticized notion were true, the White House/Bush campaigns wouldnt conduct polls at all, would they? ?


Thats exactly what he did with Harriet Miers - bowed to the pressure. ?A true leader wouldve pushed her through, especially since she was the best person he could find for the job.


Honestly, because its a waste of time...not to mention that its in a different thread.


1) That attempt at humor is painful and embarassing.

2) Youre avoiding my question...Didnt you bid farewell  (http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=22706.msg397093#msg397093) a few months back?

Because calling it rampant speculation pretty much addresses all of it.

It's doesn't merit being refuted except to say it's speculation.  What more needs to be said?

I know, sorry

I dont remember saying farewell, I just quit coming in because we were going around in great big circles and moderator boy was threatning to give me the boot for the same practice being displayed by his side of the argument.

BUT

I will leave if there isnt the need for a light for your dark room. 8)

Well, you ignored 3/4 of the post (including your Harriet Miers theory, which Im sure is stunning)...


Remember?  I posted the link...heres the quote:


You didnt literally say farewell, but unless youre actually going to quibble over the connotation of "later," you made note of your "exit."


Actually, there isnt...especially very, very dim ones.

No he can't, and thank God for that.

So where is Bush's stance against illegal immigration?  There have been plenty of polls have shown a clear majority of Americans to be in favor of major reform.

On some issues Bush will listen to the public (miers).  However, when Big Business is involved they get what they want (immigration).

LOL, take note of what?

"Take Note" sounds tough...Bush sure is a hardliner...ahaha

He's a hardliner when Big Business wants him to be.  Thats for damned sure.  He knows who his master is and he doesn't stray far.

All I know about Goldwater is that he was old school conservative.  And conservative at that time meant isolationist, so IMO Vietnam was not on the table for Goldwater.

wrong thread

Right here:

?Our strategy for comprehensive immigration reforms begins by securing the border.?  - 11/28/05 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051128-7.html)

?The first part of the plan is to promptly return every illegal entrant we catch at the border, with no exceptions.? - 11/28/05 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051128-7.html)

Compare that to his statements last year:

?Reform must begin by confronting a basic fact of life and economics: some of the jobs being generated in America?s growing economy are jobs American citizens are not filling.? - 1/7/04 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040107-3.html)

?If an American employer is offering a job that American citizens are not willing to take, we ought to welcome into our country a person who will fill that job.? - 1/7/04 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040107-3.html)

Such resolutenesss...Thank God he didnt lose to that flip-flopper.

Correct.  He has to walk the line between keeping the voters happy (so the Repubs can keep control of Congress come '06 and beyond) and making sure that those campaign contributions from Big Business continue to flow into the Republican coffers.

The only 'line' Bush is walking is the line leading to the victory speach podium.

You guys are as clueless on the state of American politics as the democratic party.
Which is good from our standpoint.
Keep missing the boat, we keep winning.

The base vote that won the election for George Bush is a stubborn lot. Like it or not.
Until the liberals quit being...well... so liberal, they will continue loosing.
You think its ok and fair and just and blah blah blah for gays to get married...very upstanding of you....loser
You think its ok for a 12 year old to get an abortion without telling her parents because its her right to privacy,
very upstanding of you....loser
You think its ok to feed the needy, give them welfare endlessly because they have little itty bitty babies to feed.
very upstanding of you....loser
Religion...now theres the biggie.
You dont like Christianity being mentioned in public places cause it 'offends' someone?...loser

The red states, the 'heart' of this  great country is very set in their ways.
And until 'majority' no longer rules...you lose

And your constant whining only makes us dig our heels in deeper.

SLC, Booker, should we even bother...?

The issue at hand as far as your endless banter on Bush trying to look 'popular' would have to have some sort of cause and effect.
Weather you are right or wrong has very little signifigance if you keep losing elections.

Two SCJ's, reformed Social security, economy back on track after Clinton rode the wave of dot.com without preparing for life after dot.com.
War on terror is going as planned. No attacks on American soil in 4+ years spells victory for me already.
Unless your party  has some actual 'ideas'.
The red states will vote republican again.
COUNT ON IT

LOL.

You have just provided, along with your 2nd post, the single best example of someone who does not understand the current political climate or process as any one person could possibly provide.? And I'll bet you dollars to donuts you don't even know why....

You accuse others of wearing blinders, and then promptly ignore every piece of information currently available that shows that even the traditional "red" states are grumbling.?

You honestly can't see what the cause and effect is?  Honestly? You can't see the ties between the President's ability to get his job done effectively, his approval rating, and the Republican party who controls Congress?

If he wasn't trying to look "popular" (ie: improve his approval rating)...why "defend" himself against the dems accusations about intel mismanagement, and so publically?  Why the speech more than a week after Katrina in NO outlining a pretty "liberal" plan for rebuilding and accepting some responsibility for the government failings, on National TV, in prime time?  Why would he, and his administration, fight these issues tooth and nail in the public forum...and even launch "counteroffensives"?  Your assertion that being popular (ie: improving his approval ratings) is not on his radar is so naive that it's ludicrous.  The man has to have a mandate from the American People in order to be remotely effective...because the people he needs to push his agenda through have one objective: To get re-elected over and over and over again.

Personally, I'm begining to think not.? shades view is so limited and myopic that any "discussion" is almost worthless.? Even when confronted with overwhelming information and evidence to the contrary of his assertions, shades seems unable to comprehend it. In addition, he's demonstrated a pretty complete lack of knowledge on the political climate and process.?

 And, given his seeming inability to abide by the forum rules.....

LOL..........nah....

I am afraid he may threaten to beat one of us up........... :hihi:

As far as I am concerned, neither of them had any idea how to improve America's biggest problems.  I did vote for kerry as the lesser of the evils, but that doesn't mean he gets a free pass from me.

You voted for Kerry, yet he gets no free pass from you.

Then why do you spout off like a Karl Rove robot when anybody come down heavy on W?

I am no staunch defender of Bush.  I call it like I see it.  I go after him when I feel he is wrong.  However, I do the same thing for people on the other side of the political spectrum.  Something that has been a little absent in your posts.

What did people think of Bush's speech? More of the same shit. Why wont he address and crowd that isn't part of the armed services.

In five, ten fifteen years, do you think future presidents will ever consult Bush about anything? Carter through Clinton called on Nixon, btw.

No I don't think Bush will play much of a role after his time as president.  He doesn't strike me as a man of original ideas.  He is a figure head, not a real leader.

Poor Bush. He will have to live with himself with the knowledge that he was the worst president ever.

He still hasn't beaten LBJ imo.  When the dust clears in Iraq, he just might.

That is where you are wrong.

I have held Clinton accountable for his bullshit in other posts.

However, Bush is the current President. And the Iraq fiasco is his mess, and I will call it out as I see fit.

Think about it.

Great.  The statement you made about the buck stopping at the President was sloppy, imo.  People in lower positions should not be getting free passes.

Bush's legacy will speak for itself in the future.
What will be the liberal legacy will be that they tried to yellow belly the USA into backing down from a firm commitment to spread democracy in a part of the world that is ravaged with discontent, which breeds terror, which in recent history has gotten increasingly more Americans killed.

I only remind you taht you guys were probably in here before election 2000 chest thumping about how Bush was going down, well? Losers.
And now you are chest thumping about your visions of how Bush will be remembered as the worst president ever.
Well? news flash.
the difference between us and you is you, have already been proven to be wrong.
Losing sucks and brings out the worst in people.

Right...like there were WMD's in Iraq, huh?

Proven wrong.....? ?:rofl:

I'd actually say, given his approval rating, you'd have a hard time making that case with any sort of legitamacy.? We lost the election, yes.? I'd say, so far, the proof is in the pudding, my friend.

As for losing bringing out the worst in people...you've evidenced that quite nicely over the last few days.

We lost one election to Bush.

The world lost on that election day........

For all this talk about spreading democracy in the Middle East...We can't even have it in the USA. Bush came to power illegitimately, the Supreme Court and Jeb Bush really fucked the world up the ass.

I dont really think Polls are accurate at all though, I mean how many on this board have been called up and asked their response?

No one has polled me on Bush, so how is the rating even accurate to begin with?


out of the number they polled maybe the majority were left wingers? 

Since oil has went down Bush climbed back to 42 percent today, so he is on his way back up.

Polls are random samplings, different every week, of a size that is considered to be statistically and scientifically representative.  Some are random samplings of registered voters, some not.  To make the argument that a real random sampling, week after week, with different participants would be made up of more liberals than conservatives isn't really statistically valid.

Polls are certainly not the end all/be all of information.  But you shouldn't discount continued polling showing VERY similiar numbers over a pretty long period of time.  You can argue, compellingly, about week to week "blips", but the overall trend is tough to discount.

Especially "exit" polls :beer:

Absolutely true, and pretty much what I said.  Because exit polls are a "blip", not a continuing trend.  In addition, exit polls aren't a trully random sampling.  They're effected by both the people choosing (who visually see the people and pick them out of the crowd of exiting voters) and over what actual time frame the exit poll is conducted (studies have shown that particular types of people, like seniors or working professionals vote in higher numbers during particular time frames).

 :hihi:

Well, youve destroyed your own arguments:



Maybe this blatant double standard suggests that youre stuck on Bush too hard and "unable to see the forest for the trees."

He also failed to mention it was a FOX POLL that showed Bush's numbers going up.  ::)

What a load..........

To be fair, the poll is conducted by an outside independant agency...and has run neck and neck with the Newsweek poll for weeks.

I saw it listed on Fox as a "Fox poll".

I guess the numbers are inclined to go up after a speech.

But anytime I see "Fox" in front of something I grow leery quick.

Heh...me too.  That's actually WHY I know it's conducted by and independant company (Opinons Research, or something like that) and has been running neck and neck with the Newsweek poll.  I checked, yesterday, when he brought it up. :)

See SLC and Pilferk there u all go again.

Its Ok if some Left Wing site runs a poll that shows Bush negatively, U guys jump on that and report it as FACT.

But if another organization runs a poll that shows Bush a tad more favorable, its automatically bullshit.

U have to see the hypocrisy in that.

What left-wing site are you referring to?


Its not "another organization," its FOX News...and I dont think either called it "bullshit" - in fact, Pilferk defended its apparent legitimacy.? Again, a lack of reason.


Would you like to comment on your own hypocrisy (http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=23982.msg423457#msg423457)?

Again, know your facts about the posters before you go spouting off bullshit about them.

I don't post polls coming from "liberal sites". I post poll results coming from polling groups that are well known and used by all groups.

In fact he corrected me and said that it was a polling group independent of Fox. I assumed it was a Fox run poll, because on their website it read "FOX poll", which would lead me to believe they were not being honest, since often times they are not. Pilferk read a bit longer then I did (my bad) and saw that their poll was based on anothers work, independent of Fox. So I stand corrected via Pilferk.

You are talking about something totally different, and we are waiting to see the "liberal polls" and your answer to Bookers question(s) in the meantime.

What questions has he asked??

A poll comes on the news u guys believe it automatically.  The same poll comes on and read everyone of the left wing posts on here, automatically its bullshit just cause FoxNews Reported it.


I just love how extreme left wing zealots condemn and bad mouth everything that isnt their view. Just like Bill O Reilly, he is called Liberal by some,Conservative by some but he criticizes Bush every single night on his show over something.

Just because he sticks it to Left Wingers who arent held accountable anywhere else, he gets perceived to be right wing when I think he is the closest thing to middle of the road on TV.

Arguing with Booker is pointless, he is a left wing zealot like most of u on this board and u guys dont even take the time to try and see any other point of view, so why waste hours to post something that isnt gonna even be comprehended anyway?

I got better things to do with my time then to try and post some sense into people who are mere feet away from having a cult mentality.

Facts are these.

I know SLC, that u are a big fan of moveon.org, they are an extreme left wing website true or not? But yet u believe and take them as fact.

If Moveon.org posted that Bush's rating was 30 percent, it would be on this board in about 5 seconds.

But just cause something is on Fox it immediately is not valid info.

U cant argue with people with that kind of logic; its impossible.

You don?t' read.


Fox lies all the time, it has been proven again and again. What else do you want? Of course I am going to not believe Fox...they lie.



I just love how you throw names out like you are some sort of intellectual . Your knowledge of international politics is about well rounded as mine on sports. Fact is you don't  know the difference between a baathist and a bathtub.




So instead of owning up to you contradicting yourself, you call names instead. Wow, what a big surprise, just like your hero Bill O'reilly. Waste hours huh? Why not answer the question? He called your on your double talk, now you come back and say "you don't have time" and call names.


What kind of "fact" is that?

You build me up to some imaginary scenario and then say "if this happened, I know this would be true"...it's a fact.

Fact is, you are full of hot air. Run along and watch some O'reilly, so he can tell you how the big bad liberal wolf is at your door.

You using the word logic is an oxymoron.

EDIT to add: I do not know where you get that I am a "big fan" of moveon.org. I rarely read that site at all. Although I know you love to create things so you can tear them down, this is simply not the case. And rest assured, if I did read that site, and held it to be the truth, I'd be using it all the time here. But I do not.

Now...go round up those "liberal polls" and answer bookers questions, or shut up.

too many forces against him and the fact he's not even benefitted anyone or anything around him will make it a huge leap for him to bounce back

Uh...no...read what I wrote again.

I said it wasn't a "Fox" poll.  It was run by an independant agency, comissioned by Fox.  When I saw Fox attached to it, bells and whistles went off becausae, lets face it, no one can make the argument that Fox is remotely unbiased.  Hell, Rupert even calls a spade, a spade.  So I looked into it...as I would look into a poll and methodology run by "moveon.org".

And if you think Newsweek is a Left Wing site......you got another thing coming, my friend.

Read what was written again.? ? You're not understanding the conversation, I think.


Bill calls himself a conservative commentator.? How much more authoritative a categorization do you need?


He's percieved as right wing because a) his politics are right wing and b) he says he's a right winger (Edit for clarity and sandmans sake: Ok, maybe not.  He was a registered Republican, though...so maybe Right winger isn't the right word....perhaps Conservative or Republican is best).? I'm SURE you would think he's "middle of the road" because he shares your viewpoint.? Bias will do that to an opinion.?


Pot. Kettle. Black.? When was the last time you took into account Booker's viewpoint?? Right.......


"Post some sense into people".? Ye gods that sounds totalitarian.? Like you're the only one with sense? Please.....



Fox is biased.? Rupert admits it.? It's a CONSERVATIVE news outlet.

Moveon.org is biased.? I've NEVER seen SLC post a "fact" (poll results, etc) article citing ANY left wing site as the original source of the data.? If you have, please point it out.? But my guess is your perception doesn't match up with reality and you're letting your perception, rather than history, run your argument for you.? Might want to double check, eh?

Why not just respond to my post?

For example, you said this:


But you also said this:



So try answering these questions:

If you truly believe that polls arent accurate at all, why would you use them as proof that Jimmy Carter was objectively a bad president and Bush is better?

Why was Jimmy Carter "gutless" in the Iran hostage crisis? (Feel free to answer in that thread)

When accusing "us guys" of jumping on polls from "left-wing sites" and posting them as fact, to what site were you referring?


Who calls O'Reilly "liberal?"? You really believe everything that man says, dont you?? Because his rhetoric seems to be the basis for a lot of your own.? For example, how am I a "left-wing zealot?"? I think you hear O'Reilly throw around that nonsense and accept it without even fully understanding what being a true "left-wing zealot" even means.? Using MoveOn.org in a "polling" hypothetical...does MoveOn even post president approval rating polls, let alone conduct them?? What do you really know about MoveOn, other than that O'Reilly dislikes them and uses them as an example of "left-wing extremists?"

Instead of getting angry and reacting by calling everybody left-wing zealots and using other inane O'Reilly rhetoric, why dont you just think about the stuff, address it, and perhaps prove us wrong?? And if you really believe in having an open mind (you must, since you think I have a "cult mentality" and am not open to other views), then why not be open to possibly accepting some of the points you cant really argue??

Fuckin' A.

Not even O'Reilly himself....

does o'reilly really call himself a "conservative commentator"?

cause i've never heard that. in fact, i've heard him say he's independent, and that he does not subscribe to any single ideology. i've also heard him criticize BOTH sides for drinking kool aid.

That is why I like O'Reilly. He is an independent. Hell just as easily criticize Bush as well as the democrats. No politician should be free from being scrutinized.

O'Reilly, when asked, has said he is not an "across the board conservative" but his "audience is made up mostly of moderate conservatives".

His own words.

There are other quotes substantiating that he is, in fact,  "mostly conservative" (which, to me, means he's conservative).

In addition, while he CLAIMS to be a registered independant, Al Franken very publically outed him as a registerd Republican, which O'Reilly then admitted to.

If you'd like a more extensive list of quotes, and proof, I could dig it up....

i'm not talking about his audience, or what he's registered. (many people that fall into the "independent" category register with one of the parties so they have a voice in the primaries).

you stated the following....

"Bill calls himself a conservative commentator.  How much more authoritative a categorization do you need?"

that's what i'm looking for proof of.

And, if you read what I wrote, you'd see it:

O'Reilly, when asked, has said he is not an "across the board conservative" but his "audience is made up mostly of moderate conservatives". (Interview with Mike Wallace)

His audience is relevant, since, if he weren't a conservative commentator, why would he say his audience is "mostly moderate conservatives"?? Do conservatives enjoy listening to liberal commentators?? Do liberals enjoy listening to conservative commentators?

He's said he is not an "accross the board conservative". (a quote)

He has said he's "mostly conservative". (a quote)

He calls himself a political commentator. (His own bio)

Would you prefer if I changed it to: He calls himself a mostly conservative commentator? Or a mostly conservative commentator mostly listened to by moderate conservatives?  The point is, and was, he doesn't even consider HIMSELF a liberal.

Use google.? You'll turn up a bunch more of his comments on the subject.? He's TRIED to wiggle in some interviews, but has been pinned down pretty securely, and in his own words, in others.? If you really want me to use google for? you, I will...but not until a bit later in the coming week.? My time at the computer over the next couple of days will be pretty limited.

Your first point is pretty laughable...especially considering O'Reilly INSISTED he was a registered independant...but Franken proved him wrong (aka: caught him lying).? Independant voters MIGHT register (for primary purposes) with a party, but they certainly wouldn't LIE when asked about it?? What purpose would anyone have in being deceptive?? To try to portray some semblance of independance when their really isn't one?

i'm not trying to defend o'reilly. so i'm not sure why you're getting all defensive about it.

to call my first point "laughable" makes no sense to me. are you saying people do not do this?? i for one do. and i know others that do as well. i certainly did not imply that o'reilly does this.

maybe you should read my posts.

why imply i didn't read yours? i quoted a clear statement you made, which i don't believe is true. 

i could be wrong. i don't watch him frequently. that's why i'm asking for proof.

but stating that someone refers to themself as a "conservative commentator" puts them in that rush/hannity category. and i don't think o'reilly views himself that way at all.

How anybody could believe that OR is an "independent" is beyond me.


(http://tinypic.com/i5c60m.jpg)

Not defensive at all.? But I've provided the proof you asked for.....For some reason, though, you're not "getting it".?


Since we're talking about O'Rielly.....what you do isn't really relevant.? I gave you specific proof that he lied and Franken caught him in it.? Did it in the first post, too.? YOU offered reasoning behind it.? ?The only LOGICAL reason you'd do that is to defend O'Reilly.? Otherwise, why bring it up?


And maybe you should read mine.


Which I had already provided "proof" of in earlier posts.? And then restated it, again.


Which you've gotten.? And you asked for it again.? And now, again.? If you really want MORE, I'll give it to you.? Probably be Tuesday-ish when I get time to go hunting again.


He calls himself a political commentator.? Agreed, right?

So now you're arguing the conservative part.

He's called himself "mostly conservative".

He's said he's "not an across the board conservative" (which can only reasonably be interpreted as him being "mostly" conservative...otherwise why even use the word conservative).

He's said his audience is "mostly moderate conservatives".

How much more clear do you need the picture painted?

O'Reilly supports every conservative issue they have except for the death penalty and global warming.

O'reilly gave a key-note speech at a thing called "The Republican Restoration Weekend" where 10,000 right-wing white males and right-wing females talk about how right they are on everything. Great thinkers like Sean Hannity, Brit Hume, Trent Lott, and Tony Snow also spoke. How many independents went to this thing ? Answer: None.

All his fill in hosts are conservatives. Dont you think a registered independent would have ralph nader or a moderate democrat host once in a while ? Hell no, conservatives only.

BO writes for townhall.com a right wing website, every author is "conservative" and he was listed as such too.


Just arguing if he is or is not right wing is a joke. The guy is a conservative if there ever was one. The guy lies through his teeth on almost every broadcast. You think he is going to be honest about anything else?

i am not arguing whether o'reilly's views are conservative or not.

and i'm not arguing whether he's a registered republican or not.

i'm saying that bill does not refer to himself as a "conservative". you can continue to make the ASSUMPTION that he INDIRECTLY "calls himself a conservative commentator", but i've never seen or heard him call himself conservative.

you say you've provided "PROOF". but all you've done is throw out some quotes with no links. that is NOT proof.   

in fact, read this, which quotes bill's own book.


"O'Reilly disagrees vehemently with the common belief that he is a conservative, preferring to call himself a traditionalist and a populist. In his book The O'Reilly Factor, he describes his political affiliation this way: "You might be wondering if whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position."

Such statements have drawn the ire of media watchdog groups, such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and Media Matters for America, that feel that his opinion is overwhelmingly conservative or, more specifically, Republican. In 2003, FAIR published a book compiling their record of his factual inaccuracies up to that point, titled The "Oh Really?" Factor. O'Reilly refers to people who frequent these outlets as 'kool-aid drinkers', trying to discredit anybody who has a viewpoint with which he disagrees.

"I've always been an independent," he says. "I always split my ticket. I vote for the person I think is best."

I like OR.  His show is entertaining and contains stories that show both the good and the bad in Iraq whereas many of the liberal news programs (and OR is not news, I know) only show the bad.  O'reilly takes Bush to task on things all the time.  Whereas i rarely see commentators on CNN r CNS give any credit away to republicans.   I like to see some of the positive things that we are doing in Iraq from time to time.  If you watched CBS or CNN you wouldn't think anything poisitive has happened in Iraq (which of course is ludicrus).  I like his stance on the illegal immigrants as well.  I agree we need to be alot more tough on our borders. 

However, is he independent as he states he is?  No.  He is conservative pretty much across the board.  Is pilferk independent as he states he is?  No.  He is, at least as far as anyone can tell here, a liberal.  People want to be different things to different people at different times.  What does it matter that he is conservative?  I like to watch Chris Mathews and he is a liberal.  Both are entertaining IMO.  I really don't like Hannity and Colmes or Greta Van Sustren (all three bore me to death).   But I real like Brit Hume. 

Why don't we see any positive stories of Iraq on the liberal channels (i.e. cbs, msnbc, cnn)?  At least fox shows the good and the bad.

I've provided you quotes where he has done, essentially, exactly that.


It IS proof, links or not. ?Unless you doubt the quotes came from him. ?There is a Mike Wallace interview online somewhere and a transcript of his "exchange" with Al Franken as well. ?The quotes I provided came directly from them, if I remember correctly. ?Again, given my schedule, I won't have time to go hunting for them, and the others I found, until sometime Tuesday. ?Should you desire an answer more quickly...use google. ?That's how I found them in the first place.


As I've said, he likes to talk out of both sides of his mouth about the issue. And Franken has already proved he lies about the subject. ?For what reason, I'm not sure. ?But he HAS been quoted, when pinned down to describe his ideology mostly in terms of conservatism.

Whether he regularly says "Hey, I'm a conservative commentator" really isn't the point. ?He has called himself a qualified conservative in the past.

Liar.

Remember, we've talked about this Charity....

I've explained my personal politics many times before. So "as far as anyone can tell here", I'm exactly what I've said I am. We tend to talk about issues? upon which I agree with the libs, mostly because I disagree with this administration almost across the board (they spend more money than the "tax and spend" dems ever did), and tend to side with the libs on social issues.? And we've been over this many, many times.

And I am a registered independant.? REALLY. (You can have Al Franken check if you'd like)

registered independent,
thats funny,
you're a liberal to the core.
Like your heros Farakan, Michael Moore, Jesse jackson, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy,
All those people have one thing in common, they are all rich at the expense of speaking up for the needy, in their words. And laughing at you for following them blindly and helping promote their agendas.

 ::)

Liar again.

I so hate to disappoint you and your intent to pigeonhole me.

But then again, I expect no less....politico-amnesia.

I'm not a proponent of Farrakhan's agenda.  He's way too militant for my tastes.

I've said before I'm not a fan of MM.  Wasn't before Farenheit 9/11, and wasn't after, either.

I'm not a Jesse Jackson fan, especially his work to promote unionization at all costs.  He's advocated circumventing NLRB guidlines and mandates on more than one occasion.

I voted for Kerry. I also voted for Nader the election prior.

Ted Kennedy is hit or miss.  His stances are usually a bit TOO liberal for my tastes.

I honestly wouldnt give him that much credit.  I just dont think he knows much about that of which he speaks.

I?ve looked for the quote and have come up empty. In fact, all I can find are quotes that state he is a traditionalist and does not truly fit any label.

That?s why I?m asking for a link.

In fact, I found the transcript from the Mike Wallace interview on 60 minutes. Interesting stuff, including:

- O?Reilly says he?s pro gun control, against the death penalty, and supports civil unions, not just for homosexuals, but "for everybody."

- He says he's for gay adoptions as a last resort: "I'd rather have nice, responsible gay home than the system for kids. What else?"

- And about the environment? "Government?s gotta be proactive on environment," says O'Reilly. "Global warming is here. All these idiots that run around and say it isn't here. That's ridiculous."

- What does he think about the men from the swift boats who have been bad-mouthing Kerry? "Awful. It's terrible," says O'Reilly. "It makes me sad that this happens."

- And one more surprise. He doesn't consider himself part of what he calls "right-wing radio."

I could've sworn the "not an accross the board conservative" comment came from that interview or from the Al Franken "exchange" (Russert, maybe)?.? As I've said, I'll go hunting again tomorrow. It could have been from the Hunt article, or the Bill Press interview, but I didn't think so.


Hence, I'm assuming, why he's said he's "not an accross the board conservative".? But, for my way of thinking, someone who refers to themselves as "not an accross the board conservative" uses that reference because they have more in common with the conservatives than not.

Edit: While not having the exact quote I'm looking for, it does paint the picture:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6417561?rnd=1107979914421&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1040

With input from O'Reilly himself.

There's lots of stuff there that paints the (admittedly clearer) picture of him being "mostly conservative" but not an "accross the board conservative".

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6417561?rnd=1107979914421&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1040

I'll keep hunting for the original quotes as I find time over the next couple of days.? Rather than post new posts, I'm just going to edit his one with them.

Edit2: A quote from the Rolling Stone article:

"A reporter at the New York Daily News revealed that O'Reilly, despite claims of being an Independent, was a registered Republican. O'Reilly insisted this was a "clerical error" -- until the actual registration form surfaced, showing O'Reilly's signature and his check-mark in the box beside republican."

Personally, I think that qualifies as proof O'Reilly has, at least at some point, referred to himself as Conservative (or, at least, Republican).? I'll keep looking, though, since I have a suspicion you'll disagree.

Edit3:
http://www.answers.com/topic/bill-o-reilly
However, O'Reilly has acknowledged that from 1994 until December 2000, he was registered to vote as a Republican. He changed his voter registration from Republican to independent when the Washington Post was about to expose his party affiliation. Now a registered independent, O'Reilly has said his previous affiliation was the result of a clerical mistake, and that no box for 'independent' was available on the registration form. [8] (http://alfrankenweb.com/talknation.html) [9] (http://www.onthemedia.org/oreillydiaries_020601_part1.html) [10] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62722-2000Dec12?language=printer) The actual form (http://www.awptimus.com/docs/franken_lies/OreillyBig2.jpg) has since been widely published, showing an option for those who 'do not wish to enroll in party' did indeed exist, and that the Republican option was checked.

and I'm well aware that, a bit further down, the author attributes him to communitarianism.

Edit 4:http://mediamatters.org/items/200407210007

If he's saying fox news tilts right...and he's a commentator on fox news, I think that, too, is saying he's a conservative commentator. Again, I'm sure you'll disagree.

Edit5:http://www.sweetjesusihatebilloreilly.com/archive/090704.html

Well..he basically says it right there, right? You should be a Republican because you're like me.

Still searching for the original quotes I was remembering, though.

there's a big difference between "conservative commentator", and having more in common with conservatives than not.

i also don't think you can take much from the "not across the board conservative" comment that you claim he said. that can be interpreted a number of ways. especially considering his views that i have posted on gun control, death penalty, environment, civil unions, swift boats, and kerry.

here's the cbs link to the interview. ?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/23/60minutes/main645202.shtml

A lot of KKK members don't refer to themselves as "racist dip shits" either.

Actually, there isn't. ?By definition a conservative commentator would be a commentator who has more in common with conservatives that not.

 I don't think anyone can realistically deny he IS a conservative commentator. ?There's is more proof of that than not. ?His audience alone is proof enough. ?He's a conservative commentator in that he tends to report conservative issues, with conservative opinions to conservatives. ?Is there some deviation? Sure...but not much.

As for "not an across the board conservative" interpretation, I disagree.  He used a reference point to define his own ideology, but indicated some deviation from the cannon definition of the term.  To me, that indicates a conservative with a few differences.  Ditto if someone defined themselves as "not an accross the board liberal".

The issue is whether he's CALLED himself a conservative of some sort. ?And that, I will agree, is up for debate. ?I'm working on finding those quotes, but it's slow going with the stuff going on here over the next day or so.

Also, see edits to above message.

Actually, in this case, sandman is correct.? My claim was that Bill referred to himself as a conservative commentator.? I'm working on proving that (though my claim that Bill has never refferred to himself as a 'liberal" still stands).? If I can't hunt those quotes down, or find other proof, I'll admit I was incorrect and move on.

I don't think many reasonable people would NOT consider him a conservative commentator, in any event.

ALL: Please check this site out:

http://www.sweetjesusihatebilloreilly.com/

Bill O'Reilly: Decorated War Vet Jack Murtha "Afraid" to Come on the Factor
On 12-2-05 during the O'Reilly Factor, while speaking to Time Correspondent Brian Bennett, Bill O'Reilly said: "But I am worried about Jack Murtha and I don't think he did the country a service and I'd like to speak to him. He IS afraid to come here. He's gonna be on, you know, a sympathetic program on Sunday morning and I don't think the guy should be doin' this kind of stuff. ... I think the US military is doing a great job. It is under stress, as any military would be in a war. It's not right and I think everybody should question Congressman Murtha on that."

Here is a brief excerpt from a biograhy of John Murtha: "He left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines during the Korean War. There he earned the American Spirit Honor Medal. He rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island and was selected for Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia. He then was assigned to the Second Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. In 1959, then Captain Murtha took command of the 34th Special Infantry Company, Marine Corps Reserves, in Johnstown. He remained in the Reserves after his discharge from active duty until he volunteered for service in Vietnam in 1966-67, receiving the Bronze Star with Combat "V", two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. He remained in the Reserves until his retirement as a colonel in 1990, receiving the Navy Distinguished Service Medal."

According to the Associated Press, Decmeber 1, 2005, here's what Rep. Murtha had to say about the situation in Iraq:

Most U.S. troops will leave Iraq within a year because the Army is "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth," Rep. John Murtha told a civic group.
Two weeks ago, Murtha created a storm of comment when he called for U.S. troops to leave Iraq now. The Democratic congressman spoke to a group of community and business leaders in Latrobe on Wednesday, the same day President Bush said troops would be withdrawn when they've achieved victory, not under an artificial deadline set by politicians.

Murtha predicted most troops will be out of Iraq within a year.

I predict he'll make it look like we're staying the course," Murtha said, referring to Bush. "Staying the course is not a policy."

Murtha, 73, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, expressed pessimism about Iraq's stability and said the Iraqis know who the insurgents are, but don't always share that information with U.S. troops. He said a civil war is likely because of ongoing factionalism among Sunni Arabs, and Kurds and Shiites.

He also said he was wrong to vote to support the war.

"I admit I made a mistake when I voted for war," Murtha said. "I'm looking at the future of the United States military."


COMMENT

I've got news for Mr. Bill. Even at age 73, Jack Murtha could demolish him in a debate and, probably, in hand-to-hand combat as well! To imply that such a man is, in essence, a coward simply because he won't do an interview with O'Reilly goes way beyond the limits of decency. O'Reilly should apologize on air to the Congressman.

O'Reilly has never served in any branch of the armed forces, although he claims to have been "in combat." But, the Bloviating Billster is no stranger to misleading his audience on the subject of his own military experience.

First, there was the infamous January 18, 2005 Radio Factor broadcast where he stated:

"I've seen it. I've been close to it. And if I'm... my unit is in danger, and I've got a captured guy, and the guy knows where the enemy is, and I'm looking him in the eye, the guy better tell me. That's all I'm gonna tell you. He better tell me. If it's life or death, he's going first."
Later, O'Reilly was challenged by a caller from Portland named Roger:

O'REILLY: We've got a caller. Roger. Roger from Portland, Oregon. What say you Roger?
ROGER: Yeah, hey, Bill. First things first. You just said you've been in combat, but you've never been in the military, have you?

O'REILLY: No I have not.

ROGER: Then why do you say you've been in combat?

O'REILLY: Why do I say that, Roger? Because I was in the middle of a couple of firefights in South and Central America.

ROGER: But you were a media guy.

O'REILLY: Yeah. A media guy with a pen, not a gun. And people were shooting at me, Roger.

ROGER: People might think that you actually were in the military.

O'REILLY: Oh... We don't want to mislead anybody. But I made it quite clear... quite clear in many, many circumstances --

ROGER: [mumbles something about being, or not being, "fair and balanced"]

O'REILLY: [quietly disconnects Roger] Yeah. Hey listen, Roger. You can take your little "fair and balanced" uh... snip remark and shove it, okay? You're not getting on this air. Um... You, mister macho man, have never come close to anything I've done, down where I've been. So take a walk and... uh... 'nuff said.


Five months later on May 5, 2005 he once again implied he had combat experience when he made the following comment in an interview with Col. P. J. Crowley (USAF-Ret) and Col. Neal Puckett (USMC-Ret):

O'REILLY: Have you been in combat Colonel?
CROWLEY: Yes.

PUCKETT: Me? No, sir, I have not.

O'REILLY: How 'bout you, Colonel?

CROWLEY: Yes.

O'REILLY: So you know what we're talkin' about. "Cause I was in combat and when you are there your adrenalin is flying through your ears. And you know you've got the gun and I just couldn't understand ...


If you would like to write to Mr. O'Reilly and give him a piece of your mind and/or ask him to apologize to John Murtha, click here: oreilly@foxnews.com.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200503160005

He may say he's against the death penalty..but....well.....not entirely.

O'reilly has always come off as an independent who leans to the right.

QUESTION: do you believe it is possible for someone to be an "Independent commentator"?

Depends on what you mean by independant, I guess....

Independant in the sense that they didn't ascribe to any one ideology any more than another? Maybe.? It would be pretty tough, though.? And even then, there are so many flavors of "independants".....and who ends up being your audience is going to have an influence on what you cover and how you cover it.? Because, if it doesn't, and you lose your audience (or don't garner one to begin with)...poof...no more job.? O'Reilly is actually pretty good at this (and no, I'm not saying he's an indepedant commentator): If you notice the content of his shows he widely stays away from the topics on which he disagrees with most of his conservative viewership.? They do come up, sometimes...but much more rarely than the "meat and potatoes" conservative issues.? That makes sense, since his audience is mostly moderate conservatives.

Independant in the sense they don't bring any of their personal bias or ideology to the table? No.? But then again, who'd want one if such an animal existed.? A commentator, by definition, is someone who gives opinions.? Much different, to my way of thinking, than just a reporter or correspondant.?

I think O'Reilly is a moderate conservative commentator.? I certainly wouldn't put him in the the same category of Rush or Hannity.? But the meat and potatoe issues of his show (and the "spin" he injects, regardless of what he calls the show) is decidely slanted toward the right.? Look no further than the examples Press provided when he was a guest on the show.

Edit: I do actually watch O'Reilly, occasionally, now.  Not often, but probably once a week or so.  He'll be having Stern on coming up and I can't WAIT to hear that one.   And I can't really concieve of anyone thinking he's anything BUT a conservative based on the content of his show....I agree with him on the things that I usually agree with conservs on, and disagree with him on the things I usually disagree with the conservs on.

What's really amusing, to me, is that some of the liberal "leanings" he has, are the very ones I disagree with the libs on.  I'm for the death penalty and against very strict gun control....

http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=22706.msg402659#msg402659

And just because I happened to head back there for a different purpose, and stumbled accross this...isn't arguing semantics pretty much what we're doing now??

Just wondering....

no, not at all.

you made what i believe is a FALSE statement, and i called you on it. nothing at all about semantics.

i've said all along i am not arguing what Bill's beliefs ACTUALLY are, who is audience is, how he should be classified, etc.

we all look forward to your google search tomorrow. and you can either provide the link, or admit you're wrong.

At this point, it IS semantics.? My original statement was O'Reilly refers to himself as a conservative commentator".? I've provided AMPLE examples of the fact he has referred to himself, in the past, as conservative/Republican.? You, I'm sure, don't agree with it, which means we're now debating semantics, rather than the point itself.

 I think I've provided quite enough evidence in the above posts showing he HAS referred to himself as conservative/republican (How much more authoritative do you need than his voter registration card?), even without the original quotes.? You might have to connect the dots, a bit, but I think it's enough.

In any event, I will continue to look for those quotes.? That'll teach me to bookmark the stuff I use when I find it.

So he is conservative, whats the point, give it a rest already.
How about the rest of the "main stream" media, the ones that reach 10 times as many households each night.
the liberals dressed in a fair and balanced forum?
Thats who you should be worried about.
They are so obvious with their agenda that it reachs comical stage.
And there is no one, NO ONE, except maybe Oreilly and Sean Hannity and afew others on FOX to call them on it.

The good thing is conservatives arent listening to the main stream media because we know what they are up to.
They are preaching to a choir that already believes everything they say anyway.
with the hopes of swaying a few to their side.
Aint gonna happen bubba. Please please please run Hillary in 2008, or Kerry, it will be like
shootin fish in a barrel.
When the liberals realize the err of their ways then maybe, but I cant see that happening
All I see is more of the same old shit. Wont work ladies.

His voting registration card is hardly proof of what he refers himself as. He filled that out years ago and maybe his views have changed. i was registered democrat for years because we had a Dem Representative living down the street and she would "do favors" for people she thought were voting for her.

What other ?proof? have you provided? You stated there were quotes like these?.

1. O'Reilly, when asked, has said he is not an "across the board conservative"
2. but his "audience is made up mostly of moderate conservatives". (Interview with Mike Wallace).
3. He has said he's "mostly conservative". (a quote)

But I have not seen these quotes anywhere. ?(a quote)? does not count as a source. And I looked at the Mike Wallace interview and didn?t see any of those quotes.

Just because you say he said these things, does not make them true. Links are required on these threads. So i wouldn't call that "AMPLE examples".

And on top of all that, I have provided quotes from Bill that contradict what you are saying.   

Please name some. ?Name the liberals in the mainstream media and cite a few examples of their liberal agenda while youre at it...

And can you please address this post (http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=24094.msg425114#msg425114)? ?Or  this one (http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=24094.msg423635#msg423635)? ?Youve been dodging them for days... :no:.


Maybe...or maybe not:

Americans Want Different Type of President Next Time, Poll Says  (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=at7vTVbeB_iU&refer=top_world_news)

You really should lay off the polls, you'd think you would have learned your lesson in 2004 when the polls had kerry winning right up until the time he LOST.

  Dan Rather, Brian Williams, Morley Saffer, Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, David Brinkley, Elizabeth Varga, Bob Wodruff, just pick anyone that turns up on ABC, NBC,   CBS
not to mention the New york Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, La Times. etc, etc

Im hoping that was a rhetorical question, your lightheaded but not to that extent 

Most polls had Bush ahead, until the first debate, when Bush had his ass handed to him. After that they were running neck and neck 'til the end.

 ???

Speaking of "lightheaded," did I even ask you a question pertaining to those names, much less one that could be construed as rhetorical?

Well, youve given a list...a ridiculous one, but a list nonetheless. ?No examples of their "liberal agenda," but I wasnt expecting one.

And youre still dodging my posts...maybe youre just overlooking them...

Shades, can you address this post (http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=24094.msg425097#msg425097) And this one (http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=24094.msg423635#msg423635).

As for the O'Reilly discussion:

(http://www.awptimus.com/docs/franken_lies/OreillyBig2.jpg)

His excuse, that the box was checked Republican as a mistake since theres no "independent" box, is laughable.  Wouldnt an independent be more inclined to check off the box that says "I do not wish to enroll in party?"

The suggestion that Bill O'Reilly is anything less than a thinly-veiled conservative Republican shill is preposterous in my estimation.  Hes created himself a successful schtick - the tough-talkin', independent voice of regular folks.  Its ridiculous, but a lot of people buy it.  You might call them "Kool Aid drinkers."  O'Reillys dishonesty, hypocrisy and paranoia are truly spectacular at this point, and hes emerging as a genuine, modern-day Joseph McCarthy.

i think a better description of o'reilly is that he's entertaining. he's dominated the news media scene for several years and gets paid $10M per year for it.

criticizing his viewers is a close-minded thing to do IMO.  ::)

maybe some people just enjoy open discussions between people with different viewpoints.

Look who is changing the subject when it all comes out in the wash.

Could somebody please ban this guy?

whos' changing the subject? when all what comes out in the wash??

trust me, bro, i'm not losing any sleep over what bill o'reilly is registered as.  :rofl:

You crack yourself up huh? At least somebody finds you funny........

I didn't say you were losing sleep, although you were defending his lies. But what do you expect from a group of liars?

Certainly not me.  I don't care a whit if he's conservative.

how was i "defending his lies"?

either you don't know how to read, or you are a liar yourself.

you've now called me a racist and a liar within a couple of days. yet you go bitchin to the mods to ban other people. that is fuckin hilarious.  :rofl: :rofl:

(and yes, i do find myself quite funny.)

But you said yourself, the argument isn't about what he is, but what he's referred to himself as. ?As a matter of public record, he reffered to himself as a Republican. ?Case closed. Oh, and he filled out the card in the mid-90's, when he moved.


www.michiganimc.org/newswire/display/3797/index.php

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/9/27/123145.shtml

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/08/24/bill_oreilly_admits_most_of_his_viewers_are_republican.php

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Features/BookReview/102803.html

All showing O'Reilly has acknowledged his viewership is mostly conservative.

I think the Rolling Stone article (link posted in one of my above posts) demonstrates that he's said painted himself as not an "across the board conservative" (a phrase echoed in a book review....which, admittedly, given the rest of the sentence appears to be a quote MAY be where I got the phrase from. ?If that's true, you are correct, it was not a direct quote and I apologize.) whether I can find the exact quote or not.

As for O'Reilly saying things that contradict the claim...well, it's obvious the guy is disingenious about his affiliation. ?Otherwise, why lie about being a Registered Republican? ?And then FURTHER lie about the reasoning being that there wasn't a box to check for Independant (not true, if you look at the published form). ?Of COURSE there's quotes that contradict the proof offered up.

So, now we get down, once again, to ideology and semantics. ?And I'm not going to go "hunting" anymore simply based on that (the HUNDREDS of pages I get when googling O'Reilly makes re-finding a particular passage akin to finding a needle in a haystack). ?There is MORE than enough compelling evidence contained in my above edited post (the one with all the links in it) to make the case that my original statement is true. ?Maybe you don't feel it's definitive enough evidence, but I do.

The POLLS showed the two neck and neck leading right up to the election.

The EXIT POLLS (which, as we've seen before, are flawed by their nature) showed Kerry winning on election day.

There is a BIG difference between the two.

SOME people do...they're watching Crossfire on CNN.

MORE people seem to like sensationalist, emotional presentation slanted to their way of thinking. (Look at the Rolling Stone article depicting O'Reilly picking out stories, who's link I posted aways back and the transcript of Bill Press's appearance on O'Reilly's show).

They seem to be watching O'Reilly.

And I'll admit, depending on the guest, I'm one of 'em, at times.

the truth is that bill o'reilly does NOT refer to himself as "conservative".

i don't care what he called himself more than 10 YEARS AGO. that's not relevant.

and sure, maybe o'reilly has stated that his audience is mostly moderate conservatives. but that does not prove your statement!

so this proof is suspect at best.

AND i showed examples of Bill calling himself a "traditionalist", and not fitting into any single ideology.

No, the TRUTH is there is significant evidence to support both positions.? That's the truth.

AND, the TRUTH is, as much as you dislike it, O'Reilly's voter registration card (and the fact he then lied about it) is certainly relevant.? You just choose to ignore it.? And he was registered as a Republican til 2000.? Hardly 10 years ago.? AND insisted he wasn't until confronted with proof.? AND then lied about the form, itself, and WHY he was registered as a repub.? You can try to explain it away all you want, but it's hard evidence, a matter of public record, and certainly more "trustworthy" than any statments O'Reilly has made on the subject.? I mean, given he LIED about it, in the first place. But certainly clear evidence that he referred to himself as conservative.

His AUDIENCE does matter, since one interpretation of "conservative commentator" (as in a commentator who comments on issues that interest conservatives) would go directly to that bit of evidence.? So, again, it certainly IS proof.

And while you've shown statments where O'Reilly says he's a traditionalist, I've shown proof he's lied about his political ideology in the past (his voter registration card) so your "proof" is certainly as suspect as anything I've provided. Edit: And, in one case, furhter proof that he's lied about being against the death penalty.  He advocated it's use!

I realize you're disappointed in the result of this discussion.? But the end result is the statement has enough factual evidence to support it that I'm comfortable making it.? Whether you agree with it or not.

i looked at those links and there are still NO QUOTES by Bill himself about having a conservative audience. in fact, Peter Hart states the opposite....

"O'Reilly is a good company man and he toes the line, telling people he?s not a conservative and his show isn?t conservative."

so he hasn't been registered as a Republican in over 5 years. and he went out of his way to change it. and this is your "proof"??? our discussion wasn't "did bill EVER refer to himself as a conservative?"

why is it so hard to admit you're wrong?

Read the links again.

"Bill O'Reilly said: "You know there are millions of Bush supporters sitting at home watching us right now ...."

According to the most recent Neilsen ratings, The Factor averaged 2,370,000 viewers a night in July 2005."

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/11/int03320.html (from the same interview you quote above):

"HART: I think the research that they?ve done on it demonstrates that the audience is mostly conservative. This is a point that O'Reilly concedes nowadays, though on other occasions, he has said just the opposite."

2nd hand? Possibly.? But I consider that compelling evidence. Also further evidence that Bill likes to change what he says as the moment allows.

In addition to the link I provided, previously, where O'Reilly admits Fox runs right of center:

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2003/10/14/fox_riddle_p.html

 "According to the Oct. 14th account by reporter Michael Klein of the Philadelphia Inquirer, ?O?Reilly acknowledges that Fox News is right of center.? As far as I know, (the weblog world can correct me) that is a first. Rhetorically speaking, big news. I emailed Klein and he said he didn?t have the quote, but he definitely asked, and O?Reilly answered as written. Things get stranger if this is so." (the article on the Inquirer is now gone, but I've emailed them to see if I can get a copy).

Oh, and:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/9/27/123145.shtml

"When Clinton-loving Rosie O'Donnell appeared on his show, O'Reilly argued, his mostly conservative audience reacted favorably"

seems like a 2nd hand direct quote to me.

As to your position that we aren't discussing "did Bill ever refer to himself as a conservative"...that's just laughable.? ?I've provided proof.? You just don't like it.? Which, of course, is typical of discussions with YOU (al la the "slippery slope" argument).? The man "went out of his way to change it" when the press blew his cover and caused a PR fiasco.? But yet couldn't be bothered to do the sam PRIOR to that (if his ideology changed, which would be tough for you to prove) but had no problem INSISTING that he HAD registered as an Independant? Please....

I might ask YOU the same question about admitting you're wrong.? See the previous discussion ("slippery slope) to see evidence of ME doing just that, when I think it's true.? You, on the other hand, when confronted with OVERWHELMING evidence, did not....

I think my case is strong enough to stand by.

compelling evidence?? come on, bro. let's be real here. it's all second hand and indirect.

and by "ever" i mean relatively recent....like within the last couple years.

and you have not given any proof that bill refers to himself or his show as "conservative". and he certainly does not on a regular basis which your original quote implied.

fox news and factor viewers probably are a little more right leaning??? NO SHIT! 
tell me something the whole world doesn't already know. no one is arguing that, and i don't think anyone would argue that.

Yes, let's be real.

Your evidence is untrustworthy, considering the man's truthfulness on the subject is in question.? Edit: AND he's been shown to say different things depending on the moment.

It might be second hand, and it might be indirect, but it's still compelling.

YOU just don't like it.?YOU have a historical tendancy to ignore evidence YOU don't like.

 Back to ideology and semantics.


LOL, so only look at recent history to prove something because...why, exactly?? Oh, yeah, because using anything further back bolsters my case.? Please.....

And "ever" by the way would mean "ever".....


Himself? His voter registration proves otherwise. Matter of public record.? His show?? Maybe not.? His AUDIENCE?? I think there's enough evidence to support that he has made that claim (or rather, acknowledged that fact) when he gets called on it.

As for what my quote "implied"...poppycock.? What YOU implied from reading it, maybe.? But, of course, now that I've provided evidence you HAVE to try to twist the discussion around.


So, what you're saying then is that you think O'Reilly, and O'Reilly alone, in this whole world, doesn't acknowledge, when faced with hard evidence (like the Pew Research Media Center Study, amongst others), that his audience is conservative?

LOL.

I've made my case, publically, to back up my statement.? I stand by it.

You disagree, obviously.? It's certainly your right to have that opinion.

However, at this point, I think we've reached the functional and useful end of the discussion.

I have no issue with letting the readers of these posts make up their own minds....

i have no idea what BO would say about his audience. cause there's no quotes to support it!

remember you said bill "calls". that's plural. as in more than once. and present tense. not 10 years ago.

his voter registration is currently "independent". he went out of his way to change it!

and i'm not trying to show evidence of anything! you're the one that made a comment that is suspect. and you have failed to prove.

maybe you can find a quote from when he was in grade school to back it up.   :rofl:

No, rather, you don't like the evidence supplied and choose to discount it.? You've done that before, too.


Like I said, semantics and ideology.?

And you have a real hard time with time, dontcha.? He changed it in 2000.? 5 Years ago.? And AFTER making claims to the contrary.


In your opinion.? Of course, given your historical propensity to ignore contrary evidence, and your bias on the subject....you'll excuse me if I don't lend much credence to it.


RIGHT, cause a grade school comment would be remotely the same thing.? ::)

OK, I'm done now.? I've made my points, ad nauseum.? We're just rehashing the same stuff over and over....not very productive, IMHO.

pilferk: "Bill calls himself a conservative commentator.  How much more authoritative a categorization do you need?"


if after all this discussion and research, you can still stand behind this comment, then we just have to agree to disagree.

I can, I do, and we will.