Bill O'Reilly

If you watched Bill O'Reilly on Oprah or the David Letterman Show, you don't need me to help you decide if he bested his detractors or not.

On Oprah, it seemed pretty obvious that some of the people in the audience were intentionally planted there to challenge Bill. I suppose that's okay. After all, nothing on TV is left to chance, and a good back-and-forth debate with prepared audience members is better than simply leaving the content of the show to chance.

Letterman was true to form...making criticisms of Bill without being able to back them up, e.g., "no I didn't read your book" and "no I don't watch your show." I'm sure he was at least briefed by staffers - remember, nothing is left to chance.

But to make such statements is an admission that he had no way of being honestly critical of O'Reilly.

What gets me is how the shows were reported on CNN.

Now CNN is a natural competitor of Fox News Channel, but they shouldn't let that interfere with honest reporting....but you know CNN. The way they edited the O'Reilly-Letterman exchange was obviously intended to make Letterman appear to have really put O'Reilly down.

In other words, CNN was dishonest in it's reporting of the facts.....nothing new for CNN, though, as we have seen many times - yes, MANY times over it's 25 year history. I can't help but wonder if the news director at CNN is Baghdad Bob (Muhammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the former Iraqi Information Minister), famous for his official reports of imaginary Iraqi army victories against the Americans.

My own opinion of O'Reilly's new book, Culture Warrior?......I think he comes across as preachy and pedantic to the point of talking down to his readers. Yeah, he's something of a stuffed shirt. Also, I think he sensationalizes his talking points, although they are (in my opinion) valid points, nonetheless.

"Hate Crimes"

Here we go again. Another Koran in the toilet [unlike a similar story in Newsweek last year, this time it appears to have actually happened] and the liberals leftists are screaming "hate crime." I guess they think they can get conservatives to share some of their liberal guilt this way.

Well, I just can't get too upset about it. Other than the fact that it was a library copy (destruction of public property) and that it was tossed into a public toilet (littering), there is no crime. And no....it wouldn't be a crime if it were a Holy Bible, either.

It seems that every time someone is offended, they want to call it a "hate crime." Whatever the offense was, it probably derived from someone's hate, lack of sensitivity, or simply lack of respect. However, it's not a crime (yet) to destroy or otherwise desecrate a friggin' book.

If that ever becomes a crime, I'll buy as many of the books in question that I can afford, notify the press, and make a fairly large bonfire in my front yard (unless one of those frequent burn bans is in effect, in which case I'll just have my dog pee on them).

The whiners need to accept the fact that they do not have a right to not be offended. In other words, grow up, already.

[Editor's note: The above image was brazenly pilfered from Jason at COUNTERCOLUMN.]

Cowardice in the "War on Terror"

Have you noticed that the MSM have resolutely avoided any possibly of offending Islamic terrorists? Oh sure, they say they just don't want to offend the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims (who also seem reluctant to offend the "tiny" extremist elements among them). They're more than happy to point out anything offensive to Muslims if it will serve to undermine the Bush administration, though.

Now it appears that the Berlin Opera House is the latest entity to capitulate to the fear of Islamic terrorists by canceling the performance of an avant-garde version of a Mozart opera that included a scene that included the severed heads of prominent religious figures, including Mohammed. German government officials reportedly urged that the "show must should go on," but the opera house chose to cancel anyway. Does anyone doubt that the terrorists are winning.

[Remember, it was the Germans who quietly freed the terrorist Mohammad Ali Hammadi not in exchange for the release of Susanne Osthoff, a German national working in Iraq who was "kidnapped" by terrorists last year. Susanne is suspected of having participated in her own abduction and assisted her Baathist "captors" in this scam to get Germany to release an important terrorist and cancel the training they had agreed to provide to Iraqi security forces. Don't expect the German government to file charges against her, though.]

Whether the opera production was tasteless or inappropriate is beside the point. Many, if not most, artistic presentations could be characterized as tasteless or inappropriate (Pis Christ, Madonna, CBS News, etc.). Those of us who value civil liberties will allow such garbage as part of the price of having our own freedom.

The performance was reportedly cancelled because the German police informed the opera house that it could result in "a violent backlash from Muslim fundamentalists." They weren't worried about angry Christians or Buddhists, though (why is that?). Although no Muslim group had expressed displeasure with the scheduled performance, it's not hard to imagine that someone would have jumped at yet another excuse to torch some cars or blow up something.

Frankly, I'm getting a little sick and tired of all this tip-toeing around Muslim sensitivities. I was genuinely proud of President George W. Bush when he said to those who wished to attack us, "Bring 'em on!" I was genuinely disappointed when he backed off from that rare show of strength and defiance of our enemy.

The MSM promotes such cowardice in the way it reports (or fails to report) the news. A good example is Newsweek magazine. It couldn't wait to publish an unfounded (and false) rumor that guards at Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet (a physical impossibility, btw), but at the height of the Danish cartoon kerfluffle, the editors at Newsweek refused to publish the cartoons in question to show everyone what the "news" was all about. In fact, no major news outlet had the courage to show what was causing the uproar.

Whatever you might think of former President John F. Kennedy, he inspired me when he said:

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Is there a leader in this country today who has that kind of courage?