{"id":2226,"date":"2008-06-03T02:33:24","date_gmt":"2008-06-03T07:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2226"},"modified":"2008-06-03T02:34:30","modified_gmt":"2008-06-03T07:34:30","slug":"oreilly-gets-angry-imagine-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/06\/03\/oreilly-gets-angry-imagine-that\/","title":{"rendered":"O’Reilly gets angry? Imagine that…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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O’Reilly gets angry while interviewing Scott McClellan<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n

‘O’Reilly Factor’ host Bill O’Reilly became visibly upset as he questioned Scott McClellan about Iraq war propaganda and the CIA leak case…<\/p>\n

"If the director of the CIA believes it, British intelligence believes it, John Kerry believes it, Hillary Clinton believes it, and President Clinton believes it…" said O’Reilly, "If they all believe Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, sir: don’t you have a nerve accusing me of not being vigilant enough?" O’Reilly later thundered, "If two presidents of the United States (sitting), the former CIA guy who works for both presidents, Tony Blair, and The New York Times<\/em> all tell me and you [Saddam has] got [WMDs], we can’t say ‘no, he doesn’t!’"…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Then, Mr. O’Reilly, what are you for? Because Saddam Hussein didn’t have<\/u> weapons of mass destruction [And we had no idea you held John Kerry, or Hillary Clinton, and the New York Times in such high esteem].<\/em> What a dufus, O’Reilly. The Press’ reaction to McClellan has been abysmal, worse than even McClellan’s former colleagues. We don’t expect O’Reilly to question much of anything on his own side of the aisle; and we don’t expect him to agree with anything on the other side. We mostly expect him to blow his nasty stack on cue night after night. So, in his way, he’s right. Our expectations of him are pretty low. We know O’Reilly "can’t say ‘no’." But to focus on one of his newly venerated resources, the New York Times<\/strong> –  remember this?<\/div>\n
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FROM THE EDITORS<\/strong>
The Times and Iraq<\/strong><\/a>
Published: May 26, 2004<\/div>\n

Over the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq’s weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past time we turned the same light on ourselves.<\/p>\n

In doing so — reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation — we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of. In most cases, what we reported was an accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time, much of it painstakingly extracted from intelligence agencies that were themselves dependent on sketchy information. And where those articles included incomplete information or pointed in a wrong direction, they were later overtaken by more and stronger information. That is how news coverage normally unfolds.<\/p>\n

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.<\/p>\n

The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Way too much self-justification, but at least it’s an apology. For the most part, the Press was in the same bubble as McClellan…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O’Reilly gets angry while interviewing Scott McClellan ‘O’Reilly Factor’ host Bill O’Reilly became visibly upset as he questioned Scott McClellan about Iraq war propaganda and the CIA leak case… "If the director of the CIA believes it, British intelligence believes it, John Kerry believes it, Hillary Clinton believes it, and President Clinton believes it…" said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}