Winds of War in Middle East

Bill O'Reilly's June 26th Talking Points Memo

Bill O'Reilly presents somewhat of a paradoxical situation for us today. The lead story is that Israel is threatening to attack the Iranians if President Bush doesn't do something to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons capability. Later in his memo, Mr. O'Reilly indicates that this would cause "a full-fledged war" to break out in the Middle East and "few countries will help the Israelis." Given this information, it seems that the threat is fairly hollow. Why would Israel attack a country knowing full well that it would lead to their destruction? Really, though, this is beside the point. Israel knows that President Bush is the only person who would be crazy enough to attack Iran. After all, Bush had no problem invading Iraq. Israel also knows that it is unlikely they could get either Barack Obama or John McCain to agree to a war in Iran (even though Mr. O'Reilly simply points to Obama, I believe both candidates would be cautious about entering into another war while things are still not resolved in Iraq).

I think Mr. O'Reilly is absolutely correct that President Bush could not attack Iran without being vilified, though I think it is a stretch to suggest impeachment. I believe at this point, Bush is just waiting out the end of his term. He'll probably be taking some nice long vacations in Texas and maybe work to clean up his image for posterity.

I do find it interesting that Mr. O'Reilly mentions a full-fledged war in the Middle East, and puts all the focus on oil prices rising to over $200 a barrel and collapsing the economy. As important as oil is to our society, I hardly think that the price of oil rising that much would collapse the world economy. There would be hard times, certainly, but if so much was riding on the price of oil, the Middle East would have far more power today than they do. In other words, should the price of oil increasing create worldwide chaos, the big powers of the world would enter and take action. Yes, this could lead to another world war, which is exactly why the likelihood of it happening is minimal.

I get the distinct impression that Mr. O'Reilly assumes he is the only one who can figure out cause and effect in global politics. The countries in the Middle East are keenly aware that the happenings in the region dramatically effect other nations and that those other nations are willing to take action to prevent instability in the region. This doesn't mean that we should not pay attention or worry about what goes on in the Middle East, but rather that we should continue as we have been to promote peace in the region. As always, we should keep a close watch on those countries which might be researching the creation of nuclear weapons. We should use all the diplomatic means at our disposal to prevent that from happening. Should the situation warrant, and global opinion agree, we should use force if necessary. What we should not do, however, is go to war with Iran simply because if we don't, Israel will and that will cause lots of trouble. I don't believe each country in the Middle East is plotting to bring about the ruination of not only their, but all the other countries in the Middle East.

My major disagreement with Mr. O'Reilly comes when he suggests that "[f]ar-left loons continue to downplay the danger from [Iran]." I don't even have any facts with which to disagree with that statement. Why? Because I don't need any! Bill O'Reilly shows no legitimate evidence whatsoever to back up his claim. He moves right on to discuss the CEO of GE and how they still do business with Iran. If you're going to make a statement as inflammatory as that one, at least provide something to back it up. Otherwise, you're simply another hate spewing partisan pundit, which at this point I won't disagree with.

Now to Mr. O'Reilly's solution. He believes that a total economic boycott of Iran is the solution. He suggests this will "cause the country to collapse and the mullahs would be overthrown." I will go ahead with Mr. O'Reilly's logic here and assume exactly that will happen. Is there any indication that another regime more friendly to the United States or Israel would rise? Likely one bad regime would be replaced with another one, no doubt angrier at the United States for causing the country to collapse. Revolutions are bloody affairs and rarely end in a manner as peaceful as that of the United States. Also, the point of economic boycotts or sanctions are to convince the current government of a country that their policies are bad and need to change in order to restore order to their country. To initiate economic pressure on a country with the sole purpose being sending the country into anarchy to overthrow the current regime is ludicrous at best and catastrophic at worst.

So, here we are. We shouldn't invade Iran without very, very good reason, Israel likely won't take military action against Iran because they simply cannot take on the entire Middle East and would likely spark another world war, and an economic boycott of Iran with the goal of inciting a revolution is not a very good idea. What should we do? Well, maybe we sit down with Israel and suggest they cool down a bit, maybe we initiate some economic sanctions against Iran with the hope of pressuring them into a policy change, or maybe we decide that there isn't anything out there currently that warrants action. I don't have all the details, nor do I pretend to. Nor does Mr. O'Reilly.

And that's "The CounterPoints Memo."

Attacking Michelle Obama

Bill O'Reilly's June 12th Talking Points Memo

In reading Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo today I found myself much in agreement. I think it would be in very poor taste for the GOP to go negative on Michelle Obama during the campaign. Of course, I think it would be in poor taste for anyone to go negative during the campaign, except to offer criticism of their opponent's policies. I have no patience for personal attacks or smear campaigns. Mr. O'Reilly does very well to denounce any such attacks on Michelle Obama.

Unfortunately, and yet typically, Mr. O'Reilly takes a jump off the deep end and judges that "the reason the far left hasn't been able to win anything is that they are so hateful." I am simply baffled by that comment. Let us not forget Bush's "flip-flopping" remarks concerning John Kerry, or Bush's comment to Gore about "fuzzy math." We should also not forget about Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. What a smear campaign that was. So, once again, Mr. O'Reilly focuses on "far-left loons" rather than showing a clear picture of the political landscape. How does he know this is true? Ratings don't lie, do they? "'The Factor' beat MSNBC by 139 percent in total audience and 102 percent in the key demo." Surely by the logical reasoning of ad populum, if everyone says it, it must be true. Mr. O'Reilly must not be aware that that is actually a logical fallacy. He consistently uses his show's popularity as proof of his own comments. Just because the majority of people in the Dark Ages thought the Earth was flat does not make it true.

Negative attacks and smear campaigns will no doubt be a large part of this upcoming presidential campaign. I challenge Mr. O'Reilly to report on every smear originating from both John McCain and Barack Obama. I suspect that the smearing will come rather largely from the John McCain side, whether from direct action from Mr. McCain's campaign or from indirect action from anonymous McCain supporters. I will be on the lookout for phone calls, emails, and push polls suggesting personal attacks on Mr. Obama. It is a sad state of affairs when a candidate has to go to those lengths to win an election, and an even sadder state that the American public is so easily duped by them. I am happy that Barack Obama has taken the time to create a Fight the Smears web site devoted to combating unsubstantiated and intentionally negative smear campaigns.

And that's "The CounterPoints Memo."