O'Reilly Faces Off Against Moore

An Interesting Dialog

Published on July 28, 2004 By CS Guy In Politics

Bill O’Reilly has been asking Michael Moore to appear on “The O’Reilly Factor” for some time now. Moore as declined to appear until O’Reilly viewed “Fahrenheit 9/11” in its entirety. Apparently everyone’s requirements have been met, because Moore sat down with O’Reilly at the Democratic National Convention to exchange questions.

O’Reilly opened with the following query.

Now, one of the issues is you because you’ve been calling Bush a liar on weapons of mass destruction, the Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler’s investigation in Britain and now the 9/11 Commission have all come out and said there was no lying on the part of President Bush. Plus, Vladimir Putin has said his intelligence told Bush there were weapons of mass destruction. Wanna apologize to the president now or later?

Moore sticks to his guns about Bush being a liar. Moore seems to think that a false statement is a lie despite the statement being made in good confidence but based on bad data. I happen to disagree on that issue.

Moore response with, “…many criminals believe what they say is true; they could pass a lie detector test.”

The difference is that criminals that believe their own delusions were not given millions of dollars worth of intelligence from the top sources in the world.

Moore comes back with the question, “…would you sacrifice your child to remove one of the other 30 brutal dictators on this planet?” And later with, “So, you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah?”

These are, of course, silly questions. No one would want to sacrifice their children. If you knew 100% that your child would die by volunteering for the military then you would not want them to do so. Of course, that also brings up the point that military service is voluntary, and that no parent has the right to “sacrifice” their child for any cause.

John Derbyshire offers a fine response to Moore’s question.

"Would you sacrifice your child for Fallujah?" All right, it's a stupid question as phrased. O'Reilly should have said that. Then he should have said this: "If a child of mine wished to pursue a career in the U.S. military, I should be proud. If he was then sent off to fight in a hot war, in which the USA had engaged under the proper conventional and constitutional procedures of this republic -- under the command of the President, with the approval of the Congress -- I would make no attempt to stop him. If he died in combat, I should grieve as a loving parent; but I would blame nobody. And if anyone tried to make political capital out of my child's death, I would loathe that person."

Comments (Page 1)

Draginol

on Jul 28, 2004

Moore's whole "would you sacrifice your child" nonsense was just that -- nonsense. NO ONE is sacrificing THEIR child. Talk about insulting the intelligence of our soldiers. Our soldiers, last time I checked, are all adults. They're not being sold to the guvment by mom and dad.

ElectronJohn

on Jul 28, 2004

I am sorry I missed that interview. Sounds like it was just a short 5 minute sit down type of thing anyway. I would love to watch Moore being interviewed at length by O’Reilly sometime. Of course Moore would most likely never answer anything which might get old quickly.

ElectronJohn

on Jul 28, 2004

OK I just read the whole interview and it was longer than 5 minute and Moore never answered anything. Here is the link to the Moore Interview with O'Reilly:
Link

CS Guy

on Jul 28, 2004

OK I just read the whole interview and it was longer than 5 minute and Moore never answered anything. Here is the link to the Moore Interview with O'Reilly:

Uh, yea. Didn't you see the link at the bottom of my article?

Gideon MacLeish

on Jul 28, 2004

Moore seems to miss the point that EVERY soldier in the US Army is there voluntarily, not through conscription. They pledged to defend their country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey their commander in chief. Most of our soldiers have done a fine job of following through with their commitment, and, although I am against war in principal, I would be proud to have a son or daughter among them.

dharmagrl

on Jul 28, 2004

I went a read the interview transcript as well...Moore's a freakin' propagandist idiot. He managed to sidestep the answer to every question, as usual....he's just a moron.

That's all I have to say about that.

mochael moore lies

on Jul 29, 2004

I think that Michael Moore was the worst speaker I have ever heard. I think Bill won hands down. Michael Moore is a slug! The man still says that Bush lied. That outlook is pathetic. We had over 4 other agencies telling is from Russia to Britian that they had WMD's why would we have waited to go.

BriRyJor

on Jul 29, 2004

Ben Affleck was on the program just before Moore and I was fully impressed with his presentation although I didn't agree with everything he said. He was very well informed and was able to respond to O'Reilly's questions without dancing or using premeditated lines such as the now infamous, "Would you sacrafice your child..." O'Reilly even noted that he was impressed with the actor at the end of the interview.

CS Guy

on Jul 29, 2004

Did you really expect intelligent questions from such a silly man?

My faith in humanity is often unjustified. I guess I had hoped he might approach the discourse with maturity and intelligence.

ElectronJohn

on Jul 29, 2004

Oh sorry CS Guy, I miss the fact that you had the article link on your original post. That would have saved my some time.

CS Guy

on Jul 29, 2004

Oh sorry CS Guy, I miss the fact that you had the article link on your original post. That would have saved my some time.

Hey, I try to take care of my readers.

bakerstreet

on Jul 29, 2004

I'm completely amazed that we don't have a flood of Moore supporters on this thread. Goes to show that there isn't much to defend, I think...

QingJao

on Jul 30, 2004

Not a huge O'Reilly fan (despite being conservative) but he KOed Moore. And I love how Moore never really did answer any of his questions just avoided them (of course to liberals this is answering them :rolls eyes:).
Qing Jao

CS Guy

on Jul 30, 2004

I'm completely amazed that we don't have a flood of Moore supporters on this thread. Goes to show that there isn't much to defend, I think...

Maybe it is just that Moore supporters are not interested in reading my articles, or they think responding is below them. Both of which are valid positions. Or maybe I just have them all blacklisted.

JakeD

on Jul 30, 2004

I haven't been able to view the dialog. I only have what you have presented here to go on. If somebody asked such flagrantly baiting question such as ... wanna apologize now or later? I wouldn't even bother to speak. Any response would be twisted. Just get up and walk away from the monumentally idiotic dipshit.

I mean seriously, if one takes the time and hype something that can neither be confirmed or denied, what's the point? Putin's lie becomes Bush's hang rope. Now is it Putin's fault somebody listened?

The comments of Derbyshire are ironic. He states a specific line of checks and criteria to go to war. None of which were even remotely adhered to. Conventional procedures turned into unilateral action. Resolution 1441 turned into a gross misinterpretation. Under the command of the president commands evolved into a massive campaign of delusion carriend out by the defense minister and the vice president. The president was barely even part of the process. Men who acted over their official positions. Congress got only started reading the ram-job patriot act AFTER the voting the passed. C'mon guy where is the legitamacy? I sure can't see it.

So yeah I am offended by Moore's showing. He should was far too civil.

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