Bill O'Reilly Sets Me Straight

Bill O’Reilly Sets Me Straight

It’s all because I hate George Bush, or so pundit-extraordinaire Bill O’Reilly informed me this morning in his column.

It can’t possibly be anything the Bush Administration has done. It apparently has nothing to do with the fact that an inept Bush Administration rushed into a disastrous war in Iraq on the basis of bogus intelligence, nor the fact that thousands of American servicemen and women have since died in Iraq, not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who’ve lost their lives as “collateral damage.” It can’t have anything to do with the reality that Iraq has been turned into a terrorists’ laboratory and recruitment center, or that the Iraqis overwhelmingly now feel that life was better under Saddam Hussein, or that much of Iraq’s educated elite have already voted with their feet and fled their homeland since 2003. That the real masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks – Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda – STILL haven’t been brought to justice shouldn’t trouble me at all, I guess. Nor should I take umbrage over the international goodwill squandered by Bush’s macho unilateralism, or the rollback of progress towards democracy worldwide that the Bush Administration has presided over.

Nope. O’Reilly knows it’s all because I hate George Bush.

I might have thought my angst had something to do with Bush domestic policy. Secret renditions of prisoners, suspension of habeas corpus, domestic spying, botched Katrina relief, a highly partisan Attorney General with selective memory … Shouldn’t be my concern, I guess.

If not for my alleged hatred of George Bush … Will O’Reilly ever find it in his heart to forgive me?

Beware that word “hatred,” folks! It’s a carefully calculated rhetorical trick to stifle dissent. It’s also been a favorite of the President and his supporters in recent years. Remember Bush’s address to the nation immediately after 9/11, when he “explained” the alleged motivation behind the attacks? Bush said simply: “[The terrorists] hate our freedoms!”

No, they don’t. They dislike our specific policies in the Middle East and elsewhere, particularly our spectacular inability to promote a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (or even any real indication we care). They’re also not terribly keen on American popular culture, but can you really blame them for having qualms about a culture that would lionize the likes of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton?

No, by branding legitimate policy disagreements as arising from simple “hatred,” one can effectively discredit those concerns as something irrational. What is irrational, of course, needs neither be confronted nor discussed. The irrational can’t really be discussed. A critic effectively loses all basis for argument.

Don’t let blowhards like O’Reilly shut down all conversation with his dismissive taunts. Let the world know what you think!

Peace!
Historian