'Why are you scared of the facts?' Bill O'Reilly finally meets his match in Ellis Henican
Newsday columnist Ellis Henican took on Bill O'Reilly last night to talk about President Obama's decision to leave the door open for prosecutions of Bush administration officials for creating its now-defunct torture regime.
And frankly, he did as well I've ever seen anyone do in the canned, no-win setup that is The O'Reilly Factor. He went toe-to-toe with O'Reilly on the factual points -- and in fact started scoring so well that O'Reilly was reduced to blurting out increasingly outrageous pronouncements.
First, it's clear that O'Reilly was only familiar with the GOP Talking Points[tm] version of the letter written by National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair in which he talks about "high value information" obtained through these techniques. But here's the actual letter.
As you can see from reading it, unlike the edited-down version O'Reilly and the GOPTP offer, Blair makes clear that he probably would have opposed the use of torture and clearly disapproves of it now:
Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing. As the President has made clear, and as both CIA Director Panetta and I have stated, we will not use those techniques in the future. I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.
Moreover, Blair further clarified himself the next day in the New York Times, explaining exactly why he would not have approved it:
"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means," Admiral Blair said in a written statement issued last night. "The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."
O'Reilly clearly was unaware of this, so when Henican tosses it in his lap, he's at first confused, continuing to think that Blair and Henican have opposing views when they don't. It's kind of an amusing instance of O'Reilly so enrapt with his own narrative he doesn't recognize when it's been knocked out from under him.
Indeed, Henican essentially repeats Blair's words, and O'Reilly resorts to claiming that's "not exactly" what he said.
From then on, O'Reilly is reduced to barking increasingly strident charges at Henican:
O'Reilly: This was done to protect your life, you live in New York City. You -- this was done to protect your life, and it worked! That's No. 1.
Henican: We don't know whether it worked.
O'Reilly: Yeah, we know it worked, you're still alive! And the attack on Los Angeles was aborted.
[Crosstalk]
O'Reilly: Wait, wait, wait. We can establish facts. And the facts are, this worked.
Henican: Well, you say that.
O'Reilly: They did it to protect us.
Henican: You assert that. Well, let me assert a couple of things.
O'Reilly: That's the overwhelming evidence.
Henican: Well, that's what you're focused on. Let me focus on some other facts. One is that these kinds of things cause huge problems for us afterward.
O'Reilly: Oh, now we're in Theory World. Here we go!
