Bill O'Liely : Haditha and Malmedy

The BBQ Pit
61

Speaking of which, while you’re rambling on about what everybody must know that the only objective answer is that John Mace’s subjective opinion is right because he says so, are you going to have the honor to retract statements you made that were outright falsehoods? How about the truly outrageous bout of playing make-believe when you were telling me about what the first thing I said was?

You’re not acting with any intellectual honesty here, and it’s really quite distasteful. Dio says that he should’ve apologized and you agree, but then go on to say that who cares, because he retracted his claim. You are arguing out of both sides of your mouth.

You pitch your opinions as if they were gospel, and repeatedly say how you can’t see why he would’ve deliberately made something up even when people have provided some very good reasons. But you’re not interested in discussion or debate, just in saying over and over again how everybody must obviously agree with you if they’re objective.

You are so goddamn full of shit in this thread that it’s really mind blowing. You have the nerve to spout bullshit like this:

Right. You’re the only objective one. Everybody else who finds another answer more likely? They’re just not objective. But you are. Oh yeah, you are. And your subjective interpretation must be right, of course. And hey, in the John Maciverse, if someone is wrong once on a massive scale and then gets corrected, and then makes the same mistake again, why, it’s totally unreasonable to posit that they have a freaking memory. Cuz that wouldn’t be objective. Nope.

Oh, and, by the way, assuming that a distortion made by a known liar which was self-serving and made multiple times is ~gasp!~ a lie? Aint a fallacy. It’s called evaluating the character of your source. Much like you’ve done, where you assume that he’s too fucking stupid to tell the Nazis and Americans apart even though he’s been corrected once already. But I know, your subjective analysis is the only objective one.

Of course.

Got that retraction for pretending I said something that I didn’t?

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Because he got called on the carpet for having made the same “mistake” twice now, so he had to say something this time. He might be an idiot, but he’s no fool when it comes to knowing how to pander to his viewers.

Well I can certainly think of what he might consider to be good reasons to purposefully lie about this, and it makes perfect sense to me, knowing how intentionally manipulative he can be. One of those reasons could be the same reason that, for instance, neo-Nazis repeat lies even after they’ve been corrected about historical accuracy – he bought into the lie and not the correction he received on it last October. Another reason could be that he’s intellectually lazy and didn’t bother to research some other so-called American soldier atrocity to use in its place for the next time he wanted to use such an example, so he just pulled the same bullshit he’d already memorized out of his ass, not giving a shit if it was false or not because it worked for him in that moment to shoot down his opponent. But unlike you, I can imagine that it wasn’t accidental due to having been “stuck in his brain,” but intentional, because it was easier to spit crap than to not be able to make the point he wanted to make at all for lack of any other example to use because he couldn’t think of one as quickly. I’m sure one could come up with other reasons he might have chosen to continue spewing this same lie, but it’s really just speculation. I only offered up my own speculation to show that just because you can’t conceive of a reason for it, doesn’t mean a reason might not exist.

Well I don’t.

In this case I don’t have any problem ascribing both to him.

See above as to reasons he might not have bothered to use any of those plethora of examples and can still be called a liar.

That doesn’t mean I have to buy the mistake line, just because it’s possible. Sure, it’s possible. I’m unconvinced. And I’ve read that thread and find it amazing that you would try to draw some kind of parallel to the discussion about assessing credibility. As I understand it, the argument there is that population statistics cannot be used to determine individual actions. One can only look to the individual’s past actions to potentially determine credibility about their future actions. And that’s precisely what I’ve done here. Bill O’Reilly is a known liar. I’ve proven so myself, in the “War on Christmas” debacle we had not that long ago. I find his credibility to be questionable, so I choose not to give him the benefit of my doubt. A liar might occasionally also be mistaken. He might also be lying. I choose to believe he’s lying – again. You’re welcome to come to a different conclusion, but you cannot convince me that you are right with the arguments you’ve put forth here. Sorry.

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I’ve backed up all my assertions and have asked no one to take anything on faith. I’ve only asked people to have a good reason for stating that something is a lie. So far, I’ve not seen one.

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Except where you lied and put words in my mouth that you have yet to retract. Oh, I’m sorry, is the only objective thing to assume that you’re not lying, just totally out of it?

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Because there was enough of a firestorm of criticism this time to embarass either Bill or his bosses sufficiently to provoke a response? You think that just might be the reason for his “clarification”?

I reread the thread and I can’t find any statement or insinuation that O’Reilly is an anti-Semite. The only reference to anti-Semitism is my comment about the original claims perverting the story of Malmedy originating among anti-Semites. If you’re alleging that that constitutes a charge of anti-Semitism against O’Reilly, you’re being sloppy with your accusations. I don’t take it personally though.

Exactly.

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It’s the most perplexing thing: His favourite books got lost in a move a while ago. He packed them in a special crate together with his Peabody award all carefully wrapped in past issues of “The Paris Business Review” and the contents got lost - it’s as if they never existed.

Seriously, that Bill O’Reilly invents convenient facts on the spot to bolster a failing argument - is that even news anymore ? He’s all form and no substance.

67

Oh, I have no doubt about that. But you don’t find his “clarification” credible in the least? Don’t you think it odd that the particular masacre he chose to “lie” about just coincidentally happened to have had a retaliatory action taken by American troops against the Germans? Now, it’s not precisely the type of retaliation alleged in Haditha, but still. That doesn’t strike you as a little too much of a coincidence? And given how O’Reilly’s fans rally around a “support the troops” banner, why would he knowingly risk slandering them so blatantly? Lazy and careless, yes. “Lying through his teeth”? :dubious:

Yes, that was the quote I was referring to. If you say that’s not what you meant, I’ll take you at your word. But do you really think it’s “sloppy” to have read your post that way? I don’t think it was an unresonable interpretation. Having seen your clarification, though, I’ll retract the statement I made.

Exactly!

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So I’m going to have you Pit you here? You don’t have the honor to retract your lies about what I said?

Come on, is it so hard?

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Can you tell me once again what you want me to retract? Frankly, I find it too hard to reaspond to the kind of debates where posters keep slicing up each others posts (virtually) sentence by sentence. I lose track of what the key issues were. And in this case, I’m probably as much to blame for having done the slicing and dicing as you.

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You know what, Finn. Bite me. I didn’t “lie” in this thread. Normally I’m happy to retract statements if I’m make mistakes. But you’re just over the edge on this.

Pit away, pal. Pit away!

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Fair enough. Like I said, I do respect you, but am baffled by your conduct in this thread. The specific issue here that’s really bugging me is that you claimed, with the underline being yours:
[

](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7464405&postcount=41)

When I responded by citing what my actual first point was

[

](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7464688&postcount=50)

you didn’t respond.

At this point I’m more than willing to admit that most of my frustration with you in this thread is that you’ve taken me to task for an interpretation that many others share and is a reasonable one, while you put words in my mouth and did not retract them once it was shown they weren’t true.

At this point, all I’m asking for is a retraction.

Edit: And on preview, you say I’m over the line? You clearly lied and put words in my mouth. You made up, just played make-believe, and pretended I said something. And I’m the one who’s over the line, when you’re a liar? I couldn’t care less what you ‘normally’ feel free to retract. You lied here, ignored my proving that you lied, and now act as if me being annoyed that you lie about what I said means I’ve done something wrong.

Mmm kay.

72

There has been a not-insignificant effort on the pro-war side to draw deep parallels between World War II and the Iraq War. Often these comparisons skew historical facts of the 1930’s and 40’s in order to make them more closely match current reality. (Just Google “Hussein Hitler” and you can find page after page of this sort of stuff.)

As I said on page one of this thread, this is what Condoleeza Rice was up to with her references to the “Werewolves”. This is what Andrew Sullivan is up to with his repeated use of the term “Islamofascists”. The goals of this sort of talk are two-fold: To attach some of the “good war” aura of World War II to the current conflict, and to mute the impact of any bad actions by Americans (at the tactical or strategy levels) by casting them as “business as usual”.

I don’t think that O’Rielly probably made an “honest” mistake with Malmedy in the sense that he probably wasn’t intentionally lying about who massacred who. It was a slip of the tongue, or a momentary bit of misremembering.

However, I don’t think he should be let off the hook. By drawing comparasons with (alleged) atrocities in World War II, O’Reilly was trying to make the point that this sort of thing is “business as usual”. When you go to war, atrocities will happen, full stop. So even though the Haditha Marines deserve to be punished if they’re guilty, their actions aren’t indicative of anything in particular other than “War is Hell”.

I think he’s dead wrong. Yes, sometimes the people who commit war crimes are just psychopaths, but more often they are normal men who are led to commit awful acts out of fear or desperation. My Lai was a symptom of the helplessness and the frustration of American soldiers faced with an enemy they could not come to grips with. Malmedy (the real Malmedy) was a symptom of the desperation of the collapsing Nazi war machine.

If Bill O’Reilly could get his facts right maybe he would see this. But he’s more interested in constructing a framework of convenient rationalizations.

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Argh … that should be “I **do ** think O’Reilly made an ‘honest’ mistake … .”

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Fine. It wasn’t the very first thing you said. My bad. Frankly, I thought was just a lead in to the OP and the first “point” you made was when you claimed that O’Reilly was excusing the Haditha incident. If you prefer to believe that I was lying, go right ahead.

I said over the edge, not over the line. Can I call that a lie on your part? :slight_smile: Over the edge as in too emotionally upset. That’s the other reason I stopped responding to your posts-- I didn’t want to deal with all the emotional content you were putting in them. You need to take a chill pill, dude.

75

Was that first “don’t” supposed to be there? (On preivew, I see the answer is “yes”.)

I think my own position falls somewhere between yours and O’Reilly’s. Mainly because I’m not ready to say that a remedy is needed until after the investigation is finished. That is, a rememdy beyond what already has been done with the recent “stand down order”. IIRC, that’s was issued in response to reports about the Haditha incident. Once the investigation is done, we can decide if this is an endemic problem and what specific steps need ot be taken to correct it.

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On preview NO, not yes! Gahhhhh!!!

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(emphasis added)

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Ya don’t say?
Does that level of hypocrisy not bother you? You insult me and claim that I didn’t even read what transpired and just vomited up a talking head’s points, present yourself as the only ‘objective’ person, and yet you’re too lax to actually ya know, use what I actually said in order to make your criticisms of my OP?

It’s just funny to see you putting on your little nitpick-dance bullshit about mischaraterization when you’re eyeball deep in that shit yourself.

Malicious or incompetent, John? You weren’t talking about my first ‘point’ but what I first said. And, moreoever, that you could think a ‘point’ which I explicitly dismissed was one I was making strains credibility. Malicious or incompetent?

Are you purposefully ignoring that I said it wasn’t a big deal and after glossing over it the entire OP dealt with his slander of the troops? That I requested several times of you in this thread to drop your nitpicking and shitting in the thread and address what I was actually talking about, which was not Haditha?

I dunno, maybe just hypocritical and oblivious and so eager to get in your shitting on the thread via your nitpick that you didn’t care to be at all “objective”. That while you were whining about mischaracterization and were busy shitting in my thread to hijack it, that you couldn’t be bothered to hold yourself to the standards you were kvetching to me about. But again, I’m not sure. Your conduct in this thread has been abhorent and baffling.

If you want to cleave to the same level of intellectual dishonesty and janus faced opportunisticly whinging-nitpicking that you’ve been showing, sure. Knock yourself out pal.

Yeah… that’s why you have different standards for yourself that allow you to make things up and mischaracterize things, but allow you to shit all over a thread with a irrelevant nitpicking fest. And that when called on it, again and again and again, you ignore it steadfastly before telling to bite you and then claim that your refusal to retract your, erm, ‘incompetent mistake’ is, in fact, partially due to the fact that I’m just too durn emotional.
Good on you.

And you need to hold yourself to the same standards that you use to hijack my thread and harp on a subject that I explicitly said wasn’t an issue.

79

I rest my case. As Hurley would say: Chill pill, dude.

80

Agreed. But the problem with O’Reilly is that he’s trying to short-circuit any critical assessment of the significance of the situation by framing the alleged actions of the Marines at Haditha as a typical event. He does it by implying that the massacre of POWs or civilians by U.S. soldiers is a common-enough occurrence in the history of American wars that we shouldn’t attach any particular significance to it happening again.

But the fact is that this sort of massacre by American troops **is ** rare enough to be remarkable. For example, during the occupation of Germany after World War II the Americans never committed the sort of war crimes that the Nazis did during their occupation of France. There were no German Oradours (not on the Western Front, at least.)

By adopting this rhetorical stance he commits a triple sin. He dishonors the memories of past American soldiers by implying that the occurrence of atrocities was more commonplace than it actually was. And he lowers the bar of what is considered acceptable behavior for our current combat troops by implying that such brutality is inescapable. And, finally, he constructs a framework for the event where **any attempt ** to analyze the situation as evidence of policy failure is portrayed as naive and futile.

Even if you’re “waiting for the investigation to be done”, I don’t think you should be defending O’Reilly on this matter.