O'Reilly evidence

This is nonsense. Statistics Canada - We couldn't find that Web page (Error 404) / Statistique Canada - Nous ne pouvons trouver cette page Web (Erreur 404) says that the population of Canada should be 32,233,955 by 7/1/05. One million dollars per person would total 32 trillion dollars. Bill Gates is rich, but he's nowhere near that rich. The last figure I heard for him was $95 billion, which was a couple years ago. This would allow him to give each Canadian about $3,000....edited to fix quote code...one more edit: I'm not suggesting it's nonsense that Yaro passed on what she heard. I'm saying the figures are nonsense. No offense intended with my statement.This message has been edited by truthlover, 04-02-2005 10:40 PMThis message has been edited by truthlover, 04-02-2005 11:20 PM

from http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/03/State/Bush_claims_victory_i.shtml

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The percentage of all incoming minority freshmen at the 11 public universities increased to 37.3 percent, half a percent from the year before.

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Maybe that's why. Maybe you heard him wrong, and he said minorities in general rather than just blacks. You have a bit of a history of unreliable statistics, so perhaps you could reference the other claims in your OP?The article also says 37.3% is only a 1% increase over three years, so it seems it's not just incoming freshmen, but the whole student population that is 37%.

This isn't true, either.From http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp

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USA's aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP is already lowest of any industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically in the last three years, their dollar amount has been the highest.

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It then says Japan's was the highest from 1992 onwards.Admittedly, though, the page also says that as a percentage of GNP, the US gives very little compared to other industrial countries. And if O'Reilly really said "far and away" more than other countries, with no other country coming close, then he was wrong, especially if he said it in 2001, when the US was only about 1.2 billion, or 12%, ahead of Japan.In 2003, however, O'Reilly's statement was quite true. We gave double what Japan gave, and Japan was still 2nd. According to that same site, Japan wasn't even close. Their chart for 2002, which they say was the latest figures available, puts them 17th, with the US tied for 18th with two other countries. Japan gives 1/5 of what Sweden gives (according to that chart) based on GDP. The US, though, is at 1/7.I am not trying to suggest America is some immensely generous country. I am saying, however, that O'Reilly is not being a blowhard. It looks like he has a pretty reasonable basis for the things Rrhain mentions. You see a lot of topics this way. You'd be much more pleasant to talk to if you had less confidence in this.

That's from the Who Owes Income Taxes thread, and it's in reference to Terry Gross' interview with Bill O'Reilly that is linked to in the OP.Shoot, I thought O'Reilly handled that great, and I don't know what crash means by "storms out." He said, "That's the end of the interview," and then he hung up. He wasn't even in the room with her, and she didn't know he was gone after he made the statement. There was no storming out.Rrhain should have listened to the interview, because O'Reilly answers at least the Republican/independent thing in it.It really drove my respect for O'Reilly way up. At one point, Terry reads the last paragraph of a review that O'Reilly had just asked her about. The paragraph really backed up Terry against O'Reilly. O'Reilly didn't give a great apology or anything, but he did back up and say "maybe I'm wrong." It's hard to handle being wrong in a national forum, so although he could have handled that better, he was at least honest, as I have always found him to be, which is very, very refreshing.

Well, you gave a link in the OP. Anyone who wants to can link to it. She didn't even know he had left. He wasn't in the same room.Personally, I think the flavor of the response you gave to my entirely typical request for references does enough for what I was trying to get across for me to leave it there.On O'Reilly, for others:Oh, wait one more thing: Yes, I was quite impressed. I invite anyone to go listen to it.Ok, back to on O'Reilly, for others:There's several comments in Rrhain's posts about O'Reilly calling someone a pinhead, calling Sen. Boxer a nut (it would be very difficult for anyone to deserve that title more), and Terry Gross mentions him telling people to shut up. I personally have heard him refer to people as morons on several occasions. Admittedly, he's like that. I reckon most people would think he's too much like that, and I would agree, but I prefer it to underhanded insinuations, which is a much more common fault, on and off news shows.I just said he was honest, and I think that interview with Terry Gross is a great example of it.

Hmm. That seems very hard to believe. And since the last link you sent me to about Fox News was inaccurate and quite purposely slanted, I'm not going to be real quick to just trust such a reference.However, if there's any good way to do it, I would look at outfoxed. I have no reason not to believe Al Franken makes up a lot of what he says. I looked at his book in the bookstore long before I ever heard you suggest it to Percy, and it didn't look very reliable.I heard O'Reilly's answer to Al Franken's charge about the Republican/independent thing, and it seemed believable to me. What gain could O'Reilly possibly get by registering Republican and publicly saying he was Independent?Listen, I have been on the receiving end of a lot of slander & libel. Fox News ran a completely negative news story on us with about two minutes of slander from a family that hates us, and they followed it with about 8 minutes of inuendo and suggestion. A pastor in Florida wrote a 19-page refutation of us, with numerous out-of-context quotes from our web site, most of which was written by me. Then I was called as a witness in a custody case, and grilled about more out of context quotes from our site, which wasn't even up anymore. Prodigy's message board once had two people claiming that I propositioned a 13-year-old boy by email, and they had the email to prove it.I'm in a "cult." People will produce all sorts of accusations. I've learned not to trust those accusations, because I've seen what's been done to us and to me, and I've seen the witnesses produced to prove those false accusations were true.I believe O'Reilly when he says he didn't know he was registered Republican. The man seems honest to me, and I have yet to see the motive for any of the lies they've accused him of telling; nor to see one of those lies that's even significant. If the man were going to lie, don't you think he'd find better things to lie about than how he's registered at the polls and the name of an award that can be researched by anyone? Whatever. I don't have any reason to believe Fox is not a real news corporation. I listen to their five minute news on the hour on the way to and from work, and I listen to NPR news if I have time in the car at other times in the day. NPR is more thorough...sometimes so thorough it's boring...but otherwise they don't seem much different to me. I did find out last month on our Dallas trip that FoxNews is the most popular morning news program there. I don't think most people agree with you, and "most people" seem a better source than Al Franken's book of accusations. And that link I followed from you in the last thread this was discussed was simply inaccurate. FoxNews couldn't be any more slanted than that article you sent me to. (One of their three "myths" that FoxNews watchers think is true proved not to be a myth, but to be quite true. Definitely makes their statistics useless. You must not listen to Limbaugh. I used to listen to him often a few years back. I don't think he's honest with arguments presented to him. I think he takes the Republican side on everything, no matter how weak the position, and he ignores the facts that are against him.On the other hand, he most definitely claims to be something more than a blowhard, and he is something much more than a blowhard. He strongly influences the opinions of at least 10 to 15 million people, and he's quite well-informed and prepared to defend his positions. I only hear him about a half hour a week, so I could be missing a lot. I've never seen his TV show, and I can't imagine that I ever will. It's hard for me to imagine him telling someone to shut up, because I've never heard a situation where "shut up" would even apply. He can turn off his callers, and I've only heard one or two interviews. In fact, maybe I haven't heard any interviews, and I've only heard excerpts he's chosen.I don't have any problems believing he might be a hothead with guests on interviews. He was not a hothead with Terry Gross. He handled that interview incredibly well; she did okay, too, but not as well as him. Well, I might have to be embarrassed here, at least a little. I remember now the person I used to listen to, though not by name. I used to make somewhat regular trips to Atlanta, and I was in the car in the evening a lot. It's probably been two years since I've heard the guy. I had said I hadn't listened to him in a while, but I thought it was because I didn't have my radio on in the evening much. It's because I haven't been making those Atlanta trips anymore.Just a note: you didn't get that socialist term from me. I don't refer to democrats or left-wingers as socialists, unless they call themselves that. I was totally impressed with Germany's "socialist" medical system, which I was on for a couple years, and I'm all for America having one.

That seems doubtful to me. On the other hand, I would readily agree that his comments about the purposeful war on him by the NY Times was unreasonable. Y'all must never get involved in any decent discussions in person. If that was ranting, then I've surely been in danger of physical violence at least four or five times in the last couple months. I've experienced ranting. That was not ranting. Y'all need to spend more time in the real world or something.He was pretty agitated in the middle when Terry was quoting things he called libel, then reading the libel afterwards. I would not have been near as nice as O'Reilly was, however. I think I'd have left much sooner.On the other hand, maybe the reason he didn't is that he wanted to look like the calm victim of attacks. Maybe you're right about that. I didn't hear it. I heard excerpts; ones O'Reilly chose. Despite their being chosen by O'Reilly I agree with you that he "actually helped provide answers for the president." However, that very point makes me wonder how much he really avoided controversial issues. He covered a couple in the excerpt. He went out of his way to make it easy on the president, but he didn't seem to be avoiding the issues. So you and Terry Gross think Schraf's opinion of Al Franken is naive and silly, right? She's recommending a comedy book to me so that I can learn about Bill O'Reilly? Are you willing to say that to Schraf's post above? You did emphazise the word comedian.

Schraf,Going on a trip for a couple days. I'll get back to you after that.1. Comments about Al Franken being a comedian were directed at others. I'm assuming he's trying to make a point more than being a comedian.2. I'll look at your FAIR link. Thanks for giving it.3. You mentioned several things in your post I hadn't heard mentioned before, but I'll address all that specifically.4. I never said talk shows weren't heavily over-represented by the right. I totally agree that's obvious. (I also hope what I said is that I've heard left-wing talk shows, not that I've heard them as much as right-wing ones. When I was listening to the guy in Atlanta, I heard him more at least as much as I heard right-wingers, because I didn't hear political talk shows that much until O'Reilly started coming on during the drive home a year ago or so.)Gotta run...back in a couple days

Ok, I have to back off.Been reading the FAIR reports for about an hour. The reports on Inside Edition and on guests on interview shows didn't affect me much. I don't really consider that news (nor O'Reilly's program...talk shows & news are two different things).I did find, however, the reports on the background of Fox management. I can't say I was surprised that they were right-leaning, just surprised at how much.I read the report saying that 35% (or something close to that) of Fox watchers thought most of the world supported our invasion of Iraq, and I was completely at a loss how that could be. I thought, "Surely no news network actually reported that the world was supporting the invasion of Iraq." It still seems unlikely any news network reported that as news, but if people are watching interviews with conservatives all day long, I can see how they could get very skewed vision.Anyway, on that subject, I'll just back off. I suspect that the 30 minutes of FoxNews that's on in the morning (and then repeated the next half hour) such as I saw in Dallas is probably not that biased, and that you're talking about the network overall being biased, including the analysis and talk shows, and the FAIR report backs you up very well.On Al Franken's book:You asked why it didn't look reliable to me. Well, it started with the title. Then I opened it and glanced through it, and read what seemed pretty anecdotal to me, and decided I couldn't trust the guy. It really never came back up, though I read you and Percy discussing it briefly. Then, it came up now, and Terry Gross called it satire. Terry and O'Reilly argued about a review of it, so I read the review. The review acted like Franken's Harvard panel was a joke, too, and I wondered if the reviewer (Janet Maslin) was suggesting there was no such panel.I'll take a closer look the next time.On O'Reilly:There's definitely more to the guy than I realized, although descriptions of his rage are highly exaggerated, if the Terry Gross interview is any example.On the Peabody/Polk thing, his "you'll never find a place where I said I won a Peabody" seems even worse than the Peabody/Polk mistake, exaggeration, or lie.This whole discussion also made me realize how well-known this guy is. I was figuring it out, anyway, from his comments about his TV show, but the emotion involved in the attack on him was a better indicator. I laughed when I heard him list his opposition to the death penalty as a non-conservative position, because I'd already heard him say once why he was opposed to the death penalty (not a harsh enough punishment). It's clearly not a laughing matter to y'all.Anyway, if the above wasn't clear enough; I was wrong, and y'all were right (except on the Terry Gross interview). Obviously, defending Bill O'Reilly doesn't have a great future in it.

Just for the record, the guy I was listening to in Atlanta was very, very liberal; almost unbearable for me to listen to. There was an evening guy on in Sacrament, too, (this was the early 90's), who was every bit as liberal as Rush was conservative. (Sacramento's where I used to listen to Rush.)

Schraf,A couple things:I want to see if I can find the original poll that you referred to about the three misperceptions. You linked to informationclearinghouse.com (here)in the other thread, and it said the one misperception was that there was evidence of "close" pre-war links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. I followed a link the other night that quoted what must have been the same poll, and it used the wording "clear" pre-war links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda as the misperception.The 2nd link was much better, at least breaking down the stats on the three misperceptions. The informationclearinghouse.com link didn't, and I think it's very loose and sloppy. The fact is, there were pre-war links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. (I went ahead and read the pertinent sections of the 9/11 commission report, and that's what I'm referencing now.) Were they close links? Probably not, as they didn't lead to any proven cooperation in any activities. Were they clear links? Well, yes. So, when you reference Fox listeners as having 80% who hold to at least one misperception, I'm not surprised, because it's not really true that all three are clear misperceptions.That, and it still seems very difficult to believe that 35% of anyone believed that the world generally supported our invasion of Iraq. I'm very curious what the original question was and how it was phrased. I don't listen even to conservative talk radio enough to be an expert on it, but what I have heard was full of complaints about European lack of support, not suggestions that the world supported us.Anyway, that'll be the next project. I'll wander back to FAIR, find the "three misperception" article there, and see if there's any way to get the original survey.Not that it's terribly important, but politics does arouse a lot of emotion and some hard lines being drawn that I'm not sure are so clear as they're claimed to be.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/There click on the link for chapter 2, The Foundation of the New Terrorism. On page 62 of that document, you will find:

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With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Laden himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Laden is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence Iraq responded to this request. As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections.

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Later, p. 66:

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In mid-1998, the situation was reversed: It was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative.

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As I said earlier, there is no evidence that these meetings were fruitful and led to significant cooperation, but the meetings happened repeatedly over many years, initiated by both sides. Iraq even offered Bin Laden a safe haven when things weren't going so well with the Taliban.This is all according to the 9/11 commission report. I'm completely ignoring the fact that the Bush administration apparently still claims a close link, because of meetings between Al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials.You can have whatever opinion you want of how strong or weak a link that was, but you can't ask someone whether there was clear evidence of a link and then publicly say they hold a misperception when they say yes; not without being guilty of the same poor reporting others are being accused of. All that in a post barely over 100 words long. I don't know why we need news when we have you.

Ok. However, what you're saying is that Fox News listeners and Bush supporters, for the most part, don't know this even today. I'm questioning whether that poll about the three misperceptions shows this. What you're saying here is that Bush was motivated to attack Iraq by something other than Al-qaeda/Iraq connections. That seems obvious to me, too.However, you're also saying that not only did they convince them of this before that, but to this day they're still convinced and being convinced. That's the question the poll is supposed to address, and it's what I'm questioning. However, I've now found the original poll, so we'll get back to this. I can't answer that, because I've never heard that before. (And amazingly enough, it dawns on me I have never thought about the specific nationality of the hijackers.) LOL. Now that's a hysterical thought. I hope I haven't suggested that. However, unless I'm mistaken, the issue with the poll we're discussing is whether FoxNews listeners and Bush supporters are getting any sort of accurate information about that report and similar intelligence findings, or whether they're getting misinformation.Perusing original poll...Ok, the original questions, asked about eighteen months ago:#1 "Is it your impression that the US has or has not found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization?"Fox - 67% "has" (11% more than CBS)
PBS - 16% "has" (lowest by 24%)#2: "Since the war with Iraq ended, is it your impression that the US has or has not found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?"Fox - 33% "has" (10% more than CBS)
PBS - 11% "has" (lowest by 6%)#3: "Thinking about how all the people in the world feel about the US having gone to war with Iraq: Do you think the majority of people favor the US having gone to war?" (This was one of several options)Fox - 35% "yes" (7% more than CBS)
PBS - 5% "yes" (lowest by 12%)I can't fault those questions at all. I guess I'll have to suspend my utter incredulity at #3 and admit those 35% of Fox listeners, which are one in every 16 people in the United States, believe the world supported our invasion of Iraq. Astounding.Question #1 was actually even better phrased than it sounds, because of context, because they had also asked whether Iraq was directly involved in 9/11 and some other similar questions, so the responders should have had some idea of the level of involvement they were answering to. This was "clear evidence" of "close ties."What's funny is that to some of those other questions CBS was actually worse than Fox. 9% MORE of CBS listeners were said Iraq was directly involved in 9/11. They were 2% ahead of Fox on the "less egregious, but still unproven" misperception that Iraq gave substantial support to al-Qaeda.This, of course, proves what we have known all along, which is that Dan Rather is a puppet of the vast conservative news media.Oh, wait. Uh, that's not what we've known all along, is it......Heh, heh.Okay, that original article you linked to, Schraf, may not have worried about being real clear, but apparently Fox was an easy target.That 35% still throws me, especially with O'Reilly, who's apparently pretty popular on Fox, complaining regularly that Bush has never come out and explained the problems with the intelligence reports on the WMD's. Does O'Reilly complain about that on radio, but never mention it on TV?

Just as an interesting aside, while we're on the topic of Iraqi terrorists.This potential Arab terrorist was stopped in late September of 2001 in Oklahoma City for driving down the road in the company of an Arab-looking woman of mixed Italian/Jewish descent. In fact, he was stopped twice in three miles, but the 2nd time the anti-terrorist police crew radioed ahead to warn his compadres not to keep stopping the big, blue van. That driver's license picture (still on my license) was taken in April of 2001 when I was about 30 pounds heavier. I don't know that I look any less Arab today, but I hope I look less frightening!

Hey, let's not push this too far. Those are the bad guys, you know.Actually, of my co-villagers who get news on a regular basis, most of them get it from NPR on the radio(actually, PRM, which is Mississippi's branch of it).