There's no confirmation, yet, that Turkey is fully cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIL jihadists. We are at the point where Turkey and the U.S. begin talks on anti-ISIL efforts, meaning we are in negotiations with the Turks and nothing has been finalized. With the inevitability of the violence spilling over into Turkey from the Syrian border town of Kobani, it looks like the Turks will have absolutely no choice but to engage in a tough fight to prevent a Caliphate that could involve some of their own territory.
Certainly, NSA advisor, Susan Rice is lying once again by saying the Turks are cooperating with the United States and are committed to defeating the threat at their own border. As per usual, O'Reilly jumps to conclusions on something that has yet to be decided. NSA advisor Susan Rice will, of course, never be forgiven for saying the Benghazi consulate attacks were sparked by a video. Contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.
Krauthammer and Bill-O decided the president is just fundamentally unserious (aka black) and is passing the buck on this ISIL conflict. He has no 'central force' or 'organizational capacity' and isn't showing 'any leadership'. According to these sages, President Obama could have easily gotten the Al-Maliki government to agree to the U.S. maintaining a smaller security force of 10,000 or so troops instead of sticking to the Status of Forces treaty.
O'Reilly doesn't believe President Obama is in charge of this ISIL conflict. Ironically, we all know who was in charge during Bush's eight years of incompetence (Cheney), but Fox News' memories are very limited. Krauthammer claimed Bush was deeply involved with the surge, and al-Maliki really did want us to stay, but he was playing pretend and said otherwise. O'Reilly assumes that the president is just too uppity, aloof and detached to bother involving himself in these important issues. Regarding the 2011 withdrawal, O'Reilly said,
"There's no doubt the president could have gotten it done if he wanted to."
Of course, Iraq wanted us out, but Fox's rewrite of history makes the Bush Administration look brilliant and strategically sound, so they go with the narrative that suits their purpose. In August of this year, President Obama smacked down folks like Bill and Charles who feel compelled to rewrite history. He said,
'So when you hear people say, do you regret, Mr. President, not leaving more troops, that presupposes that I would have overridden this sovereign government that we had turned the keys back over to and said, you know what, you’re democratic, you’re sovereign, except if I decide that it’s good for you to keep 10,000 or 15,000 or 25,000 Marines in your country, you don’t have a choice — which would have kind of run contrary to the entire argument we were making about turning over the country back to Iraqis, an argument not just made by me, but made by the previous administration. So that entire analysis is bogus and is wrong... But it gets frequently peddled around here by folks who oftentimes are trying to defend previous policies that they themselves made.'
We don't need any more proof that there is dangerous political manipulation going on when Fox News reexamines the details of Bush's disastrous preemptive wars.
Bill is exasperated by an ever changing world to which President Obama must adapt to and make policy changes. "One day he says one thing, the next day the other thing." Ebola was even thrown around as proof of his 'absence of leadership,' because he was somehow directly involved in the transmission of the virus. (?)
The president's approval rating for "regular Americans" is at 41%. O'Reilly then asked about the much higher President Obama-approval rating of 81% in the African-American demographic, alluding to the fact it is based solely on racial similarities. O'Reilly says the most honest thing I've heard him say.
My question is a simple one because you know I'm a simple man.
Krauthammer tried to explain that people like to support presidents with something in common with themselves: for example, Kennedy enjoyed widespread support from Catholics. He told Bill-O that this was the simplest way to explain this phenomenon to "a simple man." It's about time someone said that.
[ad]
