O'Reilly and Intelligence

A few nights ago, I was finishing my workout at the gym with some stretching when America’s favorite bully pundit, Bill O’Reilly, came on the television in the next room. Normally, all of the televisions are tuned in to sporting events, but for some reason Faux News was on. I guess someone needed his daily fill of propaganda masquerading as news.

Whatever the reason, I was now forced to listen to the opening of O’Reilly’s show and thus was thrust into the “Spin Right” zone. I never watch O’Reilly because I can’t stand the arrogance of the man and the lies he tells would just enrage me. Instead, I usually read about Billy Boy’s outrageous statements on the Media Matters for America website, or as O’Reilly likes to refer to it, a far left smear site. On this particular evening, I was a captive audience for about 10 minutes and was forced to listen to O’Reilly continue to perpetuate the myth of “intelligence failure” by the CIA.

Must we debunk the “intelligence failure” of the CIA, et al for the umpteenth time? The only intelligence failures that mattered prior to 9/11 and the Iraq war was the lack of intelligence that resides in the White House. However, let’s re-state the facts. On August 6, 2001, the CIA prepared a Presidential Daily Briefing that stated that Al Qaeda was planning a terrorist attack in the United States and that attack could take place very soon. The Bush Administration’s response? Nothing. They did nothing. The President who pledged to protect America did nothing. Condoleeza Rice later claimed that the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6 was presented in an historical context, but that’s a blatant lie. Presidential Briefings aren’t meant to be history lessons.

Under President Clinton, a similar Presidential Daily Briefing was presented prior to 2000 warning of terrorist attacks to coincide with the Millenium. The Clinton Administration, an Administration that actually paid attention to terrorism, mobilized the FBI, CIA and other governmental agencies in an effort to prevent any terrorist attacks from taking place within the United States. Couldn’t the Bush Administration have undertaken a similar effort in August of 2001? Of course they could have, they just didn't.

The other alleged intelligence failure of the CIA was the “faulty” intelligence provided on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction program, but we now know from various sources that the intelligence provided to the Administration painted a very different picture of Iraq’s WMD capabilities than we were led to believe by the cherry-picking Bush Administration. Not only was the “intelligence fixed to fit the policy”, but also dissenting views presented in the infamous National Intelligence Estimate were suppressed and not publicly disclosed until much later.

It’s clear that the CIA is not at fault for Iraq nor 9/11. The CIA told President Bush that a terrorist attack on US soil was looming and he chose to ignore it. President Bush was presented with dissenting views on Iraq and its WMD program and chose to ignore them. In both situations, intelligence failure was not the problem. The problem was one of choice – the wrong choice. Our President – or should I say Emperor since he’s now above the law – made these choices, not the CIA. The responsibility for 9/11 and the Iraq War resides in the Oval Office.

Yet, we have the great patriot Bill O’Reilly blathering on national television about the failures of the CIA. How can this guy seriously think that his show is a “No Spin” zone? On this topic, it’s a “Bush Spin” zone. He claims to be a patriotic American, but he chooses to smear the hard working folks at the CIA by claiming that they hadn’t done their job when we know that they had. O’Reilly is giving his viewers the party line in an effort to perpetuate the lie so that it continues to be the de facto truth.

Bully Bill isn’t a great American; he’s a man who is allergic to the truth when it doesn’t fit his or Fox News’ agenda. Plain and simple, what he presents on a nightly basis is propaganda and nothing more. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again - America has become a land where lies are truth, and the truth is a smear. We can all thank Bill O’Reilly for that.