You want to know how bad things are for the Bush White House? Bill O’Reilly is sounding like Al Gore, calling on the president to “clean house” and fire incompetent administration officials who have screwed up the war in Iraq (via the Progress Report).
This is not to say that O’Reilly has seen the light and has endorsed Kerry. Indeed, he’s still blaming the media — instead of the administration’s policies on torture and abuse — for hurting America’s standing in the world.
The constant media drumbeat of Abu Ghraib, more than 50 front-page stories in The New York Times alone, has taken the high moral ground away from the USA in the war on terror and dimmed the spotlight on the fanatical killers.
That’s Fox News logic for you. The abuse didn’t hurt us; the New York Times hurt us by talking about the abuse. Beautiful.
Nevertheless, O’Reilly is generously willing to extend some responsibility to the White House.
Clearly, something is very wrong when inexperienced, poorly trained military reservists are allowed to run wild and abuse prisoners. Clearly, something is wrong when enormous mistakes are made in the occupation of a country whose defeat was a foregone conclusion. I mean everybody knew the USA would defeat Saddam, so why was the aftermath of the war so screwed up? Is this another intelligence failure? Is this a strategic failure on the part of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his team? We don’t know because Mr. Bush rarely holds anyone publicly accountable for doing his or her job poorly.
[…]
The president is right in waging an aggressive war against worldwide terror, but he must get better people to do it. Enough with the chaos and foolish mistakes like Abu Ghraib. Clean house, Mr. President. There are smart, tough and experienced people who realize what’s at stake here. Find them and protect us.
Obviously, O’Reilly must hate America, otherwise he wouldn’t be using this reckless and “hysterical” rhetoric against the Bush administration in a time of war. He’s clearly aiding and abetting the enemy, while undermining our troops. Oh wait, that only applies to Democrats who criticize the president.