Michael Moore v O

Michael Moore finally squared up to Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly yesterday, after rejecting a number of invitations to appear on O'Reilly's show. Moore insisted that O' Reilly first watch Fahrenheit 9/11 in its entirety prior to the interview, and allow Moore to ask O'Reilly questions as well as be questioned by him, both of which O'Reilly complied with. The amazing confrontation was broadcast unedited, save for one pause for a commercial break.

Full transcript here.

MH

Post 1

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - 4:15am

Uh...this was meant to be titled "Michael Moore v O'Reilly". I've no idea why it came out the way it did. Sorry everyone.

MH

Post 2

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - 10:55am

Since the abbreviation "O" is often used by O-ists, I guess the title is not entirely inaccurate, though!

Post 3

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - 11:30am

Rodney,

That's very true :-) In fact Bill O'Reilly does seem to have something of a libertarian streak in him, although he's very inconsistent - as I understand it he wants to legalise cannabis but stiffen up sentences for hard drug users. I've heard he is also pro-choice on abortion.

Btw, Fox News are now describing the transcript as "partial" and edited for clarity.

MH

Post 4

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - 6:07pm

Heya MH. O'Reilly has a bit of libertarian in him in that he occasionally recognizes that governments usually screw things up. Other than that, he's more of the conservative type--politically. He often has segments, including long tirades, about "secularist leftists" bent on destroying America's founding principles--i.e. they want to keep God out of government. O'Reilly doesn't like it when people want to maintain a secular government, because he feels without the moral guidance of religion, government--and indeed society as a whole--will turn to socialism, or something. He's an odd fellow.

Post 5

Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 10:37am

Haha!! Ok, thanks Jeremy. Suffice to say he beats the BBC any day! Are there any Fox News people I should look out for? I also have access to CNN, but that's a Europeanised version, so a lot of the shows are different (Fox is exactly the same as what you get in the US, so the "primetime" shows are all on late night our time!!)

MH

(Edited by Matthew Humphreys on 7/29, 10:38am)

Post 6

Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 12:58pm

I don't know. I don't have FoxNews. Most of the folks seem level-headed, but there's a real obnoxious strain of ultra-conservatism running through them all. : )

Post 7

Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 1:12pm

I try to watch O'Reilly every night. In my opinion, he exhibits libertarian ideals only about half the time. The issue of retention of "in God we trust" in the Oath of Allegiance has become his mission in life.

It is valuable for me to watch him because he has some analytical skills and he gives a slant that's hard to find elsewhere (except the SOLOHQ board, of course.)

Sam

Post 8

Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 2:54pm

Jonathan Hoenig is an Objectivist who appears as a guest fairly often on some of the Foxnews financial shows. Check out his website at www.capitalistpig.com. (I believe he's an Objectivist, because I once saw him hold up Atlas Shrugged to the camera, live on Foxnews, and recommend that everyone read it. And he sells t-shirts on his website that say "John Galt" and "Dagny Taggart.")

Post 9

Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 4:55pm

Sam,

I totally agree about his perspective - there is nothing quite like The O'Reilly Factor before bed on the (not infrequent) ocassions I stay up after 1am British time :-)

Daniel,

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for him. I do recall hearing about the Capitalist Pig investment operation some time ago, and I did get the impression there was a strong Objectivist influence :-)

MH

Post 10

Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - 3:33pm

Hey, I'm new to the board, and i don't know what everyone else thinks, but i believe that Michael Moore seemed to beat O'Rielly in that debate there. Anyone else want to discuss it?

Post 11

Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - 9:15pm

Greg wrote:
>Hey, I'm new to the board,�and i don't know what everyone else thinks, but i believe that Michael Moore seemed to beat O'Rielly in that debate there.� Anyone else want to discuss it?

Sure looked that way to me too.

- Daniel B

Post 12

Thursday, August 5, 2004 - 2:28am

...i believe that Michael Moore seemed to beat O'Rielly in that debate there. Anyone else want to discuss it?

Didn't see it, but read the partially edited transcript. I don't think either "man" won anything. Neither of them answered specific questions, nor could provide any kind of definitive qualifications for the words they spoke. They are both losers.

I wouldn't expect much more given that both men lack any grounding in a rational philosophy. You think O'Reilly is capable of refuting Moore's contextless, baseless, and collectivist arguments from the Left? Hard to do when most of his own arguments stir up from some raging well of Divine, Christian Fury. They could have "won" by presenting irrefutable facts and clear stances on what to do with those facts, but they didn't do that, so the "contest" was, in fact, a scrimmage of retards.

Post 13

Thursday, August 5, 2004 - 2:26am

The following is from a column that O'Reilly wrote about the interview, after it had taken place:

"We debated for ten minutes and Moore put forth the following:

That President Bush "lied" about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction even though the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee Investigation and Lord Butler's British Investigation all say Bush did not lie.
Moore defines a "lie" as anything that turns out not to be true. By following this logic, weather forecasters everywhere must now be categorized as pathologically dishonest.
Moore said he would not have attacked the Taliban government in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attack. Instead, he would have captured Bin laden by using "commandos." Apparently, Moore believes the Taliban would have allowed his "commandos" to root out Osama and his boys with impunity. Moore related the "commando" strategy to me with a straight face.
Moore denied that Ronald Reagan's arms build up had anything to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and freedom for Eastern Europe.
The filmmaker then went on to say that pre-emptive war is wrong and would have been immoral even in the case of Adolf Hitler. Moore said he would have prevented Hitler from assuming power in the first place. I didn't have time ask him how he would have done that but I assume commandos would have been involved. "

The rest of the column can be found here:

http://www.billoreilly.com/currentarticle?JSESSIONID=BR6eTWs2iRRU57Uh6olGngz0r0gGhMkG24uMj8FIMpqqAIaQLVx2!1081513647

I think O'Reilly won the debate decisively.

Post 14

Thursday, August 5, 2004 - 4:07am

Hi guys,

I think O'Reilly won the debate decisively

I'm inclined to agree. The only thing I thought he could've done better was his response to Moore's question about whether he would sacrifice his son to liberate Iraq. Leaving aside the issue of whether dying to free a country is in fact a sacrifice, it would of course be O'Reilly son who made any decision to join the military and not O'Reilly's.

I would be interested to know why Greg and/or Daniel B thought Moore won though, if either of you would like to debate it further.

MH

Post 15

Thursday, August 5, 2004 - 7:58am

I haven't read the column Daniel posted, but in the transcript, I didn't see either person come out particularly victorious. Both were responding to the other's points, but weekly. Michael Moore's argument were weak because he's a flaming imbecile; O'Reilly didn't really put his arguments on a good foundation...I don't know O'Reilly well, but I suspect that this might be due to the length of time permitted for their exchange

Personally, I wouldn't engage Moore (publically or privately) unless time permit such foundations to be laid. His arguments fail at that level, not the level of short rhetoric...and it's short rhetoric that boosts his popularity instead of hurting it. I'm afraid that O'Reilly may have inadvertantly done him a favor.

Post 16

Thursday, August 5, 2004 - 6:43pm

MH wrote:
>I would be interested to know why Greg and/or Daniel B thought Moore won though, if either of you would like to debate it further.

It certainly wasn't a great debate, true. But it reads to me like O'Reilly lost control of the situation early on, and got lamer and lamer as it went. O'Reilly's basic rationale kept shifting: the threat of WMD was "a mistake", but then it was the right thing to do anyway because of the brutal dictator - and don't forget world terrorism! Clearly only the middle rationale ever made any sense at all about Iraq, so you can really sense he's fumbling - he's not confident of his own arguments. At the end as Moore mocks O' Reilly's insincere offer to sacrifice himself to secure Fallujah, O'Reilly can only splutter, even more absurdly, "You'd love to get rid of me" - and that's when he loses for sure. All he needed to do was say in reply "So we'll sign you up for Afghanistan, at the same time, shall we?"

I think that explains his self-justifying column the next day. If he felt he'd won decisively on the night, nothing more would have needed to be said.

That's my take anyhow.

- Daniel B

Post 17

Friday, August 6, 2004 - 10:46am

I agree with Daniel B- O'Rielly seemed to flutter back and forth between ideas whereas Moores seemed to be clear and concise, and when he kept asking O'Rielly if he was willing to sacrifice his son O'Rielly seemed to be not able to say anything to prove Moore wrong.
Furthrermore, I do not believe Moore is a collectivist, and I do not agree with a lot of his views, but if you read his books he does believe in individual responsibility and liberties (infact I remember him saying he even admires many civil libretarians!) Moore just has a desire to help people and you can agree or disagree with his ideas, but do not call someone a collectivist when they are not (it greatly offends many and makes people view others as dishonest or stupid)

Post 18

Monday, August 16, 2004 - 3:44am