Bill O'Reilly vs. David Letterman

Most of the time (in fact almost 99% of the time), David Letterman isn't funny. His jokes are tired and forced, and his band leader is more annoying than Jar Jar Binks. Sometimes however, sometimes, he gets a guest over and THIS happens:

One thing you can say about Letterman, he doesn't just babysit the guests, especially when he has guests like Bill O'Reilly.

Watch the two clips. Watch how both sides debate with each other. From the start you can see O'Reilly trying to beat around the bush and avoid the issue of Iraq and the Bush Administration as best as he can. Each and every time though, Letterman forces him back onto the course. Then, a few ad hominems from both sides get thrown around, rinse and repeat.

What I find interesting about the interview is how Letterman tries to frame the Iraq issue initially in a way that's accomodating to O'Reilly's perspective - that is that the US basically pulled a 'Batman', they invaded Iraq because they wanted to stop something horrible that was already happening to them. Later on during the interview, he shifts from this perspective when he calls Bill O'Reilly on the original reasons for invading Iraq, which was the WMDs. He shifts back later on in the interview.

Other than that, (and other than that time O'Reilly takes a slight advantage when he pulls the 9/11 card) he argues the case pretty well. Take into consideration the fact that Letterman doesn't probably have a comprehensive knowledge about the history of the problem with Iraq, and it goes beyond just 'pretty well'.

He was right when he said that O'Reilly "puts artificial facts into his head". A lot of what O'Reilly said during the interview can very well be considered false matter. Is the status quo in Iraq right now really not that much different from the status quo in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's regime? No. Saddam killed around 300,000 people. The US Occupation in Iraq has so far killed at least 650,000. That's hardly a tie. Before the war, Iraqis (at least according to the IHT article I read way back then) were able to start their own Internet Coffee Shops. I doubt they have the same liberty now. Iraq under Saddam may have been horrible, but at least it wasn't as horrible as it is now, and at least it was stable.

More importantly and much more offensive (at least for me) was the comment O'Reilly said in the latter half of the interview - that "the intent was noble". As if that excuses everything that the Republicans have done wrong in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. Even worse, he seems to think it's perfectly fine that this rationalization harks back to Western Imperialism and the 'White Man's Burden', as if there's nothing wrong with it.

What a lot of people (particularly the Americans apparently) keep on forgetting however is that US & UK intelligence wasn't wrong only once. It was completely wrong in TWO occasions. First it was wrong with its claim of WMDs in Iraq. Second it was wrong wit h its non-claim of WMDs in North Korea. George Bush and Tony Blair dropped the ball in the biggest crisis to hit the international community since World War 2. And so far, no one's taking them completely to task with that. If they actually had their intelligence right, the world wouldn't be where it is right now, back in the Cold War.

In any case, galing lang, how Letterman completely owns O'Reilly, and all O'Reilly could do was hide himself behind a pillow.