History is Happening Now

A recent public opinion poll has got conservative pundits such as Bill O’Reilly scratching their heads — or at least pretending to scratch their heads.

The Rasmussen survey of 1,000 likely voters asks:

“When it comes to the situation in Iraq, which is the more important goal for the next president to accomplish during his first term…winning the war or getting the troops home?”

The results are: 52% choose “getting the troops home,” 38% say “winning the war,” and 10% say “not sure.”

There’s an obvious way to interpret these results: A slim majority of Americans don’t believe the war in Iraq is worth fighting anymore. I suppose you could say they are willing to accept “defeat” in Iraq, if defeat is defined as what will happen if we don’t “win.”

This view of the war in Iraq isn’t new. Ever since the war in Iraq began, the Democratic Party’s opposition has been based on the idea that the benefits of continuing to fight there just aren’t worth the costs in blood and treasure.

And for more than a year, Barack Obama has been arguing that (a) we need to fight and win the War on Terror, and (b) that we’re not doing an effective job fighting that war against Al Qaeda because we’re spending all our resources fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq. 

Obama’s argument may be winning over most Americans, but it is apparently a wee bit too complicated for O’Reilly and his ilk to comprehend. (Hence, O’Reilly’s head scratching.) In order to understand Obama’s argument at the most basic level, you have to make a distinction between the war in Iraq — which began when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003 — and the War on Terror — which began when Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center in September 2001.

Once you’re able to make this distinction, the difference between the presidential candidates is clear: The Bush Administration and its allies, such as John McCain, have argued that the war in Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror. Obama has said that Iraq is not the central front in the War on Terror, and never was.

But O’Reilly doesn’t get it, or pretends he doesn’t get it. Listen to what O’Reilly said on the radio Monday about the new poll:

O’REILLY: (Speaking to caller) I agree with you. It is troubling to me that 52 percent in the Rasmussen poll say “Hey, bring the troops home. We don’t care about winning the War on Terror.” And I’m going, What? What? Do half of my countrymen actually believe — now, I don’t believe that, that they do. I think they, you know, either misread the question, or it was, you know, there’s a lot of push-polling that you can push somebody into a certain answer. Because I don’t know anybody who says, “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t really care about winning the war on terror. Bring ‘em home.” Now maybe that’s ’cause I live on Long Island, where the attacks on 9-11, I mean, killed thousands in my area. And the sensitivities are way, way up, still, seven years after the fact. Maybe that’s because I live there and I don’t live in Wyoming, a distance away from the actual attack. So maybe I’m not reading the country correctly, but I can’t imagine an American saying, “Oh, you know, we win the war on terror, that’s fine. We don’t, we don’t really care.” I, oh my God. Because these people aren’t going to stop. They’re simply not going to stop. Unless you kill them. And make it physically impossible for them to exist. So that’s the struggle of our time. This recession? The high gas prices, all of that. This is in and out, up and down, all over the place. It’s important. It’s painful. But the terrorism is the struggle of our time. And to have the country going, “oh, you know.” Pretty scary, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t believe it. I would say 30 percent of the country is probably in that zone.

O’Reilly was faced with at least two obvious interpretations of the poll results. One interpretation — the one O’Reilly chose to believe, or pretended to believe — is that a slim majority of Americans are prepared to lose the War on Terror, which means a slim majority of Americans (likely voters, that is), are prepared to accept a future where the terrorists trying to kill us can do so with impunity. (O’Reilly apparently believes 30 percent of the American public is prepared to tolerate this ridiculous, horrifying scenario.)

The other intepretation — the correct interpretation, which was easily understood by those surveyed but somehow slipped through the cracks in O’Reilly’s mind – is that the poll question referred not to the War on Terror, but to the war in Iraq.

So O’Reilly explained how he interpreted the poll, and now we can try to interpret his interpretation. Perhaps O’Reilly honestly did not comprehend the question that was asked in the poll. I suppose it’s possible that he prepared for his radio show Monday morning by sitting at a desk and glancing at talking points written by shoddy researchers who misunderstood the poll and then passed that misunderstanding along to O’Reilly.

Or it could be that O’Reilly understood the poll correctly, but deliberately mischaracterized it because to characterize it accurately would force him to acknowledge the distinction between the war in Iraq and the War on Terror? And once O’Reilly does that, his rationale for staying in Iraq falls apart like a house of cards? Because merely acknowledging this distinction would force O’Reilly to confront the question of whether fighting the war in Iraq is an effective way to fight the War on Terror, and O’Reilly is not prepared to begin talking about this question.

Here’s another interesting conversation between O’Reilly and a caller about the poll:

BOB: I’ve seen all these polls online, and I participate in some of them like this Rasmussen poll. And a lot of times I don’t like the way they ask the question. They’re too black and white. Um, and this particular poll, um, and the information I read, and I put all this together. I’ve gotten to a point and a lot of people I talk to agree with me. We would love to win the war in Iraq, but we’d sure like the troops to come home safe. But we do not, and I do not, believe that we can win this war on terrorism. I don’t believe it’s ever going to be won.

O’REILLY: So what’s you’re solution, then? Not to deal with it?

BOB: Nope. I don’t think you can stop trying. It’s just my belief in the fact that we’re ever going to be effective and it’s ever going to end. I just don’t beleive it.

O’REILLY: Well it’s not going to end, in our lifetime.

BOB: Well–

O’REILLY: You can’t, you’re always going to have suicide bombers, like, you know, in Israel. I mean, that war is never going to end there. You’re always going to have people who want to kill Jews and Americans. I mean, we have to accept that. But, you can keep these people marginalized, and you can keep them from doing a massive amount of harm, which the Bush administration has been able to do. And that is their greatest accomplishment.

According to O’Reilly and his fellow conservatives, the “enemy” in the War on Terror cannot be defeated, so the war can never be won. It is therefore not a ”war” in the way we’ve used the word “war” to describe past conflicts with the British, the Nazis, or even the Soviets. In its new usage, the word “war” merely describes a world where someone somewhere in the world wants to kill Americans.

And yet, while the war can never be won, “winning” the War on Terror must always be considered a top priority, according to the conservative way of thinking.

So here’s a sincere question for any readers out there: What is the relationship between O’Reilly’s view of the War on Terror and his unwillingness to acknowledge a distinction between that war and the war in Iraq? Does O’Reilly think the war in Iraq can be won in our lifetimes? What about the war in Afghanistan? If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were won, but the War on Terror continued, how would that war manifest itself? In Iran? What would happen if we “won” in Iran? Would it end then?