im shocked that there hasnt been a discussion of this long interview. there are several points that are agreed on by both and many points i think many are not aware of --- know i wasnt aware of a few of them. sorry for the long post, but its quick reading and important (this is your next president you know:grin. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,417563,00.html O'REILLY: I'm asking this as an American as well as a journalist — how threatening you feel Iran is? Look, if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, OK, to me, they're going to give it to Hezbollah if they can develop the technology. Why not? And they'll say, "Well, we didn't have anything to do with it." So therefore, the next president of the United States is going to have to make a decision about Iran, whether to stop them militarily, because I don't believe — if diplomacy works, fine, but you've got to have a Plan B, and a lot of people say, "Look, Barack Obama is not going to attack Iran." OBAMA: Here's where you and I agree. It is unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon. It would be a game changer, and I've said that repeatedly. I've also said I would never take a military option off the table. O'REILLY: But would you prepare for one? That's the question though, senator. Anybody can say option. Would you prepare for it? OBAMA: Look, it is not appropriate for somebody who is one of two people who can be the president of the United States to start tipping their hand in terms of what their plans might be with respect to Iran. It's sufficient to say I would not take the military option off the table and that I will never hesitate to use our military force in order to protect the homeland and United States' interests. But where I disagree with you is the notion that we've exhausted every other resource, because the fact of the matter is that, for six, seven years, during this administration, we weren't working as closely as we needed to do with the Europeans to create... O'REILLY: Diplomacy might work. You might be able to sanction economically. Maybe. OBAMA: Maybe. O'REILLY: All right. Let's go to Iraq. I think history will show it's the wrong battlefield, OK? And I think that you were perspicacious in your original assessment of the battlefield. OBAMA: I appreciate that. O'REILLY: I think you were desperately wrong on the surge, and I think you should admit it to the nation that now we have defeated the terrorists in Iraq, and the Al Qaeda came there after we invaded, as you know. We defeated them. OBAMA: Right. O'REILLY: If we didn't, they would have used it as a staging ground. We've also inhibited Iran from controlling the southern part of Iraq by the surge, which you did not support. So why won't you say, "I was right in the beginning. I was wrong about that"? OBAMA: If you listen to what I've said, and I'll repeat it right here on this show, I think that there's no doubt that the violence is down. I believe that that is a testimony to the troops that were sent and General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated, by the way, including President Bush and the other supporters. It has gone very well, partly because of the Anbar situation and the Sunni awakening, partly because of the Shia military. Look... O'REILLY: But if it were up to you, there wouldn't have been a surge. OBAMA: Hold on a second, Bill. If you look at the debate that was taking place, we had gone through five years of mismanagement of this war that I thought was disastrous. And the president wanted to double down and continue on an open-ended policy that did not create the kinds of pressure on the Iraqis to take responsibility and reconcile. O'REILLY: Why can't you say, "I was right in the beginning, and I was wrong about the surge"? OBAMA: Because there's an underlying problem where what have we done. We have reduced the violence. OBAMA: But the Iraqis still haven't taken responsibility, and we still don't have the kind of political reconciliation. We are still spending, Bill, $10 to $12 billion a month. O'REILLY: And I hope if you're president, you can get them to kick in and pay us back. OBAMA: They've got $79 billion. O'REILLY: I'll go with you. OBAMA: Let's go. All right. Let's go to Afghanistan. Look, there's no winning the Taliban war unless Pakistan cracks down on the guys that are in Pakistan. OBAMA: You and I agree completely. Right. What we can do is stay focused on Afghanistan and put more pressure on the Pakistanis. O'REILLY: Like what? OBAMA: For example, we are providing them military aid without having enough strings attached. So they're using the military aid that we use to Pakistan, they're preparing for a war against India. O'REILLY: So you're going to pull it out and let the Islamic fundamentalists take them over? OBAMA: No, no, no, no. What we say is, look, we're going to provide them with additional military support targeted at terrorists, and we're going to help build their democracy and provide... O'REILLY: We're doing that now. Negroponte's over there, and he's doing that. OBAMA: That is not what we've been doing, Bill. We've wasted $10 billion with Musharraf without holding him accountable for knocking out those safe havens. O'REILLY: So you are going to — again, more diplomacy, and we need it, absolutely, trying to convince the Pakistan government to take a more aggressive approach. If you don't, we're going to pull… OBAMA: And what I will do is, if we have bin Laden in our sights we target him, and we knock him out. O'REILLY: But everybody would do that. I mean, that would be the biggest win Bush could have. OBAMA: Of course. O'REILLY: If you send ground troops in, all hell breaks loose. OBAMA: We can't — we can't have — and nobody talked about some full-blown invasion of Pakistan, but the simple point that I made was we've got to put more pressure on Pakistan to do what they need to do. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O'REILLY: Under President Bush, the economy grew 19 percent more than Clinton. See, this is what I'm not getting with you Democrats. OBAMA: No, no, no. Hold on a second, Bill. Wait, Bill, hold on a second now. I mean, you know the famous saying about there are lies, damn lies, and statistics? O'REILLY: I know it's bull. I know it is. OBAMA: So let's be clear on the record, OK? The — during the Bush administration there was economic growth. Not as fast as during the 1990s, OK, but there was growth during the Bush administration. But what happened was that wages and incomes for ordinary Americans, the guys who watch your show their wages and incomes did not go up. They went down. And the reason they went down is because most of the corporate profits and increased productivity went to the top, not just one percent, but the top one-tenth of a percent. O'REILLY: Well, let me submit to you that you're wrong. OK. We've been studying this issue because we want to be fair and balanced and give all sides. O'REILLY: The reason that wages have been depressed — and they're not that much. It's about $400 or $500 for the Bush administration, real wages up, and about $2,000 under the Clinton administration — is because there are 10 million immigrants, new immigrants in the workforce, most of whom are illegal aliens....have brought down — but again, that's statistics. Let's get back to taxing the rich. OBAMA: So let me just finish making my point. The fact is for people in your income bracket and mine...now, we both come from humble beginnings. And we were talking before the show that the fact that only in America could we have this success. And I am not somebody who begrudges that success. I want people… O'REILLY: But you want 50 percent of my success. OBAMA: No, I don't. No, I don't. O'REILLY: That's your tax rate, 50. OBAMA: What I have said is that I would take your marginal rate back to what it was under Bill Clinton. O'REILLY: Yes, 39. OBAMA: You go back to 39. OBAMA: You can afford that. That's point No. 1. In exchange, I'm cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans. 95 percent. O'REILLY: That's swell, but that's class warfare. OBAMA: It's not. Ninety-five percent is not class warfare. OBAMA: What I'm saying is that 95 percent of the American people are getting a tax break three times the amount of tax relief under my plan than John McCain's — and that's not my statistic. O'REILLY: Here's where I got a problem. Twenty percent more revenue coming in under Bush than Clinton, all right? He cuts taxes, people invest more. He cuts the capital gains. The government gets 20 percent more than under Clinton. You want to raise it back up. It doesn't make sense. Secondly, the payroll tax. Over $250, you are going to hike it to infinity. OBAMA: I am not. OBAMA: All I've said is that after $250…right, then we could raise the cap. What I have said is that if we've got a set of options to stabilize Social Security, which I think is important, and I think you do, too. O'REILLY: Right. OBAMA: Because there are millions of seniors out there who depend on it. And we've got a couple of options. We could raise the retirement age or No. 2, we could cut benefits. Try living on Social Security right now. That's no fun if you're a senior. No. 3, we could just do nothing, in which case in the out years, Social Security will be — let me finish my point, Bill. In the out years, it's going to be essentially a reduction in benefits. We could raise the payroll tax on everybody. O'REILLY: Don't do that. I don't mind you... OBAMA: There is no free lunch. So my only point is… O'REILLY: No, there is a free lunch. OBAMA: What is the free lunch? O'REILLY: The free lunch is that you're taking the wealthy in America and the big earners, OK, you're taking money away from them and you're giving it to people who don't. That's called income redistribution. It's a socialist tenant. Come on, you know that. You went to Harvard. OBAMA: Teddy Roosevelt supported a progressive income tax. O'REILLY: Not at the level you do. OBAMA: Bill, I don't like paying taxes. You think I like writing a check? What I believe is that there's certain things we've got to do. And we've got to help people who are having a tough time affording college so they can benefit like we benefited from this great country. People who are have having a tough time; they don't have health care. People who are trying to figure out how they are going to pay the bills. And there are certain things we've got to do. Our infrastructure — look what happened in Beijing. You go to the Olympics and these folks are building, and we've got sewer lines that are crumbling. O'REILLY: OK. OBAMA: And at a certain point, we've got to pay for it. O'REILLY: You're not across the board-ing it. You're going, I'm taking from the rich. I'm Robin Hood Obama. O'REILLY: And then you want to raise corporate taxes. OBAMA: No, I don't. That's not true. All I'm saying is, if we've got something that we've got to pay for — under George Bush, the debt has gone up $4 trillion. Right? So that's a credit card we're taking out on our kids from the Bank of China that they're going to have to pay. O'REILLY: War on Terror, though, come on. OBAMA: Well, no, no, no, that's not true. That has to do in part with the Bush tax cuts and no cuts in spending. O'REILLY: All right. You can't — Bush tax cuts generated more income. The spending is out of control. OBAMA: The Bush record, the numbers are what they are. $4 trillion. Now we've got a choice. We can keep on just borrowing and dump it on our kids. That's option No. 1. O'REILLY: You can take it from the wealthy and give it to everybody else. OBAMA: Or we could have across the board tax hikes, what you just talked about. O'REILLY: It's not income redistribution.[i think this shouldve been a "?"] OBAMA: Well, but the problem is, if I am sitting pretty, and you've got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it if she can't, what's the big deal for me to say I'm going to pay a little bit more? O'REILLY: Listen, if you raise the cap gains tax, that's going to inhibit investment. I won't buy as many stocks. And many, many, more people won't, OK, that's… OBAMA: If we went up to a prohibitive rate, you're right. But look… O'REILLY: Thirty percent on — that's Vegas, man. I'm not going with those odds. Fifteen I'll pay. Not 30. OBAMA: I didn't do to — I didn't say we would go to that. O'REILLY: You said between 25 and 28. OBAMA: No, what we said is let's say we go up to 20. I've talked to… O'REILLY: Twenty is OK, not 25. (I'm surprised, I think it should be higher) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- OBAMA: I went over to Europe, and if you listened to that speech in Berlin, which you know, a lot of your buddies had a good time making fun of. O'REILLY: I don't have any buddies.lol OBAMA: But if you listened to what I said, one of the things I said in that speech is you [europeans] cannot think that the Americans are going to just carry all the freight on this thing. You guys have to step up to the plate. O'REILLY: Are you going to keep that missile shield in there? OBAMA: And given what has happened in Georgia, I think that we have to send a clear signal that Poland and other countries in that region are not going to be subject to intimidation and aggression. O'REILLY: OK, now I just want to get this on the record. You're elected president, you're keeping the missile shield in Poland. OBAMA: I believe that the missile shield is appropriate. I want to make sure it works though. I want to make sure it works. O'REILLY: So you're going to have to confront Putin. OBAMA: That's exactly right. O'REILLY: Maybe not militarily. Maybe you can do it other ways. But Europe is weak, and Europe is cowardly. OBAMA: Right.
I watched all 4 parts of the interview, and felt like I learned more about Obama and what he would do as president from this interview than I did from any other media coverage. This thread only contains the transcript for the first half, however. The 3rd section where he talks about his associations with Rev. Wright and others was pretty revealing. I still see myself voting for McCain in november, because of many issues, not just what is mentioned here about national security and the economy, but this interview did calm some (not all) of my fears about a potential Obama presidency. The biggest disagreement I have with what he said concerns his tax plan. Raising taxes on the top 5% is not going to help the economy and decrease the national debt unless govt. spending is also decreased. Increased income is not a license to spend more, in my opinion. The best piece of personal financial advice that I have ever received was "spend less than you make and do it for a long long time." That is what I hope this country starts doing.
I thought it was a good interview. Both O'Reilly and Obama did well. I hope O'Reilly has one with McCain.
I thought it was a good interview; much better than almost all the schlock that passes for news. Would McCain do this and would O'Reilly toss him softballs?
i left that out (and deleted other areas) because i dont think theyre relevant follow the link near the top of the first post.
Watch O'Reilly for a week with an open mind and find out for yourself. To answer your question, O'Reilly would not toss him softballs.
Here is the full interview. The whole thing takes about half an hour or so. You have to filter through some other O'reilly monologue before you get to the interview in some of the parts. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJH2n4aFEhA&feature=related[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XW7tkN-_GM&feature=related[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJiBDu5gWtc&feature=related[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbu5FxD9IUg&feature=related[/media]
I've said for quite a while that O'Reilly is probably one of the best on tv, but he still spins right.
I want to see Neil Cavuto interview Obama. Now that would be interesting... [MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaagpBO_CMY[/MEDIA]
