President Bush held a news conference Monday morning. The highlight? While he is president, the U.S.A. will not leave Iraq. Mr. Bush firmly believes the terror war is being played out in that chaotic country, and if Iran gets influence there — which it would should America leave — then terrorism becomes dramatically stronger.
Now millions of Americans do not support the president on Iraq, even though he is up to 42 percent approval in a new CNN poll. The reason is that we Americans do not like stalemates and that's what we have in Iraq. We can't control the crazies there and they continue to kill people at a terrible clip.
But overall, the president is correct about worldwide terrorism: It's not going away even if we do get out of Iraq.
Now, last week the U.N. talked tough about separating Hezbollah and Israel. This week, France, which led the ceasefire movement, shocked many by offering just 400 troops. Once again, France epitomizes the world and its failure to confront the murdering terrorists.
As the prime terror facilitator, Iran must be having a blast. It well understands that France and most of Europe is weak and scared and that Russia and China see any weakening of the USA as more important than fighting terror.
The hateful Iranian leadership will defy the U.N. on nukes, wait and see. Because it knows the U.N. is also weak and afraid. The U.S. faces worldwide terror with only a few brave allies, like Great Britain and Australia.
Now back here, we're a divided country. Far-left ideologues oppose most anti-terror methods, but there is a divide between the far left and the regular folks. The latest billoreilly.com poll proves that. It asks should U.S. authorities practice profiling at airports? About 45,000 voted, an astounding 98 percent said yes, only 2 percent said no. But ask the ACLU and liberal newspapers that question, the nos win easily.
I believe many Americans understand the terror danger, but are exhausted by the complexity of it. They are tired of bad news from Iraq and the continuing threats from the terror killers. But being tired is no excuse. We all have an obligation to pay attention to this war and to vote for people not along party lines, but for those who have a clue as to how to win the terror war.
And that's "The Memo."
The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day
We continue our truth policing of the print press in the media: Writing in The Los Angeles Times about the night the JonBenet Ramsey story broke, TV columnist Paul Brownfield says, quote, "The [JonBenet] story had broken in Bill O'Reilly's face, but he respectfully passed. Perhaps FOX couldn't figure out who O'Reilly might yell at, because no one was implicating the French," unquote.
No. 1, with all due respect, Mr. Brownfield needs some new material.
No. 2, we did not pass. We aired one segment on the situation because that was all the facts would support at the time. And we don't like to speculate on this program.
No. 3, I refer Mr. Brownfield to the lead editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, which chronicles how France once again betrayed the USA, this time over Lebanon.
Maybe I should send Brownfield a "Boycott France" bumper sticker from billoreilly.com. That might be ridiculous.
—You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" and "Most Ridiculous Item" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the FOX News Channel and any time on foxnews.com/oreilly. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com
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