Celebrating America's Tragedy...

Celebrating America's tragedy, that is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo".

If this doesn't make you angry, nothing will. A bunch of European media are actually happy about the Hurricane Katrina (search) situation or at least gloating about it.

The French publication Le Monde (search): "At this moment, America discovers or rediscovers that she shelters the Third World in herself."

Philip Stephens, writing in The Financial Times (search), "[There is a] sadness at the loss of so many innocent lives, yet alongside this sits a nagging satisfaction that Mr. Bush's inert administration has been humbled."

Edward Alden (search) in the same publication put forth that the levees break in New Orleans can be blamed on Ronald Reagan (search) and the orthodoxy of small government and low taxes.

Now this garbage came fast and furious from Europe, so much so that Investor's Business Daily (search), a newspaper, editorialized quote, "Many among Europe's media and intellectual classes have used a horrible disaster to score cheap debating points against U.S. culture and its way of life. This strikes us not only as false and misguided, but seriously lacking in insight. After all, wasn't it just two summers ago that Europe let an estimated 40,000 people die during a heat wave - nearly 15,000 in France alone - in part because so many people couldn't be bothered to return from their August vacations on the Riviera to help [elderly people] leave their sweltering apartments?"

Right on, Investors Business Daily. Finally some perspective on the anti-American European media.

Now it took a while, but all this anti-USA stuff is beginning to sink in here. A new poll in The Wall Street Journal (search) says that only Great Britain is perceived by the majority of Americans as a close alley. 74 percent of Americans say it is.

But only 17 percent of us see France as an ally, down from 41 percent in 2001. As for Canada, four years ago, 73 percent of Americans believed it was a reliable ally. Now only 48 percent do.

That perception is based on Canada's hostile press, not on what the folks think. The CBC (search) and some Eastern newspapers are so hateful, so unfair toward the USA, it is deplorable.

"Talking Points" wants to be clear about this. Anyone, anyone, who feels joy when America suffers, is our enemy. Period. One of these days, we Americans are going to wise up and unite against terrorism and other atrocities. We're going to recognize our true enemies, both inside and outside the USA and deal with them in an appropriate way. One of these days.

And when that day comes, our friends will be greatly rewarded. Our enemies will not be. And that's “The Memo.”

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

As we predicted, the first wave of attacks about my position that poverty was a central theme in the Katrina debacle have begun. Writing in the ultra-liberal St. Petersburg Times, Eric Deggans says, "The larger implications of O'Reilly's words also are obvious. These often poor, often black hurricane victims brought all this misery and death on themselves."

Of course no such implication exists, but Deggans is a dishonest, racially motivated correspondent writing for perhaps the worst newspaper in the country.

To see my column on the issue for yourself, please go to billoreilly.com. Ridiculous? They don't get more ridiculous than the St. Petersburg Times. It is. That is the worst newspaper in the United States of America. They win.