President Bush Scores Big

Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly.  Thank you for watching us tonight.

President Bush scores big, that is the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo.  Somebody up there must be looking out for Mr. Bush.  The capture of Saddam has given the president a big wind at his back.  And he capitalized today by holding a news conference and introducing his re-election theme.

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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  I will never forget the lessons of September 11, 2001.  Terrorists attacked us.  They killed thousands of our fellow citizens.  And it can happen  again.  And therefore, I will  deal with threats, threats that are emerging and real.  We gave Saddam Hussein plenty of time to heed the demands of the world.  And he chose defiance.

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O'REILLY:  Over the months to come, you can expect the president to hammer that theme home over and over.  He will avoid answering specific questions on WMDs and other controversies and concentrate on the security issue.  Of course, many things could happen in the next 11 months, but if the Bush administration keeps the economy going and stabilizes Iraq, it will be hard  to beat.

Now last night in a special edition of The Factor, I laid out four things Saddam must tell the USA now that he's in custody.  What happened to the weapons of mass destruction he used on the Kurds and Iranians?  Did the terrorist Abu Nidal (search), whom Saddam had murdered, train 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta (search) in Baghdad as the British press is reporting?  Did Saddam bribe some world leaders to violate the embargo and support him in the United Nations?  And which terrorist groups did Saddam train and fund?  We will deal with some of those questions coming up on this broadcast.

While many pundits are focusing up on the upcoming trial of Saddam, I say it's not that important.  Reasonable people know he was a killer and he will be found guilty.  However, the secrets he knows about Europe, Russia, terrorists, and the Arab world can reshape the war on terror.

Talking Points has long believed that some nations want the United States to suffer the attack of terrorists.  Saddam knows which nations those are.  He also knows how corrupt the United Nations is.  And he knows who he bribed.

Some of those things are vital to the USA because the loyal opposition continues to believe the U.N. should be running Iraq and [that] countries like France and Germany are not wrong for opposing America.

So I hope the Bush administration takes as long as necessary to sweat the information out of Saddam.  This is a defining moment in history.  We have to know what he knows.

And that's The Memo.

"The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day" 

We had yet another ridiculous snowstorm yesterday [and over the weekend] here in New York.  Whenever that happens, chaos ensues, children are frightened, adults wail and gnash their teeth.

In the midst of it all, about 600 people turned out to see me at Costco on Long Island.  I was signing copies of Who's Looking Out for You?  These folks obviously were looking out for me as well as being real troopers.

While I was signing it, a Costco manager handed me a sheet of paper with sales figures.  As you know, we are in a fight with Hillary Clinton for bestselling non-fiction book of the year.  Since September, in Costcos across the country, Who's Looking Out for You? has sold 96,000.  Hillary's book has sold less than 9,000 copies.  Ninety-six thousand.  Nine thousand.

We've got a real shot at overtaking Mrs. Clinton.  We have two weeks to do it.  Ridiculous?  Only if you're rooting for her.

All right.  Thanks again to all those people who came out in the snow.

--You can watch Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo and "Most Ridiculous Item" weeknights at 8 & 11p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com