Deconstructing Bill O'Reilly's 'Night of the Living Dumb'
by Kurt Nimmo
published by Another Day in the Empire

Imagine my surprise. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly writes a newspaper column. I need to get out more because I didn’t know this. Mr. O’Reilly is a multifaceted kind of guy. He’s on TV and the radio and now I discover he writes for the New York Daily News, a huge undertaking for a mere mortal. But as Tom Edison once quipped, being busy does not always mean real work. Okay, maybe I’m being a shade unfair to Bill. He does have one busy schedule. Even so, it appears he does not have to work very long or hard to come up with the often inane things he says. Most of the things Bill says (or writes) are readymade over at the Bush Ministry of Disinformation. It makes you wonder how many fax machines Roger Ailes has gone through since Bush was elected, er appointed. But let’s take a look at Bill’s journalism. In his latest column, Bill takes what he describes as the “Bush haters” to task. See, as Bill reminds us, the world is chock full of terrorists—from the slums of Iraq to the schoolhouses of Russia—and thus anybody who disagrees with Bush’s Manichean and Christian Zionist view of the world is a member of a “fanatical and irrational” minority disapproved by most Americans. “Increasingly, the anti-Bush forces are defining themselves as way out there,” writes Bill. “A Zogby poll found that almost half of New York City residents believe some in the Bush administration knew the U.S. would be attacked on 9/11 and did nothing to stop it. Of course, there’s not a shred of evidence backing up that insane belief. New York City is overwhelming anti-Bush, and the rest of country is noticing the caliber of criticism. If I were making a movie about the irrational Bush haters, I would entitle it: ‘Night of Living Dumb.’” In other words, if you disagree with Bush’s take on things—that is to say, the take of a confirmed liar—you’re an idiot, just like a whole lot of New Yorkers. Obviously, Bill doesn’t care if he alienates people, usually a cardinal sin for a big media grand poobah. But then most of them probably don’t buy his books, read his newspaper column, listen to his radio program, or watch his TV show, so for Bill it’s no skin off his nose. Is it possible it is those aforementioned faxes in Roger’s office—you know, the faxes on White House stationary—that make Bill say such irresponsible and spiteful things, things contemptuous of reality? Of course there is more than “a shred of evidence” demonstrating that Bush knew Osama and Crew were up to something in the months and weeks prior to 9/11. Let us count the ways. Even before the Supremes imposed Dubya on us, the United States knew about plans to plow airliners into the twin towers. Regardless of what Bill says, this is documented fact. But then the Bush Ministry of Disinformation, Fox News division, does not have much use for documented fact, especially if the facts are at variance with the Bush version of reality. In 1997, word of a plot to attack civilian sites using commercial passenger planes surfaced during the trial of Ramsi Youssef, the so-called mastermind of the partially successful first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. According to the German newspaper Die Welt, it stands to reason the FBI and the CIA knew about this but were apparently not concerned—although the CIA should have at least feigned concern since attacks on their offices figured prominently into the plot. In 2000, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, the FBI knew al-Qaeda cave dwellers were interested in purchasing their very own flight simulator, but a memo stating this was destroyed, as were Carnivore intercepts of email messages between bin Laden confidants, according to the Washington Post. As for the flight simulator, maybe the FBI figured it was nothing more than a way for Osama to break the monotony during his wearisome stay in the backward reaches of Afghanistan. In June of 2001, German intelligence, the BND, according to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, warned the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were “planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture.” In July of 2001, as the New York Times reported the following year, FBI agents in Arizona wrote a memorandum warning about a group of Middle Eastern men connected to Osama bin Laden taking flight training lessons in Phoenix. Around the same time, Jordanian intelligence, the GID, passed on a communication intercept through the CIA station in Amman warning of attacks against targets in the United States using airplanes. According to the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, the code name of this operation was “The Big Wedding.” But since the information was embarrassing to the Dubya Crew and congressmen who at first denied that there had been any such warnings before 9/11, senior Jordanian officials backed away from their earlier confirmations. All of this was authenticated by ABC reporter John K. Cooley. It was not simply the Germans and the Jordanians warning of imminent attack—Russian intelligence was also bending Bush’s ear through the CIA. According to Izvestia, the Russians had information that 25 terrorist pilots were specifically trained for missions involving hijacked airliners. Fearful Bush had not received the message, in August Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russian intelligence to warn the U.S. government “in the strongest possible terms” of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings. A month before the attacks, the FBI arrested an Islamic militant connected to bin Laden in Boston. French intelligence sources confirmed that the man was a member of al-Qaeda. Not only did the FBI discover that he had taken flying lessons, but he was also in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. Reuters reported this on September 13, 2001. In other words, there is plenty of evidence suggesting the residents of New York, as indicated by the Zogby poll, know something Bill O’Reilly doesn’t. Is it possible Bill is the central character in his refashioned movie, “Night of the Living Dumb,” or is something else going on here? Naturally, Bill’s just doing his job—and the primary task of that job is make you out to be a member of the Bush-haters league if you even suspect Dubya and his crew of Straussian double-dealers knew anything about what the former CIA asset Osama bin Laden had in mind in the months leading up to 9/11. Obviously, Bill knows all about the incidents I mentioned above—and if he doesn’t he shouldn’t be called a “veteran star journalist” (according to Harper Collins) or a well-informed TV and radio talkshow host. In fact, if he claims not to know, he should resign from Fox and go back to teaching in Miami. Maybe he can teach history. First lesson: Operation Northwoods