Peters changes tune on captured soldier: "I do hope for his family's sake this guy comes back safely"

Please. For years covering soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq and the reality of those serving in that war zone (and their return home) was considered aiding the enemy by Fox and the right wing echo chamber.

Now they want more coverage of soldiers and the military? Remember O'Reilly saying something to the effect of "why cover every roadside bomb?"

These people are unreal. Just fricking unreal. Peters would have supported John McCain's murder by his captors in Vietnam.

Always good to get the opinion of a retired desk jockey and third-rate author.

Peters just got a letter from the soldier's family's lawyer.

Fox ratings didn't jump,so he had to apologize.They checked ratings on that other clown 10 days before they made him apologize.

This a$$hole guest appeared on Thom Hartmann's show the other day.

Thom gave him the floor to apologize then and he wouldn't do it...

Now suddenly he's apologizing? On BillO's puke-fest of a show?

If I'm the family of this soldier I'm demanding this man be fired!

This worthless Lt. Colonel too!!

I just saw the logo " FOX News". Do they just grab the list of Bill O'Reilly.s sales reports and call the buyers in, one by one, once a week to throw mud ?

My Hero

Bill has always been a hero of mine (I call him Bill because he is such a man of the common people). He has showed his valour over and over again. Sitting in his chair and confronting evil in America. Well, when I say confronting, the people of course are never there with him, that would be danger to Bill's person.

We should look up to Bill and Lt Col Peters as true patriots. They are protecting THEIR America. Whatever that may be? I am sure, given the opportunity, both Bill and Peters would be in Afghanistan, doing their bit for their country too.... Hey, Bill could entertain the troops.

As for the soldier? If you are not born with a senator/congressman or TV reporter as a father, you get all you deserve.

I just wished I lived in their America. I cant seem to find it anywhere......

I wonder who was in charge of unscrewing Peters' skullcap toupee to insert the apology chip? Do they leave that kind of work for an intern? Surely not a chiron operator.

I love it...Peters accuses other networks of not doing their journalistic work while Bill O'Reilly speculates that the captured soldier is crazy, which I am sure is very comforting to this man's family. Peters expresses concern about the guy's family but not about the soldier himself. Hmmmm... Shouldn't we withhold judgment until we learn exactly what happened?

The Lt. Col. just heard the bugle and sounded the retreat.

i didnt see any change of tune from this jerk. he clearly doesnt care about the soldier, and he only brought up "his family's sake" crap just to seem nice, but he definitely doesnt regret his despicable remarks. i love these idiots who claim we should honor our troops unconditionally (as we should), but when one of them supposedly leaves his post (any evidence of that?), all of a sudden hes crazy and/or irresponsible. it doesnt matter for what reason he left... i mean unless he actually abandoned his post and put our guys in danger, thats unconscionable, but we dont know that. regardless, our troops are innocent until proven guilty, and until then we should support their safety back home and stand by them. if he made a mistake, im sure we can forgive him. but dont degrade his honorable service because you assume he messed up or did what he did on purpose. and the colonel is blaming the media for not doing full on investigations into the matter, and that is why he is mad? he should be mad that any of our troops are taken hostage, no matter the reason. who cares about your stupid conspiracy theories as to why or how he was caught. what a sorry excuse for a military colonel. he brings shame to his service and his rank.

This man is a despicable human being.

1 - Soldiers 'talk themselves into delusions' in a theatre of war? Okay... so what's your excuse, Ralph?

2 - Is he actually whining that no investigative journalism is happening while at the same time speaking as if he had facts to badmouth this captured soldier?

3 - I'm sorry, but I didn't see any apology in this clip. This was just more of the same.

UN HUH, I KNOW THAT'S RIGHT! I THOUGHT SO.

I have viewed this video four seperate times now, and have combed the transcript as well, and and thus feel I can say with great certainty that at no point during this segment can this numbnuts reasonably be said to be apologizing. Which is, of course, outrageous -- outrageous in that he never intended to apologize.

Peters' limp, rambling statement was never meant to be a redress, just a (seemingly reluctant) public rejection of summary execution. Of American citizens. Serving overseas. Of course, he then spent the rest of the segment attacking P.F.C. Bergdahl's patriotism and loyalty (without rebuttal), as well as speculating in depth on his possible emotional and mental state. (An aside to Mr. O'Reilly: just a classy, classy job opening the door on those sorts of speculation. Really, it's that sort of insight as an interviewer that must've won you those Peabo... err, Pol... um, never mind.)

Now in my mind, none of this amounted to anything resembling an apology for a number of wildly reckless and idiotic comments; in fact, this seemed like the polar opposite of an apology, almost a justification of those comments. Yes, it's shocking. Yes, it's vulgar. But is it dishonest? That is, did Col.Ralph actually try to pass this garbage as a mea culpa? In fact, he did not. He was not even the focus of the segment:

O'REILLY: "Impact" segment tonight. On June 30th, 23-year-old private Bowe Bergdahl was separated from his unit in Afghanistan. Short time later, the Taliban announced it had captured the soldier. Now the terrorists are using him as a propaganda tool. But there may be more to this story. Joining us from Washington, FOX News strategic analyst Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters. OK, why don't you just lay out what you think happened here first of all.

LT. COL. RALPH PETERS, FOX NEWS STRATEGIC ANALYST: Well, let's lay out what our military knows happened, Bill. First of all, I asked a very senior military leader for a yes or no answer. Is PFC Bergdahl a deserter? The answer was yes. Now according to the article 85, uniform code of military justice, as a minimum he is AWOL in a war zone.

Now he told that story on the videotape in the Taliban about getting separated from a unit during a patrol. That is a lie. Our army also knows that he left his combat outpost, he left his buddies in the hours of darkness, left his weapon behind of his own volition. Now that's what we know. But the story about patrol is nonsense.

Ralph Peters is an oily, arrogant, farkuckt excuse for an American, not to mention a human being, and he will avoid admitting any wrongdoing as long as he can. I guarantee that he and his News Corp. compatriots are banking on being their demographic's central source of information; as of my writing this, Fox has yet to directly address Peters' comments. While this attempt to 'control the message' might seem unrealistic considering the outrage his comments have generated, I wouldn't completely rule it out as an effective tactic for saving one's hypocritical political bacon.