O'Reilly falsely claimed "[m]ost Republicans didn't want" NAFTA
SUMMARY: Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that "[m]ost Republicans didn't want" the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was signed by the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In fact, in both the House and the Senate, congressional Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the agreement.
During the April 11 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that "[m]ost Republicans didn't want" the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was signed by the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In fact, in both the House and the Senate, congressional Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the agreement: In the House, 132 Republicans voted in favor and 43 opposed, and in the Senate, 34 Republicans voted in favor and 10 against. O'Reilly's guest, New York City Councilman Charles Barron (D), noted that Democrats and Republicans supported the legislation. Democrats in the Senate voted against NAFTA (with 28 opposed and 27 in favor), as they did in the House (with 156 opposed and 102 in favor).
From the April 11 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: Who wanted NAFTA? Who wanted it?
BARRON: Republicans and Democrats. Both.
O'REILLY: Mexico wanted it.
BARRON: America wanted it.
O'REILLY: Most Republicans didn't want it.
BARRON: Yes, they did. That's why they got mad at Bill Clinton for having him pass it.
O'REILLY: You think Pat Buchanan and those guys wanted NAFTA?
BARRON: They're -- they wanted free trade.
Maybe O'Reilly was talking about some other NAFTA! You're not implying he said something wrong are you? Not Mr. No Spine Zone!
Pat Buchanan is a far cry from "most republicans." For example, Pat Buchanan is opposed to the war in Iraq.
Buchanan is not even a Republican, he left the Republican party in 2000.
Then make up some new ones!
Just amazing.
his knee-jerk defense of all things republican is sooo old...
How does that make him an exemplar "REPUBLICAN"? He's not even any Republican any more. Sheesh.
Sheesh.
The evidence gathered here should be enough to get him fired many times over.
His TV show squashes any other cable shows of its kind in the ratings.
And he was such a hot act that Westwood One upon unveiling his radio show some three years ago signed more radio stations to a new show than had ever been signed before.
And he just tells his viewers and listeners what they want to hear... no matter how blatantly false.
that free trade was an earmark of a Republican. Free trade was to enhance democracies and the US economy. Where the republicans not for more free trade with other south-american markets, whereas unions and some deomcrates were against it. At that moment, the dems were bigots etc. Further, what is O'Reilly suggesting? He has talked before that the US experiences a threat from the open Mexico and Canada borders (like: only the US can protect the borders, unlike the harbors a while ago, right).
"Free Trade" is the reason Wal-Mart hasn't been busted for being a monopoly yet.
When the American says "Free Trade", they mean conditional trade, and therefore explicitly moderated trade. India has free trade with the United States, yet its textile markets are kept under control as not to sweep US manufacturers with something as deadly as an actual free market. The same is true with Canadian soft lumber, and no doubt other such speculations surround other (Non-)Free Trade agreements, such as NAFTA, that the US continues to forge in the boiling, magical rivers of the sweet Mississip.
The implication that Mexico has somehow benefited from NAFTA is laughable with side-by-side comparisons of its economy before and after NAFTA developments.
NAFTA should be opposed by all real believers in a free market -- the pure globo-capitalist idealist should be its greatest enemy. O'Reilly should love NAFTA, it favours the US on every front, and opposes actual free trade.
O'Reilly is only using NAFTA as a platform to demonize Mexico and Mexicans on every front. This is not a story to inform us about NAFTA, it's a story to make Mexico look selfish and untrsutworthy -- the poor US taken advantage of by Huge Angry Mexico and it's NAFTA Chainsaw.
because they really don't worry about the facts. Little things like a 3:1 ratio should not matter.
How many of O'Reilly's viewers really believe that Republicans voted overwhelmingly against Nafta? When some viewers e-mail his program with the truth about the Congressional and Senate votes that ratified Nafta will Bogus Bill acknowledge his misstatement? Most importantly, how many people will quit watching O'Reilly when they see how much he lies?
..the average person does not realize the party spin and propaganda that takes place on the Fox News network. I'll catch my mom(!) watching it sometimes.
Most people really do not have any idea. They get up, goto work, come home and want to see the news thrown at them in 30 minutes. Fox has the graphics, the angry white men and all the flag waving an American could ever want. And hey -- their slogan is "Fair And Balanced," and I mean.. you can't lie about that kind of stuff!
There is something we should all keep in mind. When attacked for his Republican views, he boasts that he's not one. Yet he hardly ever charaterizes specific Republican points of view as being "loony"!
He must be a closet Republican.
When you appeal to the stupid, you need not be correct. Somewhere Mr. O'Reily found out that he has a very simple minded following that is moved by hate, exclusion, and if allowed, control. I have never seen a time when you could get away with being half right or not right at all. With this Republican embodiment, you can predict with a high degree of sureness the Republicans are not interested in what is truthful unless it can be exploited to their capitalistic means.
Joseph
O'Reilly? O'Reilly? Hmmm. Wasn't he that guy who masturbated with a loofah while sexually harassing one of his employees over the telephone? Wasn't he the guy who wrote that unreadable revenge fantasy book about a sexually frustrated television journalist who goes about murdering his immoral enemies? Yeah, that's him. I tune into his show occasionally (during the Keith Obermann’s commercial breaks) and he seems to be always focusing on something sexual and abnormal. Child rapists this, sexual preditors that, ad nauseum. You know, I think he might be a pervert. What does anything he has to say about important issues matter anyway. I doubt he's given the non-sexual issues much thought because he's too busy fantisizing about his current young nimble hots staffers. And one time when the camera panned back on him after focusing on one of his guests (I think it was a segment on porn stars who found Christ) I swear I saw him playing with himself. Yeah, O’Reilly, I read a current piece on him in last week’s New Yorker, “Bill O’Reilly’s baroque period”. Good reading as recall. As far as his NAFTA comments, he’s lying no doubt.
What's up with this guys obsession with deviant sex? Isn't he a little too concerned with pedophiles, rapists, loofas, falafhels, etc. Next he'll be discussing father rapers.
I thought I was posting the above to the other O'Reilly thread.
SORRY
At long last, sir, have you no sense of DECENCY?
I mean, how dare you point out actual facts that counter O'Reilly's vacuous statements.
I guess tomorrow he'll say he didn't say it.
Wasn't it George I who started negotiations on in NAFTA in the first place? Besides, Bill O'Reilly distorts the truth so much that he wouldn't recognize it if it bit him in the ass. The man is pathological. Too bad he's not Pinocchio. Then his viewers would see what he was really made of.
NAFTA was a huge mistake. So how did our "conservative" friends in the GOP fix it? By forming CAFTA!