O'REILLY BLAMES ROSIE O'DONNELL FOR UNFAIR REPORTING OF IRAQ WAR (NOT AN ONION HEADLINE):

Seems that Bill O'Reilly is far more concerned with the reporting of the news in Iraq, than he is in the news. And what really concerned him today was that after years of mishandling the war, if somehow the President's surging turns the war around, the press would bury the good news because their primary interest is in burying Bush. No matter how often his radio guest today, Max Boot, a scholar at the conservative think-tank, Council on Foreign Relations, former editor for The Wall Street Journal, and contributing editor of Bill Krystol's Weekly Standard, told Bill O'Reilly that the media would have no choice but to report the good news out of Iraq, the no-spinster refused to buy it. While even he admits how horrifically Bush has handled the war he blames the media with reporting the news that Bush has handled the war horrifically. Damn you, mainstream media and your reporting of the news that exist. Among other usual suspects, like Jon Stewart, the New York Times and Bill's latest whipping-boy, NBC, O'Reilly blamed Rosie O'Donnell for persuading the public that President Bush is not doing a good job in Iraq. Not even The Donald went that far. But if we're honest, Bill might have a point. In her daily report from the Iraqi front Rosie has yet to credit the President for not sending a hundred thousand U.S. soldiers to their deaths (yet). To date, only a little over 3,000 soldiers have died in Bush's invasion, but that's all you hear from the once Queen of Nice. For crissakes, there's almost 140,000 soldiers over there at any one time, but you never hear from Rosie that 137,000 have not died. If all you keep hearing is that 3,000 young American men and women and maybe a hundred or two thousand Iraqis have died, it can't help but make the President look bad. Bill's point is that President Bush would not look like the fool he is if not for Rosie and Stewart reporting the foolishness he is responsible for. If you screw up 49% of the time and not screw up 51% of the time, by my math, you're not a screw up. Perhaps if Rosie or Jon would understand that, they wouldn't be spending the time reporting the bad news in Iraq to the viewers who go to Rosie and Jon for the hard news. If not, maybe it's time we take away their fake news media credentials and give them to Bill, where they belong. Steve Young is the author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" and http://www2.dailynews.com/steveyoung">his column appears in the LA Daily News Sunday Opinion page...to the left of O'Reilly's...really.