One of the most anticipated events at the Bakersfield Business Conference was the debate between Fox News Channel anchorman Bill O’Reilly and Democratic strategist James Carville.
The two men focused on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Despite agreeing on a number of issues, both had opinions on the attacks and what America should do.
“Beside patriotism and the embrace of family, the biggest factor in the American consciousness in the last few weeks is the understanding of evil,” O’Reilly said. “Evil wants to destroy us. Evil is real.”
He said that in light of the attacks, the United States has redefined patriotism and unified.
Carville, the odd-man out – a liberal in front of a conservative crowd – said he felt that right now is not a time for partisan politics.
“I wouldn’t do anything differently (than the Bush administration), I agree with everything they’ve done,” Carville said. “I would probably do some other things. They haven’t done anything major that I disagree with. I would be glad to criticize … if they’d done something that I thought was inappropriate or dumb.”
During a press conference before the debate, Carville said that the war that is being waged on Afghanistan and the al-Queda network is one worth fighting.
“I think we are fighting a war against terrorism, as we well should. I think that they are fighting a war of hearts and mind – those of the Arab people. I think we ought to engage in a very tough propaganda war. I will fight a propaganda war.”
Onstage, Carville made the point that the U.S. has supported Muslim groups and causes before and that the two last wars that America was involved in were about Islam.
Arab countries need to be U.S. allies after all the help America has given them, he maintained.
“The last two wars we fought were to protect Muslims,” he said.
A hot topic during the debate was border control.
“I believe we should seal the borders of the United States,” O’Reilly said. “Clear-thinking Americans don’t want a porous border where narcotics, contraband, illegal aliens and terrorists do the lambada while running across.
“Every other country in the world … with volatile borders have their military backing up their border patrol,” he said. “Why don’t we?”
Carville said that closing the borders would show the world that Americans are scared.
“I can’t even conjure up the words to say how much I disagree with you,” Carville said. “That we should seal our borders would be about the single nuttiest, most un-American, crazy, goofball, off-the-wall thing we could do.
“If we had sealed borders, our great-grandfathers couldn’t have gotten here,” he said. “Are we going to seal our borders for trade, are we not going to allow people to come in, not gonna have tourists come in here, what are you going to do? Look at the good that immigrants have done for this country.”
When O’Reilly attempted to interject, Carville yelled, “Don’t interrupt me, I didn’t interrupt you.”
He continued to say that to seal the borders would be an “injustice” to all the people who want to be here and that Americans should focus on removing terrorists and not people.
O’Reilly also commented on the lack of informants within the intelligence community, blaming Clinton’s policies. He said criminal informants were not used, resulting in intelligence drying up.
O’Reilly said that since the attacks, the government doesn’t care where the information comes from.
As expected, Carville disagreed. The campaign manager for Clinton in 1992 said that he’s against using anyone who cannot answer to law enforcement.
“What I’m not for and I’ll never be for is unregulated people that are not answerable to the civilian authority,” Carville said.
O’Reilly said in closing that the years following these attacks will show that America has resolve and will be strong.
“We’ve got back to common-sense values,” he said. “Those values that make America the greatest nation in the world.”
Carville reflected on how America should be thankful that they are not like terrorists.
Both men received a warm reception and despite some catcalls from the mostly conservative audience, Carville was as well-received as O’Reilly.
During the press conference, Carville joked about being at the event.
“You know, I feel like a fire hydrant in a dog show,” he said.