Did Randi Rhodes screw up this week?

[kay1864]

A couple times this week, Randi Rhodes denounced O'Lielly on his (mis-)statements about Haditha. Her response was that while US soldiers killed SS officers in WWII, US soldiers killed civilians at Haditha--so therefore Haditha is worse.

BUT...

As Keith Olbermann showed last night, US soldiers did not kill SS officers at Malmedy--it was the other way around!

(and O'Lielly has since deleted his version of events from his website)

It's surprising that Randy accepted O'Lielly's version instead of checking the facts about Malmedy.

Is she maybe talking about some other incident, or did she just get her facts wrong?

[WestHoustonDem]

1. There were incidents after Malmedy where civilians

were killed by American soldiers. I don't know the details, but KO alluded to them last night.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

2. What Keith did last night was more than alluded to last night...

he eviscerated O'Lielly last night. A complete, total, shredding of Billo in a way that will live in the annals of broadcast journalism. If you haven't seen the video take a stroll on over to www.crooksandliars.com or www.canofun.com - they are posted there for your viewing pleasure.

Keith should win an award for that one segment alone.

[wryter2000]

29. OMG

I haven't had a chance to watch the video yet because I'm at work. Randi just played it, though. KO was on fire. I've never heard/seen anyone on tv so angry, including Donahue calling O'Really "Billy."

Utterly awesome. KO for ruler of the universe. I love that man!

[kay1864]

3. OK, but what is *Randi* alluding to?

I got the impression she's talking only about Malmedy--in which SS officers killed US soldiers.

[papau]

10. I wish we had a recording - as I remember - or mis-remember - it

differently - as I noted down thread.

[MsUnderstood]

4. no she didn't screw up

She is responding to Bill O'Liely's statement not fact checking him.

Her factual response is how dare he say it is okay for american soliders to kill now because they've done it before. He did say american soldiers killed others and she responded to his statment.

It is frustrating that the people responding to the lies become the culprits rather than the liars themselves.

I understand your point that she could have fact checked him but we are hit with an avalance of mis information every day and all of us are struggling to process the lies that cross our eyes--just challenging his logic is a strong stand in itself-don't diminish it.

[kay1864]

7. I'm not making her a "culprit"

I'm just surprised, because usually she does fact-check this sort of thing. And it would be a far more effective argument on her part to show that not only is Billy's comparison lousy, but that he can't even get his facts right (as Olbermann showed).

[wryter2000]

5. Clark didn't correct him, either

I tended to belive O'Really when Clark didn't contradict him. I imagine that's something you'd have to look up to find the truth. I never heard of Malmedy. Probably Randi was reacting the way I did, "if Clark thinks it's true, it probably is."

[kay1864]

6. Yep, that was surprising too

You'd think Wes Clark would know that bit of military history. He could have squashed Billy with it. Would have made Billy look like a total fool (not that he needs any help, of course...).

[bunkerbuster1]

13. I'm no WWII buff, read a few histories...

This business was news to me. I guess Wes didn't know of it either.

Sadly, there was so much carnage in WWII that's understandable.

[deFaultLine]

15. Clark

Clark was stunned I believe by the depth of the inaccuracy the Bill-O statement. Wesley knows about Malmady.

This thread was started a few days ago...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1317997&mesg_id=1317997

[kay1864]

17. Thanks for that link!

:hi:

edit: Oh, you wrote that post! Cool, thanks!

And people jumped on you for daring to watch Billy? Not nice of them IMHO.

Well if no one else has said it, Welcome to DU deFaultLine!

[bunkerbuster1]

24. It's hard to say exactly what stunned Clark but FWIW

I didn't gather, from reading the transcript, that Clark recognized the historical error Dild O'Reilly had made about that specific Belgian massacre.

Maybe Clark did, and didn't feel it was the time to get into it, preferring to attack something else instead. I'm just guessing though.

[Ivote]

8. Check Out "GOOGLE" For Malmedy

There are too many sites to list here.
I did and I still am reading about the massacre that took place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malm%C3%A9dy_massacre

[tishaLA]

14. Clark DID contradict him, though

He said, "you'll have to show me and prove to me that there were ever any American soldiers in Belgium and Normandy or in Iwo Jima who murdered civilians. Secondly, I think you're too low when you say 95% of the forces are performing effectively. I'd say 99.5% of the forces are performing effectively, maybe higher. But when you have incidents like this, and you have chains of command under enormous stress, that is an indicator that things aren't going right. You've got to be sensitive to those indicators. You've got to fix the problem, otherwise it's going to get worse." link

[kay1864]

16. Contradict, yes. Correct, no.

I wish like hell he had squashed Billy for getting Malmedy totally backwards. Would have been Splutter City.
But I'm glad to see that Wes made the response that he did :patriot:

[wryter2000]

25. Clark was contrasting killing SS with civilians

He said at one point something like "it's different when someone's been shooting at you and puts down their gun than killing a civilian."

I'm not meaning this to be a put-down of Clark. He wasn't on to debate WWII. I'm sure if he'd heard O'Really's shtick before he went on, he would have looked it up. With the speed of the discussion, he probably didn't realize until after that O'Really had gotten the whole thing wrong.

[papau]

9. I do not recall Randi screwing up - I believe I heard her say that

SS in WWII killed US soldiers at Malmedy, but that Haditha is worse because US soldiers killed civilians.

I did not hear her accept the O'Lielly's version.

I searched for a transcript and can not find one.

I also search for comments on the blogs and boards since such a comment by Randi would surely have generated comments.

There are no such comments.

I can't prove she did not error - but that is my memory. Then again I may be remembering it the way I would like it to be. She is on beginning at 6 pm in Boston - drive time when I am not concentrating on what she is saying.

[bunkerbuster1]

11. If that's the case, she has a point, albeit a minor one.

I think once a person has surrendered and has their hands up, shooting that person in cold blood is pretty much equally evil whether we're talking soldier or child. But emotionally, the idea of murdering children, as has been alleged, really does take it to another level.

So if that was her point, I agree.

[kay1864]

12. Well dang, maybe my memory's wrong then

Because I coulda sworn she (a) played Billy's sound clip, then (b) made the "killing civilians is worse than killing SS officers" argument. It seemed like she was invalidating Billy's comparison--not saying "those Marines behaved worse than SS officers".

But you're right, on blogs and such they would have jumped all over such an error. So I think the evidence (like Sherlock Holmes' non-barking dog) favors your memory over mine! :)

Does her show have transcripts? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

[CC]

18. I didn't hear it

so not sure what Randi said but for more info http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html Just one of many plus books about WW2.

During the Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge) the Combat Group of the 1st SS Panzer Division, led by SS Major Joachim Peiper, was approaching the crossroads at Baugnes near the town of Malmédy. There they encountered a company of US troops (Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion) from the US 7th Armoured Division. Realizing that the odds were hopeless, the company's commander, Lt. Virgil Lary, decided to surrender. After being searched by the SS, the prisoners were marched into a field adjacent to the Cafe Bodarwé. The SS troops moved on except for two Mark IV tanks Nos. 731 and 732, left behind to guard the GIs. A couple of GIs tried to flee to the nearest woods and an order was given to fire. SS Private Georg Fleps of tank 731 drew his pistol and fired at Lary's driver who fell dead in the snow. The machine guns of both tanks then opened fire on the prisoners. Many of the GIs took to their heels and headed for the woods. Incredibly, 43 GIs survived, but 84 of their comrades lay dead in the field, being slowly covered with a blanket of snow. No attempt was made to recover the bodies until the area was retaken by the 30th Infantry Division on January 14, 1945, when men from the 291st Engineers used metal detectors to locate the bodies buried in the snow. (The US troops in the area were issued with an order that for the next week no SS prisoners were to be taken) At the end of the war, Peiper, and 73 other suspects (arrested for other atrocities committed during the offensive) were brought to trial. When the trial ended on July 16, 1946, forty three of the defendants were sentenced to death, twenty two to life imprisonment, two to twenty years, one for fifteen years and five to ten years. Peiper and Fleps were among those sentenced to death, but after a series of reviews the sentences were reduced to terms in prison. On December 22, 1956, SS Sturmbannführer Peiper was released. He settled in the small village of Traves in northern France in 1972 and four years later, on the eve of Bastille Day, he was murdered and his house burned down by a French communist group. His charred body was recovered from the ruins and transferred to the family grave in Schondorf, near Landsberg in Bavaria. Most of the remains of the murdered GIs were eventually shipped back to the US for private burial but twenty-one still lie buried in the American Military Cemetery at Henri-Chappelle, about forty kilometers north of Malmédy.

I added the bold to the text about the US orders.

[kay1864]

19. Why did you bold that part?

I'm missing your point.

[deFaultLine]

20. It's a good example of how...

cruelty, even in war, will backfire.

Americans are more at risk today than any of us were on September 10th 2001.

Haditha is a fatal mistake and I am concerned that we will suffer a great deal because of this...guilty and innocent alike.

[kay1864]

22. I'm still not clear...

The bolded part shows US soldiers' cruelty, or the SS officers' cruelty?

[CC]

28. Sorry, because if Randi

mentioned that US troops killed SS officers that would of been it, not civilians and not unarmed POWs.

[Beelzebud]

21. No worse than Clark. I was astounded that he didn't even know the facts..

[kay1864]

23. Agreed!

I mean, maybe Wes chose not to bring up the real version of Malmedy, but I can't imagine why. I think he just didn't know it (or didn't think of it in the face of Billy's strident voice).

You'd think he'd know his military history better though.

[tishaLA]

26. Maybe because if he corrected everything Bill got wrong

He'd never have time to make HIS argument. He was there, after all, to say that Haditha WAS important and, as I show above, he did say that Haditha, Iwo Jima, and Malmedy are not analogous.

I'm sure he knows his military history quite well and, in fact, I find the suggestion that he needs to know it better as laughable as Keith did on Countdown last night.

[NewWaveChick1981]

27. I feel so dirty...

...I actually went to the Faux News website earlier looking for Billo's take on Keith's smackdown, and I didn't see it. :blush: Gotta go take a long, hot, cleansing shower now. :scared: Those Faux creepies make me cringe...