Two full months since Bill gave George Bush, the White House and the military (which I guess includes the troops) his "drop dead date" ultimatum. Two months since Bill declared that "Iraq must have its house in order."Oil deal in the parliamentary bank. Iraqi fighters taking over the fight from our boys.
Okay, let's go over the list.
Iraq's house in order: Uncheck
Oil deal set: Uncheck
Iraqi boys ready to stand up so our boys can stand down: Double uncheck.
Yep. Everything not there.
Of course there will be naysayers. There always are with Bill, just waiting to replay his actual, unedited words so to twist Bill's own recollection. Facts placed on the O'Reilly tracks attempting to derail the No-Spin Express that only desires to pull into Factor Station and take the Folks™ for one whopper of a ride.
Just watch. Mediamatters, DailyKos, liberaly loverly Stephanie Miller, even The Countdowner. You know, the usual hate-filled, hate-America, underminers of the troops and smear-sites who'll surely contend that Bill will try and spin his way out of this; that he'll say he was only using hyperbole, that "two months" is just an expression, and when he said "two months" he meant "whenever and whatever I want it to mean."
But that's not the Bill I know. Not the kid from the mean streets and private schools he attended on Levittown-adjacent Long Island; not the kind-of-being-in-war-correspondent who came face-to-face with death in the Falklands instead of coming face to face with enlisting in Vietnam when he had the chance; not the "Factor For Kids" author who spoke of a kidnaped child as enjoying his sexually abusive captivity; nor, the "Cultural Warrior" who sexually harassed a younger female employee as part of his war for the kind of culture he knew she wanted...wanted it bad.
"There are so many nuts in (Iraq) -- so many crazies -- that we can't control them...So the only solution to this is to hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible. Because we just can't control these crazy people. "
Some of those anti-Semite, anti-Christian, anti-having Christmas like they used to havers will say that Bill gave another ultimatum on January 24th the TV Factor.
"They've got six months and that's it."
That would mean that on July 24th -- for Bill to be a man of his word -- he would have had to stand up so our men and women in Iraq could stand down, but Bill didn't pay attention to that.
Okay, his cracked research crew probably forgot to remind him. But that's why we're here today.
This time the Bill I know won't back down. He will stand rock-hard behind his ultimatum.
And he won't say he meant that he would wait until the Pertraeus "Filtered Though The White House Fact Refinery" Report because when he made his proclamation he never mentioned Petraeus, only the Iraqi military readiness and an agreed to parliament oil deal.
What the Bill I know will tell the Folks™ is that the Bush Administration and their Iraqi government had more than five years to get this thing right; that they have proven over and over that giving them any more time is just not paying attention to the no-spin facts that neither Bush nor Iraq has any idea what they're doing. Most of all, he'll say that even though the President believes that 3700 dead isn't enough, not one more American soldier's blood will be spilled on Bill's watch.
But what will Bill do to hold the Administration's feet to the fire? Push for getting Bush thrown out? Give the Folks™ Bush's personal e-mail and phone number (but reminding them to be courteous when demanding Bush's ouster)? Or perhaps the Factor death penalty: Boycotting America?
We'll have to wait until he announces it on the radio or TV today and then followup in his weekly nearly coherent column. But whatever it is, you know that if Bush and his cronies don't do the right thing, Bill will "tear their throats out."
And we wouldn't expect any less from you Bill.
After all, you are watching out for us, aren't you?
Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" www.greatfailure.com and his weekly Sunday column appears every Sunday just to the left of Bill O'Reilly's in the L.A. Daily News>