O'Reilly

So you may have heard about how here in San Francisco we passed Proposition I, opposing military recruitment.

Resolved, that the people of San Francisco oppose U.S. military recruiters using public school, college and university facilities to recruit young people into the armed forces. Furthermore, San Francisco should oppose the military's "economic draft" by investigating means by which to fund and grant scholarships for college and job training to low-income students so they are not economically compelled to join the military!

I find this style of breathless lefty anti-military rhetoric a little tiresome, but I respect where it comes from in these trying times. I'll certainly agree that it would be better on both a moral and a practical scale if people weren't joining the military in pursuit of the social and economic rewards of a college education that are made inaccessible to them by other means. The proposition isn't binding legislation, it's symbolic, and it's a symbolic gesture I can respect.

It seems that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly feels differently. It seems that he thinks we've seceeded from the Union, so he's invited terrorists to come attack us.

Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money. You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead."

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

Given that the Bush adminstration --- and Bill O'Reilly --- evidently believe that when the US suffers a terrorist attack, the right thing to do about it is to torture people and invade an unrelated Arab country, I for one would like to come out in support of Mr. O'Reilly's plan. If Al Qaeda blows up Coit Tower, if that's "doing something about it," then please don't do anything about it.