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O’Reilly: Annan Should Have Thanked U.S. For Spending ‘Billions To Keep Him In Fancy Suits’

Last night, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly attacked U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s farewell speech at the Truman Library in Missouri. O’Reilly said that instead of offering any criticism of the Bush administration, Annan should have talked about “why the United States is a really noble country,” how “it tried to do some good in Iraq,” and thanked the United States for spending billions of dollars to keep him “in fancy suits and expense account dinners and lunches.”

Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/12/oreillyannan.320.240.flv]

Annan’s speech wasn’t without praise for the United States. He thanked the United States for offering the “world an example of a democracy in which everyone, including the most powerful, is subject to legal restraint,” and noted that it has “historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement.” But he also called on the country to offer “far-sighted American leadership.”

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Intolerance for any criticism is what caused many of the problems in Iraq.

Transcript:

BILL O’REILLY: Why doesn’t he get up and say let me tell you why the United States is a really noble country and it tried to do some good in Iraq and it’s decimated al Qaeda and they can’t kill nearly as many people as they used to be able to kill? Why don’t we say something good about the USA that spent billions of dollars to keep Annan in fancy suits and expense account dinners and lunches?

KIRSTEN POWERS: Well, because he doesn’t think that and a lot of people don’t think that, so I think that his criticism —

O’REILLY: He doesn’t think that? Despite the overwhelming evidence it’s true.