The Right Word: Fox News's black-and-white view of Pakistan

Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly get back to their eternal verities of the 'war on terror', while Glenn Beck has a teach-in

Concerns are growing on Fox News that despite having managed to eliminate Osama bin Laden, the Obama administration's soft approach to terrorism is endangering America's future.

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity is convinced that unless the current president changes course and embraces the harsh interrogation tactics employed by the Bush administration, we will be unable to gather the information we need to capture or kill future terrorists or prevent any future attacks (view clip). He does not understand the Obama administration's official position that torture goes against America's core values and he thinks it's hypocritical of the administration to say it's OK to put a bullet in the head of one enemy combatant (Osama bin Laden's) but refuse to waterboard another equally dangerous enemy combatant (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed). He discusses this conundrum with regular guest, and fellow waterboarding enthusiast, Dick Morris.

I thought Chris Wallace had an excellent question this weekend on Fox News Sunday. He was talking to the White House national security adviser and he said why is it contrary to American values to use, you know, enhanced interrogation techniques against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but killing an unarmed bin Laden is justified. That's a great question.

Dick Morris made the point that the administration had no choice but to kill bin Laden, because if they had captured him with the current system in place (that does not allow torture), they would have had to read him his Miranda rights and wouldn't have been allowed to waterboard him. Like Hannity, Morris is convinced that the information that led us to bin Laden was obtained almost exclusively by waterboarding and they both agreed that if it hadn't been for President Bush's policy on rough interrogations, bin Laden would still be alive today.

Well, that's the interesting thing, and especially as the president goes on his "I killed Osama" victory tour – ah, which I don't have any problem with – "spiking the football", to use his terms. As this happens, this is what has now emerged … it's also Hayden, it's three former CIA directors, it's Leon Panetta, as well … that without enhanced interrogation, without rendition, without black sites, this day would not have been possible. If we want more successful days like this, we must argue that the Obama policies were wrong and the Bush policies were right! This is the first time Bush hasn't gotten any credit!

Morris agreed that it was a disgrace that President Obama (whose name he confused at least twice with "Osama" and once with "bin Laden") has taken all the credit for the successful raid. The really frightening issue, however, both men agreed, is that now that President Bush is gone and Obama is in charge, our chances of ever gathering the intelligence that will lead us to capturing future terrorists are slim, at best.

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly took a brief timeout from the torture debate to discuss the situation in Pakistan (view clip). While he acknowledged that our relationship with the country where Osama bin Laden was hiding out is nuanced and complex, he would still like to see President Obama acting more decisively, putting pressure on the Pakistani government and seeking an immediate resolution.

There's no question that Pakistan is playing a double game. Problem is, the US needs Pakistan. It allows supplies to go into Afghanistan to aid our troops. It's also been helpful, on occasion, in tracking down certain terrorists. But overall, Pakistan is not a friend to the USA, even though we give that country $3bn a year in aid. So, the question Mr Obama has to answer, has to answer, is this. American troops are being killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Those villains are being protected by the Pakistani government. That means Pakistan is aiding and abetting the deaths of American soldiers and marines. To me, that's unacceptable. The bin Laden deal has exposed Pakistan and the USA needs to solve this situation now.

He discussed the issue with Karl Rove, who agreed with O'Reilly about some of the complexities he outlined, but who stressed the need to stay engaged with Pakistan. Rove felt that the wisest course would be to exert pressure from behind the scenes but not to publicly embarrass the Pakistani government, which has enough internal pressures to deal with. O'Reilly did not really see the necessity for tiptoeing around a country that, he believes, has deliberately wronged us by harbouring our sworn enemy; and he suggested the best way to deal with Pakistan was through India, although it wasn't entirely clear what he meant by this.

I don't disagree that you deal with them behind the scenes, but I think you got to deal with them and you got to deal with them fast and the way to do it is through India. We keep India off the Pakistan's government's back. India doesn't like Pakistan. India knows, because of Mumbai, that Pakistan harbours terrorists who will kill Indians. And India will go in there and give them a lot of trouble. And the only thing standing between Pakistan and India is us. So I think that's the way to handle this.

Rove also didn't appear to understand exactly what O'Reilly meant by "going through India", and again, he stressed that our priority should be to maintain stability in the region. He suggested attaching some conditions to the aid we give to Pakistan (which is actually $1.5bn annually) or to slow it up in some way. Above all, Rove said, the situation required "patient diplomacy".

Mr Rove, with all due respect, with all due respect, I mean how much longer are the American people … and how much more do they have to take? Patient diplomacy?! We've been doing this for 10 years, OK, after 9/11 … all right 20, 30 years, and were not getting anywhere.

Rove tried again to stress that the situation in Pakistan is very delicate, but O'Reilly who generally favours a more black-and-white approach to international affairs insisted the matter be resolved without further trying the patience of the American people.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck was concerned about the failure of the American education system to teach young people proper values (view clip) – when he learned that upon hearing of Osama bin Laden's death last week, the most searched questions on Google by under-24 year olds were: "who's that?" "why did they kill him?" and "why does it matter?" Beck fears that our schools today are failing young people who are having their heads filled with crazy notions about climate change and how many orangutans are left on the planet, instead of what is really important – like the death of a terrorist.

You want to know what they do know? Global warming. New Yale study says 57% of teens understand that global warming is caused mostly by humans' activities. Is it really now? We also have two girl scouts in Michigan leading a campaign against their organisation['s] cookies, saying the heavy use of palm oil contributes to destroying the rain forest and killing endangered species like orangutans. Keep killing the orangutans! The cookies are yummy.

He packed his studio with teachers (many of whom were union members) to discuss the issue of why our schools are failing. Among the many reasons they brought up, Beck seized on the unions as a major cause for concern for putting teachers in an impossible situation.

You guys are you're in a job where I think you have to be frustrated. I feel bad for teachers. Not all teachers. We have teachers who are up there saying, this is how you teach Marxism. This is how you teach communism. And I know that all teachers are not alike. I know just because you're in a union doesn't mean you are a bum or a Marxist.

To Beck's surprise, not all of the teachers present agreed with his assessment and some of them pointed out that being constantly bashed by politicians and the media was what made their job hard, rather than being in a union. In the end, though they identified many problems with our schools, Beck didn't get very far in his quest to explore why young people are more focused on the fate of orangutans than on the fate of Osama bin Laden.