Bill O'Reilly's imaginary interview with Pope John Paul II, plus: Bush's God versus the Pope's God

The O'Reilly Factor: Does the Vatican Have a Realistic Plan to Confront Evil in Today's World? (Fox News)


Just imagine Bill O'Reilly snarling and badgering Pope John Paul II during an interview.

O'REILLY [on the Pope's criticism of the Iraq War]: But you know, by -- if I could interview the Pope, I would have loved to have done it, -- I would have said, gee, you know, Saddam Hussein was in power for 30 years and killed almost a million people. Was that OK with you, Holy Father, since you didn't want the United States to forcibly remove him? . . .

Yes, I would have asked him that concrete question about Saddam, since the Holy See did actually comment specifically on Iraq. And I don't know what the answer would have been. . .

Is the Holy Father OK with a million people in the grave because of a dictator like Saddam? Is he OK with Pol Pot? How about Adolf Hitler? How about Stalin? These people killed millions and millions of human beings, yet the Holy See does not advocate preemptive action against them.

And once he's done with his imaginary interview, little Billy O'Reilly realizes that the world (both the physical and the spiritual) is very complex and puzzling.

O'REILLY: But here's an interesting conundrum. The president uses the same tact, says I put my decision making in the hands of God. But his God, the president's, is different from Pope John Paul II's God, because they come to different conclusions.