RUSH: Ron Schiller, we learned last week quit NPR after this sting operation, to go out to the Aspen Institute where he was going to become some art director. Well, now he’s decided not to join the Aspen Institute. The first story of this is yesterday from Mediaite. ‘The fallout from the undercover video of NPR executives began with NPR’s response and now NPR has released Schiller’s response.’ Get this, by the way. ‘While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR’s values and also not reflective of my own beliefs.’ It’s like, yeah, he’s lying to himself, lying to his diary or what have you, or it just wasn’t him that day. You know, that’s the latest excuse. The latest excuse, somebody gets in trouble, ‘That’s not me. That’s not who I am.’ So Schiller said that he made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR’s values and also not reflective of his own beliefs. He’s possessed by demons, obviously. Maybe possessed by Charlie Sheen.
‘I offer my sincere apology to those I offended. I previously resigned from NPR effective May 6th to accept another job. In an effort to put this unfortunate matter behind us, NPR and I have agreed that my resignation is effective today.’ So, in other words, Schiller now claims that he was not representing NPR’s views, nor was he representing his own. Now, how do you get away with that? He’s caught on videotape, he said what he said about the bitter clingers and about the Jews running the media and about the Tea Party being racist, but now, ‘No, the statements run counter to NPR’s views and my own beliefs.’ So he joined the Aspen Institute to become director of the Art Institute there.
Oh, by the way, the NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller has resigned. This happened this morning. Get this. The board accepted her resignation ‘with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership.’ Well, then why did you let her leave? ‘Vivian brought vision and energy to this organization. She led NPR back from the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years. She was passionately committed to NPR’s mission and to stations and to NPR working collaboratively as a local-national new network. I recognize the magnitude of this news and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community. The board’s committed to supporting NPR through this interim period and has confidence in the leadership team,’ blah, blah. What drama queens. Each of these two people got caught being too honest about their thoughts. Boohoo. Typical liberals. Can’t tell you the truth about who they are unless they’re talking amongst themselves, then word gets out, ‘No, that’s not really who I am. No, that’s not what I really believe.’
Speaking of which, in her condemnation of Mr. Schiller’s remarks, did Ms. Schiller suggest that he might have a mental illness as she did in the case of Juan Williams? She suggested we might have to go to Juan Williams’ psychiatrist to be able to understand what Juan Williams was saying. So the board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership. Can’t get outta here fast enough, we’ll write up a bunch of crap that nobody will believe but they’ll swallow it anyway.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the piece de resistance. ‘Aspen Institute communications director Jim Spiegelman says in an e-mail: ‘Ron Schiller has informed us that, in light of the controversy surrounding his recent statements –” that did not reflect who he really is ”– he does not feel that it’s in the best interests of the Aspen Institute for him to come work here.” Meaning they called and said, ‘Hey, pal, don’t come here. We don’t want you here, either. We love you. We understand how great you are, just like they’re saying about Vivian, but do not come here.’ So the Schillers, not related, on the beach, as it were, victims of a sting operation run by James O’Keefe. I’d say this is a grand-slam home run. But the piece de resistance is when this guy Schiller said, ‘It doesn’t reflect NPR’s views nor, frankly, did what I say represent my views.’ I’m gonna keep a note. I’m gonna keep a record of all these things and the next time, if it ever happens, if I find myself in a tight verbal squeeze, I’m gonna try this stuff out.
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RUSH: I was watching Fox News a little bit today in the process of doing show prep, and it was Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer; and they had that idiot, Alan Colmes, on; and were talking about the sting, the NPR sting by the O’Keefe guy pretending to be Muslims. Colmes is going on and on and on and on and on and on about how he doesn’t like the ‘tactic.’ He doesn’t like the tactic — you know, punking people out like this. It’s gotta stop. It’s soiling our politics. And I’m looking at the screen, ‘Have you ever heard of that liberal blogger that called Governor Walker, pretend to be one of the Koch brothers?’ And, by the way, remember how celebrated that was?
Remember the left, the media loved that guy. That blogger was celebrated. He was a hero. I don’t care what media it was, that media loved it. Anything to screw Governor Walker, and he didn’t say anything to the impersonator. He didn’t embarrass himself at all — not at all — the way Schiller did when he got punked by O’Keefe. You know, folks, when you look at these things and you compare them, the left right now… Get this: The left wants ethics charges against Governor Walker for having taken the prank call from the basement living room of a leftist blogger who pretended to be David Koch!
So you’ve got a leftist blogger pretending to be a Republican donor (or a conservative donor), the governor takes the call, and they want an ethics investigation against Governor Walker. Well, now, where are the calls for ethics charges against NPR? Maybe it is that people just know that NPR has no ethics to violate, and maybe that’s why there aren’t any calls for this. But it is as satisfying as it can be here to watch the same tactics these people employ come back and bite ’em in the butt and bite ’em in the butt big time. So much so that this fool, Schiller, ‘Well, what I said, that didn’t represent NPR’s views. Frankly, what I said didn’t even represent my own views,’ and he’s one of the ‘smart people’! This guy’s an elitist; this guy wants to be in the ruling class. This guy represents the supposed ‘intelligence’ in this country.
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RUSH: I talked about Alan Colmes last hour. He was on Fox. He’s all upset here at the way the NPR guys got punked. He was on with Martha MacCallum on America’s Newsroom on Fox. She said, ‘Alan, what about what the man said on the tape that is –‘ meaning Schiller. Colmes had just gotten through saying what happened doesn’t matter because the guy got punked, the guy got set up, who cares? And she said, ‘What do you mean? What about what he said?’
COLMES: Whether or not Vivian Schiller resigned because of this, or maybe it was an aggregate because of the Juan Williams situation. It hasn’t been addressed as to exactly why she did. This man should not have said what he said. I object to these tactics. I just wonder if a liberal had gone undercover to kind of get some conservative group, would conservatives be as all-welcoming of that kind of tactic, because O’Keefe has said my goal is to really do this kind of so-called journalism, which it’s not, and bust liberals, that’s what his whole goal is.
RUSH: Alan, have you ever heard of Mike Wallace? How about that basement blogger liberal in Buffalo who called the governor of Wisconsin pretending to be David Koch? Which, I don’t know about you, Alan, but guys on your side had the biggest fun with that. I mean that was wonderful. This guy was a hero. And Walker didn’t even say anything embarrassing. Walker did not get tripped up by your punker. But have you ever heard of Mike Wallace, the hidden camera, the hidden microphone? For crying out loud, how about the exploding Ford truck at NBC? How about ABC going into grocery stores and planting whatever they did? Food Lion. For crying out loud, Colmes, your side invented this. I mean I used to do stuff like this, but it was funny radio pranks when I was a kid and so forth.
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RUSH: You want to hear the latest take from State-Controlled Media on this poor guy Schiller at NPR? Get this (summarized): ‘What’s all the hubbub? This guy was a fundraising executive, this Schiller guy. The guy that O’Keefe punked there with the setup and the hidden camera, he’s a fundraising guy, and now this is tainting all of the wonderful journalists at NPR. All of our wonderful journalists had nothing to do with this, but — but — now, this guy is just a fundraiser!’ So the full-throated defense of the guy has now been launched, first at MSNBC. Now it’s gonna be all over the place.
Then Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) further stated: Well, so what? He called the Tea Party racist. That’s no big deal. Everybody’s been calling the Tea Party racist! (interruption) She didn’t say that? What did she say? Oh. Well, he did call the Tea Party racist. He called the Tea Party racist. I’ll guarantee you that they don’t think that’s any big deal because they think it’s true. They’re calling the Tea Party racists. Everyone is asking, ‘Why did the guy get canned for that? We’re calling them racist, too.’ So the guy is a fundraiser tainting all the journalists. Well, what about…? Hey, Andrea, what about, ‘The Jews run the media’? What about, ‘The Jews run the newspapers’? What about, ‘The Jews are in charge of all the media’? What about that?
Do you think that stuff…? If that’s no big deal, if the journalists have been unfairly slimed, why did the poor guy quit? And why did Vivian Schiller resign? You know, why? Why, if the journalists are clean and pure as the wind-driven snow here — and this punk, Schiller, is just some artiste in waiting that happened to be a fundraiser? It’s such a sad thing, isn’t it? This guy has ended up sliming the entire journalistic network at NPR. These objective and ‘fair and balanced,’ only-interested-in-the-truth people, have now all been slimed by Schiller. And if they woulda just not gotten rid of him, then it wouldn’t have been any big thing. If they woulda just defended the guy, and thereby defended all the wonderful journalists… And, by the way, how about this guy saying, ‘We don’t even need public money,’ had a role in maybe this guy being aced out of there?
That’s not good PR for a bunch of people who can’t live without it.
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RUSH: To the phones we return, to Dallas. Jed, great to have you, sir. Thank you for calling.
CALLER: Rush, conservative folk singer dittos from Dallas.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: I make my living playing folk music and Celtic music at folk bluegrass places and I sell albums and MP3s. And a few years ago I had a new album coming out and because NPR is where most of my music is broadcast I scheduled a series of interviews at the NPR stations. And the morning I arrived at the station in Louisiana, I was listening to the station before I went in, and I heard a couple of NPR talking heads, the analysts saying that they’d been accused of bias and they were pooh-poohing that idea. And a few minutes later I walked upstairs into the office to be interviewed by the woman who was the NPR regional director of news, and her office walls were absolutely covered with hundreds of cartoons from newspapers and magazines, all of which were anti-conservative, anti-GOP, making fun of George Bush and that sort of thing. It was just amazing to me.
RUSH: Are you there?
CALLER: Yes, I am.
RUSH: I’m sitting here stunned. You say there’s an NPR operation in Louisiana?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I’m amazed they could find anybody at NPR to accept a job that was in Louisiana.
CALLER: Well, this was at the university, hosted by the university, and not specifically —
RUSH: Oh, yes. What university was it?
CALLER: I’m wondering if I should say that. I guess it’s okay. It was the University of Louisiana at Monroe. And I pointed out the irony of the comments that I just heard and the cartoons on her wall, and she just looked dumbfounded and did not have an answer for me. And the next time I went back there a few years ago the walls were empty. (laughing)
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: I got a feeling she just didn’t even have a clue that —
RUSH: Well, you know, just the other day Vivian Schiller said that everybody’s attacking NPR because they’re too conservative. She said that. She said that you’d be amazed at the number of e-mails she gets from people who claim that NPR is too conservative, which, I mean I didn’t believe it. I don’t think anybody did. That’s just the standard response. Jed, thanks for the call.
Audio sound bite number six. Here it is, Vivian Schiller on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. She’s on the phone and I don’t know what the question was, but this is what she said.
SCHILLER: The comments made by Ron Schiller are an affront to this organization and are contrary to everything we stand for as a news organization. We stand for diversity of opinion and tolerance and open-mindedness and his comments did not reflect those values.
RUSH: Hey, Vivian, you need to get on the same page as Andrea Mitchell. You need to call her because the story today is that the guy was a fundraiser, he had nothing to do with you. He was a fundraiser who said they don’t need the money, by the way. (paraphrasing) ‘We don’t need federal money here. We get by fine without it.’ But the narrative today, Vivian, is that this guy was a fundraiser and has now tainted all of the wonderful journalists at NPR. Last night on The Situation Room, CNN, Brian Todd interviewed James O’Keefe, the punker. He said, ‘Why did you pick NPR?’
O’KEEFE: My colleague Shaughn Adeleye was pretty offended with what happened with Juan Williams, and he suggested looking into NPR after that incident back in the fall. My other colleague, Simon Templar, came up with the idea to have a Muslim angle since Juan Williams was fired due to his comments. So we decided to see if there was some type of greater truth or hidden truth amongst these reporters and journalists and executives.
RUSH: So the new conservative media here has sort of turned the tactics of the left on them. Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes has a closet-full of Emmys for doing this kind of stuff. They do. Everybody has a memory of a 60 Minutes story, be it a thug auto repair executive or a thug in some other private sector capitalist endeavor or what have you. I mean they’re famous for this kind of stuff.