RUSH: Here’s Bill in Phelan, California, as we head to the phones. Great to have you. Hi.
CALLER: Yeah, good afternoon, Rush. It’s a pleasure to talk to you again.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: This touches exactly on two points that you made in the last hour and what you’re talking about right now. Number one, where have these people been before last Friday. Number two, people wanting to insert themselves into the story. Friday, I was surfing around the television dials, and I happened onto my local Fox station in Los Angeles, and Shepard Smith was giving commentary while the hostages were still being held in the theater and there were still bombs going off in the theater, he actually said that this is an unprecedented event since World War II, and he says, “This is not just a case of some people hijacking some planes and flying them into buildings. This is an unprecedented, choreographed attack of seven locations in Paris.”
And I’m sitting there, my jaw dropped, Rush, and I’m going, what the hell was 9/11? They even got the press conditioned with this Obama administration that 9/11 was maybe our fault or it’s something to be played down and what was happening in Paris was the most horrible thing since World War II, since 1944. I was absolutely flabbergasted and his delivery was amateurish. It was more like an actor trying to do it for a bad movie where something like that is happening. And they had him as a talking head in the corner of the screen while they were giving the live feed. Therefore he was inserting himself from a remote location —
RUSH: Hang on a minute. I gotta take a break here, Bill, and we’ve got the break coming up here, and there’s one other thing you wanted to address and we will do that when we get back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, Bill from Phelan, California, dropped off. Oh, you do have him back? Okay, Bill’s back. Is he ready to go now? Here we go. Bill, welcome back. There you go. Okay, Bill, you’re back. Now, you mentioned there were two things I talked about in the previous hour. You addressed the first one. I’ve forgotten the second one that you said you wanted to address.
CALLER: The second one, Rush, was people trying to insert themselves into the story. And this includes the journalists that are remotely located from the actual event, but they try and stick themselves in it —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — like they’re actually there reporting on it.
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: And this is what Shepard Smith was doing. Just before the break, I was starting to say that they had Sheppard inserted in a very large picture up in the corner of the screen, as a talking head, while the events were still going on in Paris, in the theater when you hear the bombs going off and the shooting and everything, and he’s there with a very, very stern look on his face doing performance art, basically. You could tell that the performance was phony, it was stilted, he was making more of an effort to see that he’s gonna get his journalism Emmy or his press club award or something than to actually report the events.
RUSH: Well, repeat to me what Shepard said, when you he heard Sheppard say that this was not just a bunch of guys flying airplanes into buildings.
CALLER: Okay, I’ll try and repeat it the way he did it, too. He was very melodramatic, too, and he says (imitating Smith), “Ladies and gentlemen, this is an unprecedented event. Nothing like this has happened in the history of the world in Paris, not since World War II. Ladies and gentlemen, let me make it clear that this is not just a matter of some guys hijacking some planes and flying them into a building. This is an unprecedented, choreographed, orchestrated event, seven locations we’re hearing reports of so far.” He went into this big, you know, to-do about the whole thing —
RUSH: Could it be that Sheppard was talking about France, that nothing like this has been seen in France since World War II?
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, he was talking about France, but what I mean, Rush, is he would totally up-playing the importance of France and totally downplaying what happened in 9/11, almost like we deserved it or that it’s such past history right now, you know, it’s nothing anymore, it’s just a bunch of guys that hijacked some planes and flew them into some buildings, he said, or words to that effect.
RUSH: Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to downplay 9/11 while talking about what happened in Paris?
CALLER: Well, it’s simple. I got the distinct impression, number one he was trying to get some sort of award. He was more concerned with inserting himself into the story and maybe he wasn’t as involved back then when it happened. He was involved now, this was his moment now. And the other thing was —
RUSH: Oh, you mean like 9/11 wasn’t any big deal ’cause he wasn’t there to cover it?
CALLER: Yeah, well, he might have been there but maybe he was a younger journalist and didn’t have as much involvement back then.
RUSH: Oh, wow. Well, Bill, in all fairness here, you’re interpreting a lot there from old Shep’s attitude and so forth. I would have to see this. Not to doubt you, Bill, but it’s strange to just disregard 9/11, “It’s not just a bunch of guys flying jets into building. That was one thing. This, this, now, this is it terrorism.” I would have to see that. That is a tough one to believe. I mean, even if the late Peter Jennings were doing it, that would be a tough one to believe. Now, but Shepard Smith did say — I did read this earlier — that Shepard Smith did say that because of the Paris attacks, the world had changed forever. The world had changed forever.
Now, let’s assume he means that. See, I think it’s an interesting exercise to try to find out how people think. How do you take 9/11 with 3,000 people dead in a unique attack, our own airplanes were hijacked and used against us. We taught the hijackers how to do that in our own flight schools. We had the proper intel but we were not able to use it because of a wall that the Clinton administration had built and so the CIA and the FBI could not share intelligence data. Three thousand people dead, our own airplanes, how do you relegate that to a ho-hummer and then say that 129 people dead in Paris changes the world forever?
I think Hitler changed the world forever. World War II changed the world forever. Had we lost World War II I don’t even want to contemplate. But I think that is modern day newscast 101. I mean, when there’s no breaking news you run a crawl that says breaking news. When there’s nothing new the last 20 minutes, you put up “alert.” Everything’s breaking, everything’s now, everything’s immediate, everything’s a crisis. Nothing happened moments ago until what we gotta tell you now just happened even though you heard it two days ago. There’s obviously some broadcast technique in this.
But if he really meant it, if what happened in Paris means the world changed forever, hey, folks, I have to tell you, these two clowns that I heard, it doesn’t matter who they are, just average, ordinary guys, these two clowns all of a sudden after everything, what happened in Paris makes them worried for their kids’ future. Not 9/11. They didn’t say 9/11 did. They didn’t say any of the domestic things here. What happened in Paris, they finally realized the world is a different place now. That kind of thinking fascinates me because those people vote, they elect Democrats. The reason all of this is happening or that so much of it is happening is because we’ve got Democrats who are incompetent, who have a different view of American leadership, running the show for the last seven years. All of this stuff does matter, not to mention the domestic disasters that have been brought up.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So our caller from Phelan, California, told us that Shep said that 9/11, bunch of guys hijacking planes and flying into buildings, that’s one thing, but what happened in Paris, that changed the world. That’s what he said to us, right? Well, here’s what we have Shep Smith saying during Fox News breaking news Friday night.
SMITH: We know at this moment that the world as we know it has changed tonight, for terrorists from far away did not cross an ocean with planes that they hijacked and have a one-time experience that changed everything we know. In this case, there is a series of coordinated attacks that happened and continues to happen. And actions unprecedented in modern history are taking place in Paris tonight.
RUSH: Okay, so I see what the caller means. Actions unprecedented in modern history are taking place in Paris tonight. So 9/11 was, I mean, it was big, you had some guys far cross an ocean, hijack plans, a one-time experience that changed everything we know. In this case, a series of coordinated attacks. Wasn’t 9/11 a series of coordinated attacks? Weren’t there four, and one was thwarted, but yet the passengers died. A one-time experience that changed everything, 9/11, but in this case a series of coordinated attacks that happened and continue to happen and actions unprecedented in modern history are taking place in Paris. I don’t know, folks. As I say, I’m fascinated by the way people think.
Can somebody tell me — and I honestly don’t know, because I haven’t read anything about it. Has the United States let in any Christians from the Middle East, as refugees? I mean, may be, by accident or whatever, but clearly the focus is on Muslim refugees, Syrian and otherwise. (interruption) Yeah, I don’t, either. I have not seen stories that we’ve allowed Christians from Iraq in.
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