RUSH: Grab sound bite No. 21. Before we get to latest drivel on the shutdown and who’s responsible for it, the continuing theme now into its fifth week, we’ve got a new sound bite to add to the Covington schoolboys story. This afternoon on CNN Right Now, the host of CNN Right Now, Brianna Keilar, asked the CNN religion commentator and author, Father Edward Beck, about the confrontation between Covington Catholic High School students and the frail and elderly Indian activist beating on his war drum.

Brianna Keilar said, “You said that those boys shouldn’t have been allowed to wear the ‘Make America Great’ hats on this field trip. Tell us why you think that.”

BECK: The students acted inappropriately. I was raised at a time when we were taught respect your elders. With regard the hats, the hats that they were wearing — the so-called MAGA hats or “Make America Great Again” hats — come with a certain political agenda that, in my opinion, can be seen as anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, ’cause abortion is not the only pro-life issue. What about immigration and the migrants? What about capital punishment? What about the environment and climate change? And so by wearing that hat, it’s saying that you’re aligning yourself with a political agenda. The students had no right to be wearing that hat. Wear a school hat.

RUSH: “The students had no right to be wearing that hat.” This is a guy — and they do, by the way. It’s called America. Is this guy a priest? What is he? “Father Edward Beck, CNN religion commentator.” So he’s an uber-leftist. We know that. He’s author Father Edward Beck. (impression) “The students acted inappropriately. I was raised at a time when we were taught respect your elders.” This guy is so uninformed… I’m really steamed about this, because this is an adult — supposedly a responsible adult, supposedly a religious leader — and he is perpetuating a lie.

Those boys were the epitome of respect. Those boys were the epitome of “respect your elders,” and this guy, he either knows it and is simply furthering his political agenda or he is blatantly ignorant. We had the father of one of the boys call the program yesterday in the last hour of the program. So I don’t know how many people didn’t hear. It I just want to repeat something I said to him. I think that those kids, those students, acted to lower the temperature of that circumstance.

They were the ones that were being subjected to the abuse. They were being subjected to vile verbal assault and insult by the black Hebrew nationalist whatever they are, and then the Indians coming over and beating the war drum and getting in the face of this kid. This kid said, “I made a calculated decision to stand my ground and smile, to not provoke. Don’t say anything. Don’t act out in any way.” These kids were obviously well raised. See, in my thinking… I want to try to find the right way to say this.

But I think the kids that I’ve seen on TV and their parents that I have seen and heard and read, are as close as we’re gonna get to model citizens in this circumstance as we can find. They obviously come from families that are educated, rounded, well-rounded, grounded, and raised properly. Their parents can be proud as they can be of these boys and the way they behaved based on that that they faced! It wasn’t that long ago that the boys in that story would have been proclaimed as the adults.

And if we’re gonna start conferring hero status, they would have been the ones to earn it! They were properly mannered. They did not respond to any attempt to provoke them into any action whatsoever. As I say, they tried to dial down the temperature of this. I think that they represent what is good and decent — or what has been considered good and decent — in terms of family structure, family behavior that is a model of what American family life was.

I think that’s why they’re hated. They are what’s always been considered to be normal. They’re religious, they’re Catholic, they’re devout, they’re serious, they’re polite. They were the only ones who weren’t profane. They were the only ones who weren’t provocative. They were the only ones who were not insulting. They were the only ones who were the rabble-rousing. They were, quote-unquote, “the peacemakers,” and it was adults surrounding them and attempting to bully them, to harm them, to provoke them.

They stood their ground. There were chaperones who witnessed throughout all this. In my estimation, if I were one of their parents, I would be as proud as I could be. They were obviously really great young people who I have no doubt have been raised well. They have been taught well. They’ve been taught manners. They’ve been taught respect for elders — everything the opposite of what they’re being accused of.

Now they have to hear this so-called religious leader on CNN claim they’ve got no right to wear those caps because those caps represent an agenda that’s anti-Catholic? These kids, by virtue of their behavior, were acting more Catholic than this priest is — or whatever he is. I don’t know if he’s a priest. It’s Father… Father… Father… Father Edward Beck. But to claim that they were anti-Catholic, and they were anti-Christian, and that the Trump agenda is anti-Catholic and anti-Christian? (interruption)

He is a priest. I’m told he is a priest. I’m not surprised he’s a priest with the direction this current Il Papa has taken the Catholic Church. I’m looking for ways to describe my admiration for these young kids, these young teenagers and their families. They’re a throwback. They’re the epitome of what used to be normal! They’re the epitome of what everybody used to aspire to! Every parent wanted kids like these! Hoped they turned out this well! Wanted to be proud of them. They every reason to be proud of ’em!

Now they have to close their school today — and the Indians are claimed to be the morally superior people and the black Israeli Israelites, whatever they are? The moral superiority there was the total province of the people wearing the MAGA hats, if you ask me. And what the hell is anti-Catholic about the Trump agenda? What is anti-Christian about it? Anti-Christian is what the left is! Anti-Christian is what the left is attempting to invoke and implement!

Anti-Judeo-Christian, Western Civ ethic!

“They have no right to be wearing those hats.” No right? The Indian can show up banging on the tom-tom? The Indian can show up and act like an aggrieved minority put out by this unfair, damaging nation? The black Israelites can show up and just start shouting the most vile obscenities and threats, and nobody says they don’t have the right to say those things? But these teenagers…? Look at this! These are teenagers!

The people you would expect to have to cut a break in a situation like this because of their relative inexperience and immaturity because of their relatively young age, and they end up being the role models. And we have to listen and see continued attempts to impugn them, to threaten them, to destroy them. This is the Duke lacrosse case all over again with some different circumstances. The same bigoted presumptions. The same bigoted prejudice. The same mean-spirited, ignorant, full fledged…

The faculty as Duke was ignorant about what happened. This Father Beck is ignorant about what happened, the media is ignorant about what happened, and they don’t care that they don’t know what they’re talking about. If I were a Catholic priest and this circumstance had gone down and I had finally learned what happened, I’d be proud of these young kids as members of my parish, for crying out loud.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know how this Catholic priest here — and he is a Catholic priest, Father Edward Beck on CNN — said the students had no right to be wearing those MAGA hats at the pro-life rally? And, by the way, said the Catholic priest, pro-life, and what’s he…? Pro-life issue abortion. That’s not the only thing that’s Catholic. There’s immigration and migrants and nest and blah, blah, yeah, every bit of government charity religions have fallen for as pro-religious!

Anyway, the guy says they’ve got no right to be wearing that hat. Now, I thought that, for example, women wearing provocative clothing such as short skirts, short authorities, exposing lots of cleavage, I thought that had no bearing whatsoever any time anything happened to them. You can’t say that. Just because a woman’s baring wearing any clothes does not give the right to anybody. And that’s true! So imagine if, after the news would hit us that a woman was criminally abused and the perps, “I couldn’t help it, Judge! Look at the way she was dressed.”

Imagine if one of us said, “Yeah, well, she had no right to be dressed like that.” Can you imagine the mountain of crap they would throw on you? “You can’t say that! You can’t say women invite it. You can’t say that she’s to blame. You can’t!” But when it comes to these teenagers wearing Trump hats? “You can’t! They can’t wear those caps. They don’t have that right.” “In Minnesota…” I had a chance to digest this story.

In Minnesota, there’s a basketball team that had a Trump banner. They won’t let ’em play the game ’til they take the Trump banner out of the gymnasium. I guaran-damn-tee you if they had an Obama or Hillary banner in there that wouldn’t stop ’em from playing the game. All right. Yeah, this U.K. comedy piece thing is… I don’t want to build it up too much ’cause I don’t want your expectations to be not met. I’ve gotta get to this. But people have been waiting patiently in the phones, too, so in Monmouth, Oregon, this is Jim. Jim, thank you for waiting. Great to have you with us the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking the call. And I was really paying attention to the priest’s remarks about the demonstration and the Catholic kids. It’s germane to what I wanted to tell you. I just wanted to point out — you’ve done it for years, and you helped people like me be a little bit more attentive to doing research on my own. I’m just gonna read a quote. It’s who said it is fascinating to me. “The biggest business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It’s the manufacture, refinement, and distribution of anxiety. That was written by Eric Sevareid.

RUSH: Eric Sevareid — the guy with lower teeth that were not the best of shape — was a commentator on CBS way back when.

CALLER: And I thought for a journalist at least acknowledge that. I’ve been paying attention to what this is doing to people, and this constant barrage about reframing and tweaking and narrative creation, it’s not just harmless political ploys. It’s actually hurting people. If you watch the eke news, it’s interesting to me who run commercials during the evening news, it’s anti-depressants, antacids, laxatives, and heart meds. I think that’s interesting. And I think that it’s really making a dangerous sort of inroads into people —

RUSH: You left out hemorrhoids, too, the Prep H advertisers, a lot of them.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Look, I think it’s a good. It’s actually an excellent point. All this anxiety… That’s why I say, I’ve told people, if you really want a break, just turn off the news, including whatever your favorite network is. Just turn it off. Don’t watch cable news. Continue to listen here. We don’t cause anxieties. I mean, not the way they do. We’re not purposely spreading it. But the anxiety and the chaos and the “Gosh. Everything’s getting worse. Gosh. Nothing’s getting better. Gosh. Nothing’s getting resolved. Gosh. Nothing’s getting fix.”

It does affect people. There’s no question. I’m convinced it affects a lot of people. I think it’s very destructive for people on the left because in their minds they think they’re winning every day. They think they already have won. They think they are the dominant in everything. And yet the news is filled with… Like for two years, if you’re a leftist, do you think they’re going nuts that Mueller hasn’t reported yet?

Do you think they’re going nuts that despite all the promises in the New York Times and in CNN, that there is hard, cold evidence that Trump stole the election? Where is the evidence? They’re going nuts waiting for it! And they’re not getting it because it doesn’t exist. But I guarantee you they’re climbing the walls. They’re fit to be tied because they have been convinced by the people lying to them every day — their own media — that it exists.

Just like they were lied to by Hillary’s poll numbers. Just like they were lied to that Hillary was gonna win in a landslide. They all had it… Their lives are in total chaos because they are lied to each and every day about all this stuff that they have been assured is gonna happen. Trump’s gonna be arrested, Trump’s gonna go to jail, Trump’s gonna get impeached, and yet Trump keeps winning things, and Trump keeps showing up every day.

He keeps laughing and smiling and he’s throwing it right back in their fay. They have to be… We don’t stop to think of this. They have to be, many of these uber-leftists — and I’m talking about rank-and-file leftist pop, indivisible people we don’t see, the trolls on Twitter and all these people, they have to be going nuts. They run Twitter. They’re out there trying to destroy every opponent and enemy they’ve got — and yet we’re still here and we’re still ticking and we’re still throwing it right back down their throats.

It’s gotta be driving ’em nuts. Where is their utopia? They got Obamacare. They got national health care. Where is it? And even when they had it, it cost more than ever. Every Democrat policy that’s designed to do two things. Democrat policies are designed to do two things: create utopia for Democrats and pain and suffering for Republicans. That’s why Democrats support half the things that their leaders come up with, because they want conservatives and Republicans punished. And when they think it’s happened, they’re still not satisfied.

They’re still not happy ’cause Republicans still keep (well, some) coming back. For us, the anxiety and the chaos are just as real, too, because the news is presented in such a way that everything we hold dear is being overturned, ripped apart, and shredded. And so the Drive-By Media is doing a bang-up job of laundering the language to the point that there is nothing but angst, anxious, and chaos. I think it’s a great point. I didn’t know that Eric Sevareid said that.

Eric Sevareid was a commentator on the CBS Evening News back in the sixties and Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America. And even into the 1970s. Eric Sevareid. I never forget Eric Sevareid his comments. He’d be sitting there, his hunched shoulders and his gray suit and his collar, it was about an inch and a half too big, and about a minute and a half sit there and speak in a monotone, and Cronkite would act like the oracle from Mt. Sinai has just spoken every night.

But that was back in the days when you had a commentary job on the networks, you were the only one that had the job. There weren’t 15,000 cable channels and websites where everybody was an analyst, strategist, or common. There was one. These people wielded extreme power. They were all liberals and leftist Democrats back in the day, starting with the post-World War II era. At any rate, stop and think about for a second the leftists who have this irrational hatred for Donald Trump.

And they have been assured every day multiple times a day that they’ve got the goods at the FBI and the DOJ and Clapper and Brennan and Comey and all these guys. “Oh, yeah, just a matter of time!” They thought they were gonna get rid of Trump before he was inaugurated, folks! They thought that Trump was gonna be gone during the transition! Well, they thought Trump was gonna lose in a landslide. And the day is gonna come when they are going to realize that there isn’t any evidence Trump colluded, and I wonder what they’re gonna do then.

Why is the Mueller investigation still open anyway? Anybody wondered about that? I mean, what the hell is going on? Why is it still going? Why hasn’t it been wrapped up, why hasn’t the reporter been writ, why haven’t we been told whatever he found? You know, after this BuzzFeed story where they totally make up something and it’s so bad the special counsel has to debunk it? Isn’t it time the special counsel just laid it out, say, “Here’s what we’ve got”?

Why don’t they? I have a theory. I think the reason they don’t close down this investigation is because of the leak factory that it gives them. As long as the Mueller factor is still, quote-unquote, “investigating,” then the media can continue to leak a bunch of drivel and BS about what Mueller is looking into or may have found.

But the minute the Mueller investigation ends, do you realize 50% of the content of the New York Times dries up? Half of the content of the New York Times every day is related to Russian collusion, Trump collusion, or some offshoot of it. It takes up an incredible amount, an incredible number of pages in every day’s issue of the New York Times. And when Mueller finally shuts down, what are they gonna replace that content with? Oh, don’t worry, they’ll come up with something.

But, I mean, the Mueller investigation is furnishing much of the news that gets recycled over and over again by CNN, PMSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, you name it. And I think they’re keeping it open for that purpose among many others. They’re also keeping it open hoping and praying that Trump said something, something somebody go and say he committed a crime right now ’cause they don’t have one up to the present.