Facts Fail to Match Media Action Line
March 20, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: In case you haven't heard (and I can't imagine how you might have missed it) yesterday did mark the third anniversary of our entry into Iraq, but interestingly we just passed the 13-year anniversary of the attack on our homeland and it got scant mention anywhere, and that was the first attack on the World Trade Center, February 26th of 1993. One of the reasons that I'll not forget that, aside from the event itself, is that February 26th is my father's birthday. So I will always remember that. But that anniversary somehow went unnoticed and un-ballyhooed and un-protested. So the media has created a template, they've got an action line for this, and they played it to the hilt.
Early headlines said: Tens of Thousands Plan to Protest! Tens of Thousands Protest! All the newsies led with that headline right off the AP wire, but they didn't bother to read the text. "Two hundred protested in New York City; 800 people protested in Japan; a thousand people protested in Toronto; 200 people protested in Oakland; 90 people protested in Point Pleasant, Michigan, and a thousand," probably including Martin Sheen, "protested in Hollywood." Supposedly somebody said 10,000 allegedly protested in Portland but they may not have known what they were protesting. Call a protest and the people of Portland will show up just for the fun of it.
Now, let's put this so-called protest movement into perspective. At the same time we had 200 in New York, 800 in Japan, a thousand in Toronto, 200 in Oakland, 90 in Point Pleasant, Michigan, a thousand in Hollywood. At the same time, 50,000 people mourned the death of Slobbo in Serbia, and at the same time 25,000 Spanish students went on a drinking binge across Spain. "Tens of thousands of young people gathered in cities around Spain on Friday night in an attempt to hold the biggest street drinking session ever in the southern city of Grenada. Police said 25,000 people congregated." Well, the media wanted its pound of protest so they played the anti-war template to the hilt until reality set in, and then the story changed to -- and I'm going to quote this:
"Quiet Disapproval of Bush Marks Third Anniversary."
So leading up to this weekend, "Oh, we're going to have thousands in the streets! It was going to be like Vietnam redone! It would be all over again, and we were going to be so happy because look it what we've been able to create in the mainstream media, the drive-by media. We have been able to create all this anti-war protest and sentiment out there. We have the power and we're going to send people in droves into the streets and they're going to tell this government, they're going to tell this president how they hate him and how they hate the war, and they want the troops home." Then we have these dribbling little numbers show up in these various places, so the headline, "Quiet Disapproval of Bush Marks Third Anniversary."
We talk about polls on this program a lot, and we talk about an alternative reality on this program a lot, and I'm sure that if you have been privy, and if you have allowed yourself to soak up what the negative news and this endless stream of polls on the president, his approval rating and the war in Iraq is, then you probably were under the impression that literally thousands of people would show up because you thought the polls were -- you feared, or you considered the possibility -- the polls were an accurate portrayal of sentiment. Well, ask yourself if they really are. When the polls were like this in Vietnam, you had people in the streets to match. You had the kind of expressed outrage -- and I know, my friends, because I was alive then paying attention.
I mean, it was a constant-on-going thing, protests against the Vietnam War. The media is trying to relive its glory days there, combining the Vietnam War and Watergate here in the same story, trying to create the same sequence of events here, and they have been since 2005. Have you noticed, we've mentioned this a number of times. Actually, it's been intense the last five years since 2001 when Bush was inaugurated. Actually go back to 1995 when the House Republicans were seated, sworn in, and assumed the majority. Have you noticed how the foundation and the context of virtually every story about politics is when and how are the Democrats going to win their power back?
As I say, it's intensified the last five years, and these polls are designed to advance that story line, that action line. This is going to take the Dems back, this is going to bring 'em back to power. They don't even need to have a plan. The Democrats are so confident that the public so hates Bush, as much as they do, by virtue of the polls, that you gotta ask yourself, "What are they really thinking now when such piddling little numbers of people show up?" I'll bet you that the people that showed up were the usual suspects that show up any time there's a protest for anything, and many of them were probably over 50 and just trying to relive their youthful glory days from the sixties.
It continues...
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