Posted on 11/17/2004 3:11:06 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Shocked by Bill Moyers' 'Coup' Comment and Radical Media
Edward I. Koch
Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004
On election night, I, like millions of others, was watching television and listening to the observations of political commentators. Most pundits were saying that exit polls across the nation were predicting a John Kerry win.
On Channel 13 (PBS), I heard Bill Moyers say that there were Bush supporters on the right who would resort to a coup if Kerry won. I was shocked that Moyers would make such a statement. The next day I called Channel 13 to ask for a transcript or videotape of the program. Several hours later I was told that the language I recalled could not be found. I then sent the following letter to Moyers:
November 5, 2004
Dear Bill:
On November 2, election night, I watched you and others on Channel 13 commenting on the returns. At one point, you made a comment after hearing a report that Kerry had probably won to the effect that “the right-wing won’t accept this and may use the militia.” My recollection is a paraphrase.
I called PBS and asked if I could get the actual quote in writing or receive a videotape of the program. I was told by a young woman that she could not find the quote. I would appreciate it if you could secure the exact quote for me in writing or a copy of the video.
I write a weekly commentary and would like to discuss the comment.
All the best.
George F. Will’s November 9 New York Post column contained a reference to the incident. He wrote:
“On election night on public television - your tax dollars at work - Bill Moyers said: 'I think if Kerry were to win this in a - in a tight race, I think there’d be an effort to mount a coup, quite frankly. ... I mean that the right wing is not going to accept it.' Moyers, the emblematic face of public television, is an intellectual icon in the sort of deep blue precincts that think red America is paranoid.”
Five days later, on November 10, 2004, I received a letter from Moyers. It is too long to set out in full. I’ve extracted the salient points. Those who want the entire letter can request it from me by e-mail.
Dear Mayor Koch: That was a live broadcast from Bloomberg Studios moderated by Charlie Rose, and as I was a guest on what wasn’t my own program, I don’t have a record of it to offer you.
However, I do know that I never used the word “military” in regard to any response to the election because I don’t think like that. ... I thought if Kerry were to win in a tight race there would be an effort to mount a coup - that the right-wing is not going to accept that kind of results. I had in mind what happened after the voting in 2000 when Republicans dispatched Congressional staffers to Miami to mount public protests. ...
In fact, nobody on the show suggested that there would have been an attempt at a military coup. I don’t believe there would have been. ...
Bill
Nowhere else, so far as I know, was this incident the subject of media discussion. I believe it is a good example of the hate-mongering engaged in throughout the election, particularly on television, by the radical left. During the election, many in the media were unable to conceal their bias against Bush. On election night, the talking heads were delighted to report the exit polls showing the election to be won by John Kerry. The actions of CBS and Dan Rather are now well known.
Many of those supporting Bush were literally afraid to make their preference known to family and friends, because emotions - particularly hate - were running so high. At a public dinner I attended a week after the election, five people separately came over to me as I was eating my lamb chops and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone, but I voted for Bush.”
Moyers protests: “In fact, nobody on the show suggested that there would have been an attempt at a military coup. I don’t believe there would have been. No one else in the panel did, either.”
Really?
Edward I. Koch, author, lawyer and talk radio host, was a member of the U.S. Congress and, for 12 years, the 105th mayor of New York City.
Actually, I'm not sure that Moyers was completely wrong in his statement. There were some serious conservative radicals who may very well have attempted to toss Kerry, based on his un-American activities in the past.
The day after the elections, O'Reilly teased the Moyers things just a little bit, and I looked for something about it and couldn't find squat. Finally, I see a little bit about it.
Coup Definition:A sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover:
What happened in 2000 wasn't a coup. What you suggest wouldn't be a coup. If Kerry were removed because of un-American activities it would be through congress and or the courts in accordance with the constitution. Thank goodness we don't have to face that possibility.
What Moyers suggested and which he's now trying to deny is the application of military force to seize power, the most common understanding of the word.
Oh puh_leez. If they did not do it after eight years of Clinton, I seriously doubt anything would have happened if Kerry won. There were threats on the left of riots, but those died down because they thought they were gonna win, and were in too much shock when they discovered they lost.
Really? Them and what army? Subscribing to such delusional thinking just validates the insanity.
That is what I was saying. There could very well have been a military coup against Kerry. There was a near-coup against Clinton in the Pentagon, so why wouldn't those same angry military men go after Kerry as well?
moyers vs. Koch is an excellent cat fight. Wasn't it Moyers who was responsible for the mushroom cloud ads put out in the 1964 campaign to smear goldwater? Apparently he is up to his old tricks. Gotta love this moyers quote -
" I thought if Kerry were to win in a tight race there would be an effort to mount a coup - that the right-wing is not going to accept that kind of results. I had in mind what happened after the voting in 2000 when Republicans dispatched Congressional staffers to Miami to mount public protests. ..."
In 2000 it was the Gore campaign that set up a phone bank in florida the morning of the election to call elderly voters and confuse them into thinking they voted for bush by mistake with the butterfly ballots. Another point is - since when does Moyers believe that 'public protests' constitute a coup? I don't recall him stating that the RNC protestors were staging a coup. Time for Bill to be sent out to pasture. Good for Koch for calling him on this.
Moyers is a partisan hack. He's the one who wrote the 1964 commercial implying tha Goldwater would blow up the world.
Koch eats lamb chops? Bastard.
MSM is freaking out.
Right before the election, our local news channel reported on Prop 71 which funded *embryonic* stem cell research and during the report they threw in "President Bush opposes stem cell research".
I called them immediately to inform them their facts were wrong and it was only the *embryonic* aspect that Bush opposed.
They flat out said I did not hear what I heard.
I asked for a transcript and they said they did not have one.... like the people on the screen just talk from memory.
Sheesh!
Good to hear this language from a Democrat.
"What Moyers suggested and which he's now trying to deny is the application of military force to seize power,"
I hope Koch or someone else continues to press PBS for a videotape of the incident. If Moyers is accusing the RNC of staging military coups that would constitute slander in my book.
I miss Koch -- the last of the real NYC mayors.
Sorry, what you're saying is pure crap.
Bless you...I don't put up with this crap anymore...I tell those kind of blowhards to either prove it or shut up. They look at me shocked.
I tell them that that kind of crap, spewed around by a lying media and repeated by a stupid generation brain-numbed by "reality TV" is exactly why Al-Qaida thought we would roll over when they used our own mass transportation to murder thousands of innocent civilians. I tell them that when they repeat traitorous nonsense like that, it's as if they are flying the planes into our buildings themselves. I then let them know they are standing examples of the failure of 50 years of liberal public school education and that perhaps its time for them to grow up.
I have always felt better...and gotten secret "well done"s from citizens who witnessed it in the "check out lines." The key to success is to say this nicely, politely, and with a huge "my guy won" smile on my face.
cheers,
Keith
I think you are transferring your own passions onto the Pentagon. Geez, these guys are professionals - they know the American paople will never stand for any kind of military coup even if the military considered it - this country is not going down that road!
Remember when Elizabeth Edwards was asked if she thought there would be riots after the election? Her answer, "No. Not if we win."
Whoa...hold on...many a native New Yorker, my mother being one, said the city was in the best shape it had been in decades after Rudy cleaned house...
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