Posted on 04/06/2003 9:46:17 PM PDT by The Shrew
Here is the transcript of Scott's appearance on April 1, 2003.
E.D. Hill: …but you know what? There is another side, and they’re picking up the pace.
Brian Kilmeade: Yep, Scott Swett is the chairman of the Free Republic Network; he joins us now from D.C. to explain. Welcome, Scott.
Scott Swett: Good morning, how are you.
Brian: Scott, what are you doing to counteract the huge, sometimes huge anti-war demonstrations?
Scott: Well, there are also huge numbers of people that support the troops and support what we’re doing in Iraq, and we’ve been working with grassroots organizations around the country. A couple of weekends ago, we had on our Web site which organizes some of these rallies at freeper.org, over 110 individual events that were attended by something like 150,000 people.
E.D.: Are you getting a lot of media coverage of that, because you know every time a protestor turns out, cameras seem to descend on the person.
Scott: The national media hasn’t really pulled all these local stories together. There’s quite a bit of local coverage, but as you say the national media tends to focus primarily on the peace riots.
E.D.: (laughs) Peace riots.
Steve Doocy: Yes, Scott, in fact we featured one of the massive demonstrations just south of the White House last week. It had seven protestors who were laying down in the street, so… interesting. Would you say that the people who are involved in your movement are just fed up with the anti-war protests and the spin that a lot of the mainstream media has given it?
Scott: Yeah, I think that’s a fair characterization. It takes quite a lot to get ordinary people to go out on the streets and attend rallies. It’s a very different thing than the anti-war movement, which relies on international funding from large socialist organizations and really has a cadre of professional protestors that they bus from site to site. Their objective is to obstruct things, to get in front of traffic, and they attract a lot of coverage that way.
E.D. There were a number of arrests – have any of your protestors been arrested?
Scott: To the best of my knowledge there have been no arrests at any of the pro-America rallies.
Brian: Scott, what’s the nature of the people that are involved with your movement that they don’t seem to have a need to demonstrate – for example, recent stats show that 70% of the country is in support of this movement, yet you don’t really see that out on the streets. Can you explain?
Scott: Well, we’re starting to see quite a bit of it out on the streets. As I said, it hasn’t gotten a great deal of national attention – until right about now. People are interested in making a stand and having their voices heard, and I think that’s going to continue. The support that you mention, the 70%, has been pretty constant since the start of the war, even during the periods of time when the media coverage turned pretty negative.
(start clip of anti-war demonstration)
Brian: All right, well here’s some of the anti-war people who are laying down in the street in New York City…,
E.D.: Nice color hair.
Steve: Yeah. Hey, Scott, you alluded to these people. Who is bankrolling these anti-war demonstrations?
Scott: Well, there’s quite a bit of evidence that international socialist organizations through domestic groups such as ANSWER are putting a lot of money behind it. Our own organization is purely volunteer, it’s grassroots in nature, and what we’re doing is attempting to provide tools and services to people, particularly at FreeRepublic.com, who wish to make their voices heard and get their side of the story out.
(end clip of anti-war demonstration)
E.D.: All right. You’ve got 50 different chapters and that’s how you can hook up with them. FreeRepublicNetwork.com.
Scott: Well actually there’s two groups. Our Web site where we’re organizing the rallies is Freeper.org, and FreeRepublic.com is the world’s largest political discussion site, and it’s at FREE REPUBLIC.COM
Brian: All right, Scott. Thanks very much.
Scott: Thanks very much.
I confess I was so excited when I saw our VERY OWN Free Republic Network chairman on national cable network that I didn't pick up each word uttered in the interview.
Scott, you're the greatest! And our ever-expanding army of chapters around this nation is a testimonial to the work of FRN which you so ably lead and represent.
Leni
Regards,
TS
Tell all your friends!
Regards,
TS
Regards,
TS
Fox News had a pretty good segment last night featuring the pro-America rallies, including some standup reports on-site. I think we just need to keep getting out the word about these events, and about how popular they really are -- that hundreds of thousands of Americans are hitting the streets to support the troops and to support Operation Iraqi Freedom.
This time, we're not going to stand by while the leftists help the bad guys win.
You really are good at this spokesperson thing ya know!
Regards,
TS
Exactly. I had that line in my pocket, but didn't quite get to it.
I figure it all adds up -- a Fox interview here, a USA Today article there, good coverage of individual events in local media outlets. Now national camera crews are starting to show up at the pro-America rallies.
Little by little we're getting the message out.
Regards,
TS
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