Posted on 09/09/2002 4:01:11 PM PDT by vannrox
It is important to publicize the mainstream media’s blatant anti-gun bias, especially for the benefit of the vast number of Americans who don’t follow politics closely enough to be aware of the left-leaning agenda of the major networks. The Laura Ingraham Show is asking people to mail the Today Show with their thoughts on the treatment of Mr. Heston. We are also urging a Today Show sponsor boycott until Lauer apologizes to Mr. Heston. More than 1,000 Ingraham Show listeners have already sent emails and letters of protest to Today@nbc.com. Many others have written letters to the CEOs of GE (NBC’s parent company) and also to the Today Show’s corporate sponsors—including Ford, Wal-Mart (one of the biggest retailers of guns nationwide), Pepperidge Farm, Pam cooking spray, Celebrex.com, and Sears. The following is a transcript of Lauer’s biased questioning of Mr. Heston on guns. Be your own judge. LAUER: Have you ever gotten up one morning, read the newspaper or seen the news, about a particularly horrific crime or event that involved a shooting and thought, even for a second, 'I may be on the wrong side of this issue.' Mr. HESTON: No, I never felt that. LAUER: Let me read you what you said about Bill Clinton. I'm proud of having said it. I'm also... Laura's Weekly E-Blast!
http://www.LauraIngraham.com
THE TODAY SHOW VERSUS GUNS: WHY WE CARE
For those of you who missed our shows last Thursday and Friday, you missed hearing my outrage over the interview conducted by NBC’s Matt Lauer last Thursday with screen legend and probable Alzheimer’s sufferer Charlton Heston. While Lauer acknowledged Heston’s formidable screen and stage career in the interview, he devoted most of the second day to grilling Mr. Heston on his NRA activities and political advocacy on behalf of gun rights. Lauer’s rather soft tone notwithstanding, his objective was clear: he hoped to get Mr. Heston to “do an Atwater.” (Near his death from cancer, the former RNC firebrand recanted some of his campaign tactics as mean-spirited.)
Lauer and his co-host Katie Couric owe part of their immense popularity to the apple pie image they sell to the American public. But in reality they, like most of their liberal, cynical counterparts in the mainstream media, are completely out of touch with a huge segment of the country. Most Americans support gun rights, most Americans are troubled by abortion on demand, most Americans frown on political correctness gone wild, most Americans trust and like President Bush. Most Americans don’t have bodyguards or a spread in the Hamptons.
Of course Charlton Heston didn’t take the Lauer bait and was, as his always is, gracious and gentlemanly. Heston is one of the few remaining of a bygone era in Hollywood, when being “a star” meant something. Today people who read Teleprompters for a living are stars. When they interview other “stars” like Susan Sarandon and Woody Harrelson, they somehow never get around to challenging their left-wing views. Imagine this scenario: Barbra Streisand contracts a terrible disease, appears on the Today Show to raise awareness about the disease. Katie lights in: “Barbra, you have said some really harsh things about Republicans during your career. Any regrets?” It would never happen.
LAUER: What are you most proud of in [the political part] of your life?
Mr. HESTON: I suppose the leadership of the NRA.
LAUER: Why?
Mr. HESTON: I believe in the right to keep and bear arms. Thomas Jefferson and all those smart old dead white guys that invented the country, that's what they were in favor of, and so I'll go with him.
LAUER: Never wavered?
Mr. HESTON: No. Again, I'm on the side of the--the men who invented the country. They believed in the Second Amendment, and I believe in it, too.
LAUER: Let me read, probably, your most famous quote as the head of the NRA, standing in front of the convention one year.
Mr. HESTON: Oh, yes.
LAUER: And if you--well, I'll start it, you finish it. How about that? "As we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of..."
Mr. HESTON: (From NRA convention) ...my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore. From my cold, dead hands!"
From my cold dead hands.
LAUER: Received an enormous reaction.
Mr. HESTON: Yes, it did. It did.
LAUER: Still feel that way?
Mr. HESTON: Yes, I do. Yes, I'm--I'm very proud of the fact that I've been able to be useful to the NRA.
LAUER: You have guns in your home.
Mr. HESTON: Mm-hmm.
LAUER: Is there a concern that if you become of diminished mental capacity that that could be a problem?
Mr. HESTON: If it becomes a problem, then it has to be dealt with, doesn't it? But I don't think it will be.
…
Mr. HESTON: Mm-hmm.
LAUER: "Mr. Clinton, sir, America doesn't trust you..."
Mr. HESTON: (From NRA pulpit) ...with our health-care system. America didn't trust you with gays in the military, America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns.
LAUER: Speaking about a president of the United States here.
Mr. HESTON: I also was pleased to hear that afterwards he said to his followers, after the last election when Mr. Gore was defeated, to his credit, he said, 'It was the NRA and Chuck Heston that did it.'
LAUER: And you're proud of that?
Mr. HESTON: I am.
WORD OF THE WEEK
Flotsam, n. 1. floating wreckage; 2. unimportant, misc. material.
Most congressional inquiries produce roomfuls of flotsam and fluff to produce a file’s worth of conclusions and recommendations.
I keep seeing for and more of this "did you get" verbage. Just WHAT is your point?
LOL!
Limp wristed prisses from coast to coast are bristling with anger at your inclusion of Lauer in their number.
Matt is living proof that some semen should end up in a sink.
I wonder of any of his off-camera duties involve running his cracked and bleeding tongue up the back of a pair of scuffed six inch stiletto heels reeking of equal measures of porno theater floor stikum and foot odor?
That vacant, stupid expression he often parks his face in makes me wonder if he's felt the sweet kiss of the lash and occasionally enjoys reliving the memory of it.
I'm going to disagree with this statement.
I don't believe the major media should be portrayed as anti-gun, since most, if not all, of them are well protected by hired gunmen and even with their own personal guns.
What they should be portrayed as is anti- second ammendment, anti rights.
They oppose the right of the common man to freely own guns as an unregulated right, not the ownership of guns by priveleged individuals or agencies. They do not want to remove guns from society, they want to restrict the ownership of guns to the elite and the various parties that the elite deem worthy of ownership.
While this may seem like word splitting, I think there is a discrimination between being anti-gun and anti-second ammendment. And it is this discrimination that could make the difference in swaying the public opinion on the matter. Most Americans resent being told that they are not the equal of others, that they are not good enough for the priveleges that those on top enjoy as a matter of right. This resentment must be played as a card in the game if we want to win.
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