On Peter King, Chris Matthews and Stupid MSM Coverage

[Annie]

King wins!

http://www.radioblogger.com/#001017

Monday, September 26

The Dallas Mayor of New Orleans.

If I hadn't seen and heard this with my own eyes and ears, I would have thought it was too good to be true. Just about five minutes ago on Wolf-TV, Ray Nagin, the beleaguered Mayor of New Orleans, found himself the subject of an impromptu press conference. After the Congressional testimony today by former FEMA head Michael Brown, in which Nagin's performance during the Katrina crisis was largely criticized, the press wanted to get Nagin's reaction.

Now before I let you in on the audio I heard, let's go back to September 13th, on Fox News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume. Brit reported that it had been learned that Mayor Nagin, a mere week after the storm hit, had moved his family to Dallas, enrolled his daughter in school there, and had already purchased a house in Dallas. He was still going to be the Mayor of New Orleans, but have his primary residence in Dallas. Here's a link to the report from the 13th. We ridiculed that for several days, but it has fallen from the public consciousness. Until today, that is.

During the press conference, the Mayor's cell phone went off during one of his responses. We're sure it is, because it was audibly heard in the microphones pointed at him, and because Mayor Nagin looked down to see who was calling as he answered the question, then ignored it and moved on.

Take a wild guess at what the ring tone on his phone was? A nice cajun number? Blues? Jazz? Zydeco? Nope. It was the theme song to the early 80's prime time CBS drama, Dallas. What do you want to bet it was the wife wanting him to bring home some milk, bread and eggs on his way home this evening? Listen for yourself. Listen for the ring tone. Then think of who shot J.R. You'll recognize it.

09-27nagin-dallasringtone.mp3

What do you suppose people would have said if Rudy Giuliani had "Cleveland Rocks" as his ringtone as they were still cleaning up the mess at Ground Zero?

Posted at 3:01PM PDT

The Medal of Honor Show, Part Two.

As promised, here's another amazing story that stood out among amazing stories. Picture this in your mind as you read it:

HH: I'm joined now by Korean War veteran, Ronald Rosser. Ronald, I want to talk about your Medal of Honor, but first, I've got to tell people that during the break, you were telling me you're a three-generation 101st Airborne family.

RR: That's correct.

HH: Tell people about the two that came after you.

RR: My daughter was in the 101st Airborne during Desert Storm, and my granddaughter spent two years with the 101st Airborne, of which one of them was in Iraq as a combat medic.

HH: And that the family is not only vertically military, it's horizontally military. You're one of 17 children, the oldest son. And you've lost two of your brothers in the service of the United States military. Tell people about them.

RR: I had one brother wounded in action early in the Korean War, and then went back on the line and was killed in action. And I had another brother that was in the 1st Marines in Vietnam, and he was wounded in action, went back on the line, and was killed in action.

HH: So this is really the definition of a military family, Ron. Proud of your service in the military? Is it the defining part of your life?

RR: Oh, yes. I'm happy about it.

HH: Tell us about the action that surrounded your receiving the Medal of Honor.

RR: I'd been in the Army quite a few years when the Korean War broke out. 82nd Airborne for the most part. And the...I was perfectly happy about staying out of it, quite frankly, because I knew what was going to happen. And my kid brother got caught up in it early, and was wounded and then killed in action. So I reenlisted for combat duty in Korea, and the Army, as they always do, they took good care of me. They sent me directly over.

HH: Was that what you wanted?

RR: Yes, sir. That's exactly what I wanted.

HH: It says in this portrait of you that when you returned, you told your mother that you had avenged your brother's death.

RR: I tried.

HH: And what was her feeling of sending at least three...did any of your other brothers or sisters go in the military.

RR: Oh, yes. They did.

HH: Of the 17?

RR: Yeah. All my brothers but one was in the military. The one that was killed in Vietnam was an identical twin, and his brother was the only one that didn't go in the military. So we pretty much hung around the military one way or another.

HH: Okay, let's talk a little bit about January 12th, 1952. What was going on that day?

RR: I was attached to Love Company, 38th Infantry. I was a forward observer, and my job as a forward observer, was to call in offensive and defensive fires to protect the company. And we jumped off...there was 170 of us that jumped off that day.

HH: You mean we began an attack?

RR: Just fighting our way out to where we were going. We had to fight for about two miles just to get there. And we were going to assault this mountain, and the...I was with the lead platoon, and they were just ahead of me, and all at once, there was some heavy firing, and every one of them but one had been killed. They had got ambushed close in. The Chinese had overrun them, and hit them real fast. And so myself, and the company commander, led the next platoon directly into it. And...by the way, on the way out, we had lost probably another fifty men just getting there. So we was losing men pretty fast, and we lost all of our officers, we lost all of our sergeants, all of our corporals. And by the time we'd got to what I call assaulting position, we were down to about 35 men, counting the walking wounded, out of 170. And I got on my radio. I had the only radio left to the outside world. And I got on my radio, and I called back to my regimental commander, and I gave him a situation report down to 35 effectives, about out of ammunition, request orders. And he wanted to talk to an officer. I was a corporal, and he wasn't too interested in talking to a corporal. And so I drug my radio over to the company commander, who himself had already been wounded badly, and told him there that the Colonel wanted to talk to him. So I had the Colonel...told him to reorganize and make one final attempt to take his objective.

HH: You're down to 35 out of 170 men?

RR: Yes, sir. We were facing three battalions of Chinese. About 1,500 Chinese, not counting the ones we had already killed, and we killed a lot of them. Anyhow, the Captain there, he talked to the Colonel, and the Colonel told him to make the assault. He said yes, sir, and handed me back the mike. And I was watching the Captain, and he got a hopeless look on his face. And he looked just awful. And so I don't know what happened to me. I was talking, I was trying not to talk, and I heard myself say I'll take them up for you, Captaint. And the Captain said how are you going to do it? And I said, I'm going straight in shooting, Captain. And he looked up there, and the Chinese, you could see a big line of them waiting on us, about 200 Chinese waiting on us. And there was five heavy machine guns directly in front of us, and he said you're not going to make it. And I said well, we'll try. And so, I took those men straight into that hornet's nest, and when I got to the Chinese trench, I stopped and looked back, and I was by myself. And all the men that had been with me had got cut down. And so I had went through a lot of trouble to get there, and so I said well, you went through a lot of trouble, Ron. It's time to pay the fiddlers. So I let out a war whoop, and jumped in the trench with the Chinese. And I engaged 8 Chinese. They were crouched down with sub-machine guns. I engaged all 8 of them and killed them. Took out a machine gun nest with a white phosphorous grenade, shot a couple of guys that crawled out on fire. Went around the corner and engaged about 35 more Chinese in close combat, until I just really ran out of ammunition. And so I went back down the mountain to where the rest of the company was, or what was left of it, and took one wounded man with me, and got him back under cover, started scrounging around, getting me more hand grenades and magazines, and slung my rifle around my shoulder, and had about thirteen hand grenades hanging on me, and I had two in my hands. I had pulled the pins on both of them, holding the spoons down. And I turned about and started dog-trotting back up the hill toward the Chinese, and they couldn't believe what they were seeing. And I was charging straight up there toward them, in kind of a dogtrot up the hill. And they just stood there and looked at me. They couldn't believe that one man was coming up the mountain, so I just kept watching them. And finally, one of them raised his rifle to shoot me, and I threw my first hand grenade. Instead of shooting me, they all looked up to see where the grenade was going. And it went right in the trench with them, and it caused quite a bit of commotion, so as I went across the trench, I kicked the spoon on the second grenade, and dropped it in on top of the Chinese that was still kicking. And there was two big bunkers I was after, and I shot my way through the Chinese to the first bunker. And the Chinese were trying to come out the door to get me, and I was firing through the bunker door, and drove them back in. And I crawled over to the door, walked over to the door, really, and just backed up to it, threw a white phosphorous hand grenade in.

HH: Did they all run away at that point? We've got like thirty seconds left.

RR: They wasn't running away.

HH: Did you get some help from the guys down the hill at this point?

RR: No, sir. Nobody ever made it up on top. And I ended up taking the mountain three times, really, by myself. I was just lucky.

HH: Not lucky, courageous.

RR: Just lucky.

End of interview.

Posted at 2:00AM PDT

The Medal of Honor Show, Part One.

If you missed any of the Hugh Hewitt Show today, shame on you. It may have been the most interesting shows we've ever done. Every year, the surviving members of the Congressional Medal Of Honor Society, recipients of this nation's highest honor, meet. Hugh had the great privilege of being able to broadcast from Phoenix, home of this years conference, and got to meet and interview true American heroes, one right after another, for three straight hours. I could try to transcribe all of it, but I won't. There is a book available with the stories and the pictures, that is something you must obtain. It's called Medal Of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty. These men were all outstanding individuals, but there were two stories that were just amazing. Here's the first one.

HH: Joined now by a couple of men who fought at familiar places. Woody Williams, that's Hershel Williams. Woody was on Iwo Jima. Walt Ehlers at Omaha Beach on Normandy. Medal of Honor recipients both. Gentlemen, welcome. It's good to have you here. Let's start with you, Walt. I understand you're the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient of Omaha Beach?

WE: Not at Omaha Beach, Medal of Honor recipient of the Normandy campaign.

HH: Of the entire campaign?

WE: Yeah.

HH: Oh. How many other recipients were there for that action that day?

WE: Well, between the 6th and the 12th, there were ten Medal of Honor recipients, that were authorized. And only two of us survived, and that was Carlton Barrett and myself.

HH: And what was the events that day? What happened to you?

WE: Well, I didn't get mine for the D-Day, though.

HH: What did...describe it for us.

WE: I got mine inland, 9th and 10th of June, but I did land on D-Day with...actually the first wave got pinned down. They needed more troops on the beach immediately. So the Higgins boat came back and picked us up off of the boat, and took us in. And we landed amongst the chaos on the beach with the guys pinned down.

HH: Did you go back for the 60th Anniversary?

WE: Yes I did.

HH: And Woody, Iwo Jima just had its 60th Commemoration as well. Were you there for any of those?

WW: Yes I was. I was in Fredericksburg, Texas, for the 60th. And we had a re-enactment of the assault on Mount Surabachi. Very realistic and outstanding exercise.

HH: Woody, how many Medal of Honor recipients in the Iwo campaign?

WW: 27.

HH: And many of them still here with us today?

WW: No, there's 3 of us surviving. There were 13 that survived Iwo.

HH: Tell us about your day that day, or for the...surrounding the events of your battle.

WW: Well, we had been there two or three days, and they had...the reports say 800 pillboxes that had been built. You know what a pillbox is?

HH: Yes, sir.

WW: Okay. Lots of people think it's what Papa carries his pills in, but it's really a concrete bunker in today's language.

HH: And you don't want one in front of you, do you?

WW: No.

HH: Okay.

WW: But they were protecting, basically, the airfield. And they were keeping us from going forward. We were losing a lot of Marines. So I...when I landed, I had six flamethrower, demolition people in my unit. I was a lowly corporal at that time. All those other guys were PFC's and privates, so I could order them around. And the CO asked me if I might be able to do something about some of the pillboxes, because he, as well as the rest of us, were confused. And we knocked out a few pillboxes, and opened up a hole, and we moved through.

HH: And you kept fighting for the rest of the day as well?

WW: Absolutely.

HH: Under extraordinary fire. I read the citation in the book. You're understanding it, Woody, but that's...I'm afraid I'm going to get that a lot today.

HH: Walt, which unit were you with?

WE: I was with the 18th Infantry Regimen, 1st Infantry Division.

HH: And whose command was that under?

WE: Bradley's.

con'td part 2

 

[Annie]

part 2

HH: Okay. And so, what happened to you...events surrounding for which you received the Medal of Honor?

WE: That happened on the 9th and 10th of June. However on the night of the 7th of June, our unit was overrun by a German patrol. And they sent me out on a patrol to follow this unit that went through us. We couldn't fire on them, because we'd have been firing on our own troops. So it took four men, and we went out, and we followed them down this hedge road, and it was just dark as it can be on both sides. And we got down the road a ways. We discovered a briefcase that they had lost while they were running away from us. And then we picked that up, and we went about a mile further, and told the guys we've went far enough. We don't even know where we're going, and we knew nothing about the terrain or anything. So we turned around and came back, and got back to our unit, and gave the briefcase to the commanding officers. And they took it to Battalion, and they opened it up, and they found the second and third lines of defenses. So on the 9th of June, when we were making an attack, we started out across a field headed towards enemy positions that were on these maps. And as we started across, we were attacked...the platoon on our left was attacked my enemy machine gun...and the enemy firing on them. And we were out in the middle of a field, so I rushed my men up to the hedgerow in front of us, because I knew we didn't want to go back. And then I went down the hedgerow to see where the machine gun was, and as I was going up the hedgerow, I ran into an enemy patrol. And they were just from about here to the wall from me.

HH: About fifteen feet.

WE: Yeah. And I was just looking at them, and they had their guns pointed at me, and so I had to shoot them all, because they were still firing their machine gun up there. And so I went on up the hedgerow. I came out of the hedgerow, and knocked all the three guys off of the machine gun. And then went up...were were going on up the hedgerow, and there was another machine gun firing across the field. And so I did the same thing, and got up there and knocked them out. And I knew there was a clearing up on the hedgerow behind them. And so I'd had my men fix their bayonettes when I was that close to the first group of men. So when I ran up on there, and I had my bayonette fixed, and these Germans had two of those large mortar positions...they had about twelve men in there. And when they saw me with my bayonette, they got wide-eyed, and they started running, and so I had to shoot them. And of course, the squad came up with me and joined in, and shot them all. And then, we went on up the...

HH: That's a good day's work, Walt.

WE: That's just the beginning.

HH: Did you get to go home then? Or did you have to fight on the rest of Europe?

WE: I didn't get the Medal of Honor until December of '44, and I read about it in the Stars and Stripes.

HH: That's amazing.

Posted at 1:00AM PDT

Rep. Peter King to MSNBC's Chris Matthews: Just because the president doesn't watch you on television, it doesn't mean he's not doing his job.

The New York Congressman did a double appearance on Hardball this afternoon. The first time, he pretaped an appearance with Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, and it ended with King landing a right cross to Matthews. Matthews started his show today ringing the Halliburton 4-alarm bell. He is floored that Halliburton is getting contracts in relief work, and still is working under the illusion that non-kooks know anything at all about Halliburton. Here's the first round of a 4 round fight:

09-26king-matthews-1.mp3

PK: Let me tell you, Chris. Mike Chertoff is with the president every step of the way. I met with Secretary Chertoff. Mike Chertoff has been with the president each stage over the last several days. He was there in the planning. I was with him last week when he was involved with the planning. He's been with President Bush at every stage. And Chris, there's sort of a frenzy here by the media. Let's not forget the incompetence of the mayor of New Orleans. the Governor in New Orleans. They were the ones in the first instance you were required to do the job, and they didn't. As far as President Bush, it's wrong for you to say he wasn't caring. He certainly was caring. But what he was not equipped for was to explain for the incompetency of local officials, or to explain the hysteria, or anticipate the hysteria created by you in the media, who go off the deep end. Let's treat this with a little rationality, and a little bit of decency.

BT: Well, Chris, let me give you a little...

CM: You can make that charge, but the fact is that most people trust the media on this story, because the pictures of what was happening down there in New Orleans apparently got to them before they heard of any federal action. But go ahead.

PK: Chris, you are totally distorting reality, and that's the problem with you. You're distorting reality. You're wrong on this story. You and MSNBC are carried away with this. You should be ashamed of yourself. You've disgraced yourself and the media.

Round 1 - King. Landing a face shot at the closing bell that buckles the knees wins the round. When the show went live, Matthews didn't want to let that charge go unanswered, so he invited King to come back and do the second segment live. Here's more:

09-26king-matthews.mp3

CM: You said a moment ago before the break that we're guilty of, let me get the words, of hyping this thing, of hysteria, of creating a hysteria about this, of totally distorting reality in our coverage of the hurricane and the damage done in the South. Do you want to go on on that?

PK: I'm not talking about distorting the damage. I'm talking about distorting President Bush's role. Somehow, this was almost entirely blamed on him. That was a certain impression given by the media from the very first moment, when the levees broke. And you had Andrea Mitchell on talking about how that was because President Bush didn't put enough money into the water projects in Louisiana, or the levee control projects, when it turns out that he put more money in, in his first five years, than Bill Clinton did in his last five years. And no state gets more money in the country than Louisiana does. And use that as an example, and then go right through. There was much more focus put on what President Bush was supposedly not doing, when the fact is it was the mayor who didn't provide the trucks, the buses to evacuate the people, sent the people to the Superdome without adequate food or water. And then also, there's the governor. The governor of Louisiana, and I was down there last week, she said every report that was done before this, said that a storm of this magnitude would kill 20,000 people. The fact is, so far there's less than 800. Every death is tragic, but why isn't your story less than 4% of those who were supposed to have been killed were not killed, because of the efforts of the federal government? The Coast Guard, remember, is part of Homeland Security. They were in the very first day rescuing thousands and thousands of people. That's just an example of the distortion. It's continuing today, the way you're questioning the contracts, assuming something is wrong when the president is fully following the law.

Round 2 - King - Matthews had three chances to step in and counter, but let him go. Solid body blows throughout the round. Here's the next interchange.

09-26king-matthews-3.mp3

CM: Well, let me go into a couple of things here. First of all, do you believe that the president was on top of this matter from the time after the hurricane hit, Hurricane Katrina hit? Do you think it's fair to give the guy good ratings for the way he responded?

PK: I think it's good to give him at least adequate ratings, because he was relying on what everyone, including Page 1 of the New York Times said, which was that New Orleans had ducked the storm. It wasn't until Tuesday that we realized how bad the situation was. And by then, the president had no way of knowing that the New Orleans Police and Fire Departments were going to disappear, that the governor wasn't going to adequately use the National Guard, and that the mayor had not put sufficient water and food into the Superdome. It takes a good 36 to 48 hours to move troops, the amount that were necessary, to provide relief in the Superdome.

Round 3 - King. Okay, so maybe Matthews' strategy so far is to let King punch himself out in the early rounds, and come back later. Mistake.

09-26king-matthews-4.mp3

CM: Look, first of all, Peter, Congressman, let's get a couple of things straight. I have been very tough on the mayor. I've talked about the schoolbuses being left behind to be flooded. If I have said a good thing about Governor Blanco, I can't remember it. But I want to ask you about the President of the United States, because most people watching right now get to vote for president. They vote for President Bush, and he's the majority...he won most of the votes. He's president. And they want to think about how good a job he's doing in his second term. Let me ask you. Weren't you dismayed, I was, when I read that the president had to be shown a DVD, a recording of all the press coverage, television coverage, of the hell going on down there with those people stuck at the convention center, on his way down to visit New Orleans?

PK: I think it's important that he see the way the media is covering it, but the fact is the president...

CM: No, no, no. Let me ask you. Weren't you dismayed as a Republican Congressman, that the President of the United States didn't watch television for all those 48 hours? That he had to be shown a picture of what we'd all been watching? One of the reasons these people are volunteering is because of what they saw on television. I'm very proud of the media this last couple of weeks. We're not always perfect, but I've got to tell you something. The latest polling shows almost 80% of the American people say the media has done a fabulous job in handling this hurricane, because it's the pictures that people have seen on television, in their homes, that have alerted them to this tragedy. And maybe to a large extent, push the politicians to move a little faster.

PK: Now the fact is, Chris, you guys are giving yourselves too much credit. You guys dwell in self-congratulation. The fact is, the media's shots were distortive...

CM: No. It's rare that we have anything to congratulate...

PK: No. If you...most...

CM: Most of the time, people give us...let me ask you about this. Congress...let's get back to...

PK: Wait, wait. Let me...

CM: Okay.

PK: Chris, you won't give me a chance to answer the questions. Just because the president doesn't watch you on television, it doesn't mean he's not doing his job. You know, Franklin Roosevelt wasn't hired to listen to radio accounts of D-Day. You're hired to do the job, and the president can do his job without having to listen to Chris Matthews or Andrea Mitchell or Tim Russert, or any of the others. He is doing his job. Now I agree the military should have been brought in sooner, but that was primarily the fault of the local government not being more responsive, and then the president did the best he could. Could he have been there a few hours earlier? Perhaps. But nowhere near the criticism he's getting from you people.

Round 4 - Thud. Matthews hits the canvas hard after the knockout blow by King. The ref waives off the fight. The doc is in the ring hovering over Matthews. The smelling salts come out. Matthews spent the rest of the segment in a stupor, trying to regain composure, repeating Halliburton over and over again with his speech still a little slurred.

Congressman King, very nice line. Probably the line of the week. You have made Lt. Gen. Honore' proud.

Chris Matthews, you should know what is coming next. You are stuck on stupid!

Posted at 5:31PM PDT