Quick Hits Page
November 04, 2015

Stabber in Tony Coelho's Hometown Stopped by Guy with Gun

RUSH: Five students have been the victim of a stabbing spree on the University of California at Merced campus. What's Merced famous for, Mr. Snerdley? Tony Coelho. Tony Coelho was from Merced. (interruption) Yeah, in fact I was just thinking about this the other day, in relationship to how difficult it is to convince people, change their minds about things.

Back in the early days of this program, you know, Coelho was one of the powers that be in the House, and he was... I don't know. Coelho was one of the guys in 1994 during the campaign who said, "Newt's never gonna be speaker! Newt thinks he's gonna be speaker? Newt's never going to be. The Republicans are never gonna win." He ran the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, and he had to resign. He had to resign because of the usual reasons politicians have to resign. They found some stuff that wasn't cool.

Barbara Walters was hosting Nightline the day that Coelho resigned, and honest to God, folks, she opened the program -- I forget who her first guest was, but it was another Democrat -- and she actually asked, "Can we go on? Can we go on?" Meaning the country. We've lost Tony Coelho! Can we go on? And of course the guest said, "Well, it's gonna be really hard, Barbara, but we're all gonna do our best here." But that's not the reason I mention it. There was a local radio host, one of our California affiliates.

I don't remember even which one yet, but the program was new and I was doing what I did. I was exposing liberals when I found them. It had never happened before. You know, that's one of the aspects this program being new. The only thing that happened in the news about politicians was when Republicans were called out, when Republicans were caught doing something unethical or illegal or cheating. It just never happened to Democrats unless the Democrat happened to be someone the other Democrats wanted to get rid of.

But it was this program that exposed Jim Wright, the Fort Worthless Jim Wright, the speaker of the House and what a... Well, it's no reason to wonder why they hate me, bottom line. But the point is that one of these local hosts had become friendly with Coelho over the years. He was a routine guest, and just could not believe any of this that I happened to be saying about Coelho. And it caused a rift. It almost caused me to lose the affiliate. I forget which it was, but I had a fairly good relationship with them.

It was the afternoon drive-by. I had a fairly good relationship with the guy, and this caused a rift. And he was... Back in the early days, people weren't sure they wanted to carry a national show in the daytime. It was all kind of obstacles we had to overcome. And I remember when it became clear that I had not been making anything up, this guy had Coelho on his show and asked him point-blank and Coelho wouldn't deny any of it, and it was a disaster for this poor guy, 'cause he just loved him. It wasn't even about partisan politics.

He just loved Coelho. He was just a good friend, was a local congressman and all that stuff. He just... None of it... My point was that when people get tied to political figures, no matter how earth-shattering the truth, it's tough sometimes to get them to see the truth. It's not just true in politics. If you have... There are personal relationship examples. Like if you know a married couple and one of them's doing something, or you don't know and somebody tells you that it's going on. You don't want to believe it, and you won't believe it 'til you get proof.

Even after you get proof, you don't want to believe it. So my point is it's really difficult here to permeate the kind of relationships that Democrats have built up, particularly in the media, as in Barbara Walters, can we go on? Can the House survive? And she was not trying to be funny or melodramatic or any of this. I remember being incredulous when I watched it. I could not believe it. It was like there was a genuine disaster, like half the country had died or been defeated in a war. "Can we overcome it?" Anyway, that has nothing to do with what happened.

What happened was, there's been a stabbing out there. "Five students were the victim of a stabbing spree on the University of California Merced campus." And the point is that the stabbing spree was stopped when they guy with the knife was shot by the guy with the gun. Isn't that how it always happens? And here we were... This is a gun-free zone, by the way, I'm sure. It's a California university. So since it's a gun-free zone, the criminal says, "You know what?

"They can't take a gun so I'm gonna take a knife," and he got away with stabbing five people, until somebody showed up with a gun. By the way, the University of California at Merced "is the newest campus in the University of California system, and it's known for its science and tech orientation." Yeah, the guy with the gun happened to be a cop. The guy with the gun that shot the stabber, the guy with the knife, happened to be a cop. Okay.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-merced-stabbing-20151104-story.html