Shep Smith on right-wing crazies

Unbiased media?

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Shep Smith attacks right-wing 'crazies'
Rips people questioning eligibility as being 'out there in a scary place'

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Posted: June 10, 2009
8:30 pm Eastern


By Joe Kovacs
© 2009 WorldNetDaily



Fox News' Shepard Smith

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, host of the top-rated evening cable newscast, believes Americans challenging the eligibility of Barack Obama to hold the office of president are "crazies," saying "there is no truth whatsoever" to the suggestion Obama is not a "natural born citizen."

Smith made the remark during analysis of today's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where an elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle, killing a security guard before himself being shot. Police were probing an alleged white supremacist, James von Brunn, as the assailant.

During his interview with Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Smith said:

"There are these crazies out there who want to pretend [Obama's] not a citizen of the United States, who want to pretend that his religion is something they see as in some way troublesome to them and all of us. And there is a group perpetuating this thought, and there is a culture to which you can attach yourself very easily through the Internet. ... We know it's absolutely – there is no truth whatsoever – zero – to any of those ideas, yet they live within the computer and they fester in people's minds."

Beirich agreed completely with Smith's remarks, as she responded:

"You're hitting the nail on the head about these kinds of crazed conspiracies whether they're about the president, or we're hearing things like FEMA setting up camps to round up Americans and put them in. I'm getting bad sort of deja-vu from the 1990s when anti-government militias were on the rise, when Tim McVeigh committed that [bombing] in Oklahoma City and I really am hoping that we're not going through a repeat of that."

Are you motivated yet to join the billboard campaign and clear up the air of mystery surrounding Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve?

Smith made numerous references to a Department of Homeland Security report warning of potential violence from "right-wing extremists," and said he's been personally disturbed by an increase in e-mail to him from people "who are way out there on a limb ... out there in a scary place."

He read what he called a representative message that asked, "How dare you tell us to get over the birth certificate ... ?"


Shepard Smith's 2000 mugshot

Ironically, Smith himself allegedly engaged in activity some might deem "out there in a scary place."

As WND reported in November 2000, during the Florida presidential election fiasco, Smith was arrested for allegedly driving his Mazda Millenia into another reporter who was standing in a parking space she attempted to save for a friend. The victim, freelance journalist Maureen Walsh of Tallahassee, was hospitalized and released later the same day with bruises on her knees and legs.

The St. Petersburg Times reported Tallahassee Police Sgt. Edwin Maxwell said Smith drove up and "shouted some profanities at her and basically just struck her, striking her at the knees, which threw her up on the car."

According to NewsBlues, a witness to the incident said Smith "intentionally ran into her with his car to try and get her to move from the parking spot. She was thrown onto the hood of the car and ended up on the ground. Smith then parked the car, turned off the engine, turned to the crews assisting the reporter and said "f--- you" and walked into the state capital. Police and paramedics were called."

"When arrested on the street outside the capital, Smith said he couldn't understand why this was happening ... they then handcuffed him."

Smith was charged with a felony the day of the offense, but it was later downgraded to a misdemeanor and eventually dropped.

Two hours after Smith's TV remarks about "crazies,", his network colleague Glenn Beck said of the shooting in Washington, "This is not the work of right-wing conservatives."

"This guy is a lone gunman nut job," Beck said. "I'm not stirring the pot. I am pointing out that the pot is boiling and there is trouble in America. ... Common sense tells you that there are very hateful people on the right and on the left."

The museum guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, died in the hospital. Von Brunn, 89, was listed in critical condition.

Nationwide attention about President Obama's lack of producing a long-form birth certificate proving his eligibility for office got a boost today when top-rated radio host Rush Limbaugh joked about the subject in comparing Obama to God.

Asking rhetorically what God has in common with Obama, Limbaugh said, "Neither has a birth certificate."