Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in the studio to review Joe Biden’s and George W. Bush’s divisive comments during their 9/11 commemorative speech in Shanksville, Pennsylvania last Saturday.
Leahy: In studio by our good friend, mayor of Maury County, Andy Ogles. Maury County is of course that bastion of freedom and the turbocharged engine of economic growth. I had to get that in!
Ogles: That’s right.
Leahy: Had to get it in.
Ogles: And, of course, I’m biased, right. But things are hopping down there. The real estate market, new businesses, small businesses opening. We were firing on all cylinders prior to COVID and before COVID.
And then, of course, COVID hits and really everything, there was a big hiccup in the economy. And in some areas of the country, those economies stalled. And I’ve worked really hard to keep Maury County open for business, encouraging people to be personally responsible.
And that side effect has been that we really never slowed down except for that initial kind of hesitation in March and April. Once May came around and June and people were looking for things to do we put up the “we’re open for business” sign out. And it’s been nonstop since.
Leahy: Let me bring up this poll here, and it’s a troubling issue that I see going on in America right now. If you listen to the legal but not legitimate current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Joe Biden, when he can put a complete sentence together, it doesn’t always happen.
He gave that recorded speech the day before 9/11 20th anniversary commemoration, and he said the biggest lesson of 9/11 was the need for unity. That’s his theme. Unity. Unity Unity. What does that mean?
In Joe Biden’s world, unity means everybody becomes an authoritarian Democrat like him. And that’s what unity is. Unity means people sacrifice their views and submit, bend the knee, if you will, to the totalitarian policies of the Biden administration and Democrats.
I see something very troubling in America and I want to get your reaction. Here’s a poll. We have it at The Tennessee Star. This is a new Scott Rasmussen poll. Headline: Democrats See Trump Supporters Unvaccinated as Big a Threat Than Taliban or China.
And you look at that and say, are you kidding me? I don’t think so. Here’s the story by Sophie Mann. A majority of Democratic voters believe that supporters of former President Trump and unvaccinated Americans pose a bigger threat to the nation than the Taliban or China.
Among Democrats, 57 percent believe that Trump supporters are a serious threat to the nation, and 56 percent believe the same about unvaccinated individuals. By comparison, only 44 percent see the Taliban and China as a serious threat.
And just 37 percent see Russia as a serious threat. Among Democrats, 20 percent see illegal immigrants as a serious threat.
And 24 percent think the same of defund the police activists. This is crazy. How can you have unity in a country when this is the way most Democrats look at Trump supporters?
Ogles: Wow, there’s a lot to unpack there. Everything from starting at Joe Biden speeches to again, the poll itself. But I think that’s the problem with the left. First off, actions speak louder than words. They talk about unity. But when they say unity, they mean compliance.
Leahy: Exactly.
Ogles: Because if you exactly agree with them, then you are the enemy. And so anyone someone who would even imply that someone that’s unvaccinated or someone that supports Trump is somehow worse than Al Qaeda or the Taliban or China, for that matter, clearly is ignorant, if not outright stupid.
Because you don’t understand foreign policy. You don’t understand the realities of geopolitics. You don’t understand what’s really happening in the Middle East or the way China perceives the West. And for you to say that or to make that statement really just illustrates your stupidity.
Leahy: Let me even go a bit further here on this. It struck me as just a very, very bad statement. I don’t know if you saw this, but did you see former President George W. Bush’s comments at Shanksville, on the 20th anniversary of 9/11?
Did you see those comments? Let me read the comment to you and then his spokesperson and get your reaction. This is what former President George W. Bush said at Shanksville, which is where Flight 93 crashed on 9/11.
“There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and those at home, but in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols they are children of the same foul spirit and it is our duty to confront them.”
Most people who heard those comments took that as a criticism of Trump supporters and also of the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Just the News asked a spokesperson for Bush if he was referring to the January 6 riot. Here’s what he said. The spokesperson.
“Those comments were certainly inclusive, but not definitely exclusive to January 6. Rather, all forms of extremism attacks on schools and synagogues, on Blacks and Asians, etc.” That’s what Bush’s spokesperson said he meant by those comments. Your reaction?
Ogles: I would want to hear the comments, but extremism can be dangerous, especially when extremism is converted into or becomes violent. I never was a fan of Obama, didn’t like his policies. His voice made my blood pressure go up. (Leahy laughs)
But at the end of the day, he was still president of the United States, and I can respect him as president, even though I may even have some disdain for him as an individual as far as his policies go. But it’s not a personal thing.
And that’s this divide that we’re in right now. I had a meeting yesterday with someone who’s on the other side of the political divide. And it was a very friendly meeting. And we joked about the fact that we were from a different political cloth and that we could agree to disagree and then go have lunch.
Leahy: Did he tell you that you had to be unified with his view?
Ogles: No. And that’s the point. What happened to civility? And look when you look at the Constitution when you look at what our founding fathers intended. William Penn talked about religious freedom and what would become Pennsylvania.
This is a religious experiment. It was a state of Quakers, but it tolerated other religions. And so now here we are where the left expects you to bend to their will or you’re the enemy.
The Constitution, and we’ve had this conversation before. If you’re from California, California has the right to be socialist or communist and liberal. But Tennessee has the right to be conservative and to be religious.
And that’s what’s been lost in this dialogue is the Constitution allows you to be you, and it allows me to be me. And if you don’t like me, then that’s your problem, not mine.
Leahy: I agree with that. (Ogles chuckles) And who wouldn’t like Andy Ogles, Mayor of Maury County? (Chuckles)Â
Ogles: I tend to be plain-spoken. It is what it is. But we can disagree and that we can go have lunch, we have a beer, we can have a coffee. That’s okay. But suddenly that you’re going to attack me or try to cancel me or I’m going to try to cancel you, we’re not in a good place.
And I think a lot of this is driven by the media, but a lot of it is driven by these politicians who are more concerned with power and control than they are for the overall well-being of our nation. And we’re in a scary time.
Leahy: It’s interesting you mentioned the Constitution. We’ll talk about this a little bit in the next segment. This is Constitution Week. On September 17, 1787, Ben Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia after they convened and after everybody signed the Constitution.
All the 55 delegates signed it. He stepped out. And according to the legendary story, Mrs. Powell, who was kind of a big socialite in Philadelphia, asked Ben Franklin, what sir have you given us?
And his response was, a Republic if you can keep it. And that’s the rub, isn’t it? Can we keep it? We’ll talk about that and more after this
Listen to the second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
