During a live midnight EST hour Larry King Live Tuesday
night/Wednesday morning, CNN's Larry King repeatedly employed the "far
right" pejorative to describe those who backed the unsuccessful New
York congressional bid of the Conservative Party's Doug Hoffman. After
Wolf Blitzer announced at 12:15 AM EST that CNN had declared Democrat
Bill Owens the winner, King blurted: "That may be the first defeat for the far right tonight."
About 15 minutes later, King pressed Amanda Carpenter of the Washington Times: "Since the far right did get into that race in upstate New York, is this a legitimate defeat for them tonight?"
And a few minutes after that, King forwarded the notion "the far right" is a "threat" to the GOP, asking Ben Stein: "Do you see the far right as evidenced by - we all know who they are - as a threat to your party?"
Stein filled in the names as he rejected the premise: "Not at all.
Not in the slightest. I think you're talking about people like my
wonderful friend Ann Coulter and my wonderful friend Rush Limbaugh. I
think those people are activating the party, they are keeping the party
alive..."
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center