The Real Radio Hatemongers
Table of Contents:
Introduction
When liberals are out of power, their slogan is: “Dissent is
patriotic.” But when liberals are in charge, they do not seem
especially inhibited about discrediting and demonizing conservative
critics, especially when conservatives are winning the battle of public
opinion. With the Obama administration and big government liberals now
facing potentially devastating midterm elections, conservative talk
radio once again finds itself alongside the Tea Party at the top of
liberals’ 2010 hit list.
This is nothing new. For two decades,
conservative radio hosts have been under assault from the establishment
media as mean-spirited, divisive and a menace to civil discourse.
After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Bryant Gumbel smarmily insinuated
that conservative broadcasters were the real villains: “Never do most
of the radio hosts encourage outright violence, but the extent to which
their attitudes may embolden and encourage some extremists has clearly
become an issue.” Then-CBS anchor Dan Rather smeared: “You can turn on
your radio in any city and still dial up hate talk: extremist, racist
and violent rhetoric, from the hosts and those who call in.”
A dozen years later, ex-NBC Nightly News
anchor Tom Brokaw was still hammering away: “The problem with talk
radio is they mock anyone else’s point of view, and they do it often in a
mindless fashion....We’ve lost the ability to have civil discourse in
America, and it’s a big cancer on our political system as well.”
When
conservative hosts say something that liberals want to paint as out of
bounds — or when the Left falsifies quotes to impugn them — the news
media seize the opportunity to stoke the fires of outrage. Journalists
also have no problem heaping epithets on individual hosts. Sean Hannity
is a “conservative junkyard dog,” according to CBS’s Morley Safer. Mark
Levin is an “angry voice” speaking to “the wingnuts,” MSNBC’s Chris
Matthews claimed. Time’s Joe Klein blasted both Hannity and Glenn
Beck as “poisonous helium balloons” who peddle “hateful crap.” When
radio host Bill Cunningham dared call then-presidential candidate Barack
Hussein Obama by his full name in 2008, CNN’s Anderson Cooper branded
it “sleazy campaigning” from “a two-bit radio host.”
The
fiercest attacks have been aimed at the leader of the pack, Rush
Limbaugh. CNN’s Jack Cafferty took to the airwaves to slam Limbaugh as
“that corpulent Oxycontin aficionado of right-wing talk radio,” while
MSNBC’s Matthews disparaged him as a “human vat of vitriol.” New York Times
online columnist Judith Warner indicted the supposedly intemperate
language of conservative hosts for the Holocaust museum shooting: “You
can’t accuse Beck or Limbaugh of inciting violence. But they almost
certainly do stoke the flames.” In October 2009, both CNN and MSNBC
jumped to attack Limbaugh as a racist after the Left circulated a
made-up quote of the host supposedly praising the merits of slavery.
The
impression left by such “reporting” is that conservatives are
befouling the nation’s airwaves while liberals seek only to enlighten.
This spring, longtime CNN and MSNBC political commentator Bill Press
(who now hosts his own morning radio show) detailed the critique of
conservative radio in his book, Toxic Talk: How the Radical Right Has Poisoned America’s Airwaves.
Press charged that conservative radio has “an extremely corrosive
impact on our public discourse: engaging in personal attacks, spreading
lies, fanning the flames of bigotry, and slamming the door on
legitimate differences of opinion....The genie of right-wing talk,
unleashed by Limbaugh and his compatriots, is destroying our democratic
process.”
Instead of talk radio dominated by “ugly
name-calling” from “today’s ministers of hate on the right,” Press
suggested an uplifting liberal version: “I believe talk radio should
inform, not inflame. I think it should entertain, not demean. I think
it should elevate political discourse, not debase it.” The thought
echoed Mario Cuomo, who attempted a radio show of his own after losing
the New York governorship in 1994: “We [liberals] believe in subtlety.
We believe in telling the whole truth. We don’t want to exaggerate.
They [conservatives] write their message with crayons. We use
fine-point quills.”
So liberal talk radio elevates discourse,
using fine-point quills? The Media Research Center has recorded and
tracked the radio shows of several top national liberals since late
2007. In that time, left-wing hosts have: wished for the death of top
conservatives; called Republicans and conservatives “terrorists”
responsible for the 9/11 attacks; and charged that conservatives want
to kill President Obama.
Host Mike Malloy — a onetime CNN news
writer and producer — has “joked” that conservatives feast on the blood
of children, and wished for Rush Limbaugh to “choke to death on his
own throat fat.” Ed Schultz called Dick Cheney “an enemy of the
country” and hoped he would die: “Lord, take him to the Promised Land,
will you?” Randi Rhodes accused Republicans of “acts of treason” and of
wanting to “let people drown in hurricanes.” Montel Williams (whose
program ceased in early 2010 with the bankruptcy of the Air America
network) invited Republican Representative Michele Bachmann to slit her
own throat: “Start right at the collarbone.”
Yet the “news”
media that have gone out of their way to demonize conservative hosts
have had virtually nothing to say about the vile and vicious rhetoric
that spills forth from the Left’s leading radio talk show hosts. MSNBC
even gave Ed Schultz his own program in 2009, bringing his extremist
rhetoric to an even wider audience.
And liberals like Bill Press
don’t seem at all bothered by the vitriol emanating from his side of
the airwaves. In the acknowledgments of Toxic Talk, Press went
out of his way to praise his liberal comrades: “There may not be many
national progressive talk show hosts, but the few who do broadcast
every day are world-class. I’m proud to be in the company of Ed Schultz,
Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Ron Reagan, and Mike
Malloy — and I’m in awe of their strong voices on the air.”
It’s
hypocritical for liberals like Press to attack conservatives for
supposed poor behavior on the airwaves while applauding “progressive”
hosts who act far worse. And it’s journalistic malpractice for news
reporters to tout the virtues of civility on the airwaves and say
nothing about the vicious rhetoric spewing from left-wing media.
What
follows is a listing of some of the most outrageous quotes from radio
hosts that the MRC has collected since late 2007. And, unlike the
Left’s concocted smears against Rush Limbaugh,
every single one of these quotes have been documented: The report that
follows includes an audio clip (or, in a few cases, a video clip) of
each quote cited.
