Criticism, constructive and otherwise — or talk radio can serve us better

Loading

Bookworm:

During the past week, whenever I found myself alone in the car during good drive-time talk radio (i.e., Rush), I did something unusual: I didn’t listen. Instead, I turned to mindless pop music. I was thinking about this peculiar behavior on my part, because I truly love Rush. I think he’s a radio genius, someone who understands perfectly the lines between entertainment, news, and analysis. He’s also one of the sharpest political thinkers out there. No wonder the Left hates him.

But still…. I didn’t want to listen.

Analyzing my bizarre retreat from Rush, I realized that my problem is that the things that used to energize me during Obama’s first term — conservatives reporting on the faults and foibles of the administration, even as the MSM ignored them — no longer stir me up. I’ve had four years to learn that Obama is not the “hope” promised, unless your hope was for a jobless stock market recovery, endless welfare rolls, increased racial tension, a simmering Middle East that constantly threatens to explode, negative pressure on core Constitutional rights, and all the other practical and ideological changes Obama’s presidency has brought to America. The problem is that, while you and I were riled by these stories, none of this data penetrated the minds of less engaged American voters, all of whom who listened to the media’s siren song and reelected Obama.

Having accomplished its job, the media is suddenly discovering that there are some problems with Obama’s first term, everything from violently antisemitic and anti-American “friends” in Egypt, to the coming economic and medical disaster that is ObamaCare, to the corruption that’s always swirled around his administration. As I told my mother when she pointed to such stories, this isn’t just a case of too little, too late. It’s nastier than that. The media is doing these stories as cover: when the second Obama term brings badness to America (although Obama may still escape unscathed), the media has provided itself with some plausible deniability. It can point to these articles and say “We told you so” — the big con being that they only told the American people so after they’d ensured that Obama locked up a second term in office.

Read more

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
3 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Rush may have been an interesting oddity during the Clinton years, but he’s an anachronism in the modern world—especially since his brain has become addled by drug addiction.

As a truck driver for 20 years, I listened to talk radio in 48 states. The biggest problem I have with the hosts is that when a caller would call in, the host has to do about 75% of the talking. The host does all of the talking between calls, but they still have to most of the talking on a call. Sometimes the caller would start to say something, and the host would interrupt and start arguing with the caller. I wanted to hear what the caller had to say, but most of the time, if you disagree with the host on ANYTHING, you are interrupted and hung up on. Sometimes, a caller will start to say something the host agrees with, and the host will interrupt, and take over what the caller was going to say. I wanted to hear what the caller had to say. ALL of the top rated hosts do this, and it is very irritating to me. We all have been in groups where one person has to do all of the talking.

Many times Michael Savaged has said, “Liberals don’t call me.” EVERY TIME ONE HAS, he immediately went on a rampage, hollering and shouting like he likes to, then hangs up on them. I don’t like to listen to people shouting at others, and have scanned for another show many times.

Sometimes, I would get tired of the hosts not letting others talk, so I scanned for another talk show. That host did the same thing, so I scanned again. It happened enough times that I found an old rock music station and listened to it. I want to hear what the caller has to say, especially when the caller disagrees with the host. Most of the hosts have such an ego problem, that if you disagree with them, you started an argument.

Steve LeVeille, in Boston MA was the ONLY host that would let the callers talk more than he did. I had to go on the Internet to get the correct spelling for his name, and I saw that he retired last year at the age of 57. I’m all for people retiring early if they can afford it.

I wish I had done like a lot of others did, and worked to retire early. After I retired at age 62, I have talked with several people who retired around age 50, but that was what they worked for, not to live high now, but AFTER they retire. You younguns had better figure there ain’t gunna be no Social Security or Medicare for you, and set up your own Wroth IRA, or retirement account of some kind. I wish I had.

@liberal1(objectivity):

Which is why Rush still has more than twice the number of listeners of ANY other Liberal radio personality and Network News Programs cite him constantly.