Radio Wars: Why Does the Right Have All the Fun?
Joanne Ostrow is television critic for the Denver Post. In the February 12 Perspective section she decided to comment on Talk Radio. The piece is entitled “Air Wars: Why do conservative talkers have all the fun?” Her title makes the concession that the Right has more fun. She goes on to note that Rush Limbaugh dominates. So does FOX with higher ratings than CNN and MSNBC combined.
The body of her effort reveals her bias and makes clear her concession is a grudging one. She says Rush and O’Reilly engage in “diatribe” while Rachel Maddow is “entertaining and wry” and Chris Matthews is “entertaining and sincere.” I will take her word for that as I waste time on neither of them nor their network. It is perhaps worth noting the incongruity of listeners and viewers preferring “diatribe” over “wry and entertaining.” Probably has to do with people from the Right just not knowing what is good for them. Too strong and independent.
Some of the persons Joanne quotes make one smile at the irony. NYU “scholar” Mark Crispin Miller, who only leans Left, says the Right is filled with “an undiscriminating fury that includes racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, misogyny. . .” Wow! Thought for a moment I might be reading one describing Maxine Waters, Jeremiah Wright or Minister Farakhan. Or maybe U.S. Senator Dick Durbin who said from the Senate floor that our troops were acting like Nazis, Pol Pot and Soviet Gulag. But all is well. It was only those who listen to Conservative Talk Radio to whom Miller was referring.
The real comedy came at the end of Ostow’s piece. Michael Harrison of Talkers magazine says that in Talk Radio no one is huge. Basically they’re minuscule. The Super Bowl is huge. Talk Radio is not. Let’s see. Back in 1993 a frustrated President Bill Clinton, as he boarded 747 Air Force One said, “You interview me for a few moments but Rush Limbaugh has three hours on the radio.” Barack Obama, shortly after he was sworn in, told GOP law makers not to listen to Rush Limbaugh as that is not the way things get done. Sure is a good thing for Bill and Barack that Talk Radio is minuscule and that Rush is not huge.
Probably be best for Joanne and Michael to get that word to Left Wing Radio and the rest of the Democrats. They seem to think Rush Limbaugh is head of the Republican Party.
Eutychus