# The Rush to Create a Liberal Rush **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 21, 2003, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513 "2003-02-21T09:06:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/41 "2003-02-21T21:46:12Z")
Your tautology falls flat on the first premise: > [@](#): > > AM radio offers only conservative voices. Wrong. AM radio has only managed to make big money offering conservative voices. Did you read the laundry list of failed libs, or are you ignoring it on purpose? My idea of a Sunday talk show: Christopher Hitchens, Camille Paglia, and Noam Chomsky on the left(ish). Andrew Sullivan, David Horowitz, and Howard Fineman (I know, for balance) on the right(ish). Note: Christian conservatives go unrepresented. Sorry, IMO, there aren’t any interesting spokespersons. > [@](#): > > **from GIGOBuster’s link** : There are many liberal voices on radio, and possibly the most compelling is Randi Rhodes. She hosts the top-rated show on her station \*\* in Palm Beach County, Florida], pulling better numbers than even Rush Limbaugh, whose program airs directly before hers every day.\*\* She has proven to be a tenacious defender of the liberal viewpoint, and she’s damned entertaining in the process. > > So why does Clear Channel refuse to syndicate Randi Rhodes? [bolding mine] This would be like noting that some liberal host does better than Rush Limbaugh in the conservative bastion of Berkeley, California. Reality check: a liberal will work on the coasts, not in “flyover” country. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/42 "2003-02-21T22:07:20Z")
Well **Beagle** , at least we are getting somewhere, at least this reality check is better that the OP fantasy that there are NO successful voices from the left on the AM. And some who have lasted for a long time! The problem is with who owns the radio. BTW Bernie Ward in San Francisco’s KGO does have also similar troubles, not with the audience: just like Rhodes, his trouble is with the radio owners that remove him from other markets not because he has the ratings, but because the owners did not like him. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/43 "2003-02-21T22:11:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Texican \* > \*\*"There would be plenty for a liberal rabble-rouser to talk about, like for example the idea that Republican tax policies amount to an attack on the middle class. Plenty of fodder there. " > > This right here sums up why a liberal talk show is doomed to fail. They can talk about the “idea”, but as soon as they have to get into the meat of the issue, the “facts” start showing up, such as that a “middle class” person will pay far less under Bush’s plan than he had in the past. Kinda hard to spin that as an attack in any discussion longer than a soundbite. \*\* :dubious: The three pillars of Republican tax policy over the past few years have been: 1. Elimination of estate tax 2. Elimination of tax on dividends 3. Elimination of capital gains tax Now think about what these proposals/enactments mean, if they all passed. They mean that someone who inherits $100 million dollars (money they didn’t earn, by the way), and spends the rest of their life living off investments and dividends, would pay $0 taxes. Over their entire lifetime. That represents a huge loss of revenue for the federal government. And it means that all federal revenue would come from income tax paid by people who actually worked to earn the money. The Republicans are basically screwing the middle class. The poor pay no taxes. Under the Republican system, the rich would pay no taxes. Guess who gets left holding the bag? Republicans are rewarding the wealthy campaign contributors who put them in office and who help keep them there. By what logic should income earned by the sweat of my brow be taxed, while income gained by inheritance, or by profits on sale of assets, or by dividends, should be exempt from taxation? But that’s another thread… ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/44 "2003-02-21T22:21:27Z")
Thanks to these ‘tax cuts’, I’m paying $500 more on taxes, mostly to the state and city that got ripped off by the feds. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/45 "2003-02-21T22:51:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Liberals mostly seem to focus on getting government to hassle more people, which just isn’t very cheery. Then why am I having such a hard time gleaning words to that effect in a typical evening’s television viewing - even though I watch a lot of PBS & CNN? ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/46 "2003-02-21T22:55:23Z")
IMHO: 1. Liberals already have NPR. 2. Liberals supposedly “control” every other media outlet in the U.S. In fact, many argue that the conservative radio talk show came about as a need to counter all the “liberal media bias.” 3. Conservative talk shows offer a simplistic view of the world: Everything is black and white, very few shades of gray. This appeals to “the common man,” especially in this day and age when the world is so complicated and difficult to comprehend. Makes one feel all warm and fuzzy to believe _they_ know the right (highly simplistic) answer to life’s woes. (“It’s the libs fault” is clearly one of their favs.) 4. The angry conservative draws listeners; folks are pissed off in general, why not give them an outlet? It’s “fun” hearing Rush get all riled up about “them damn libs”; it makes people feel better when they can shit all over others. Unfortunately, people are drawn to hate and ridicule en masse, the angry sheep following the loud-mouthed sheperd. Especially these days, when hate seems to be such a valuable currency. 5. Bill Clinton. For some reason (and please, no need to hijack this thread by listing all the reasons) conservatives got more excited about and pissed off at this president than any other I can recall in recent history. _Foaming at the mouth_ is a mild understatement, to say the least. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/47 "2003-02-21T22:56:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by capacitor \* > \*\*Thanks to these ‘tax cuts’, I’m paying $500 more on taxes, mostly to the state and city that got ripped off by the feds. \*\* Oh ya, I forgot that my taxes should go to subsidize your city. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![light\_strand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a6a055/32.png) [@light\_strand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/light_strand)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/48 "2003-02-21T23:17:56Z")
Perhaps not Brutus, but your federal tax dollars should\* go to subsidize federal mandates like “no child left behind” and “homeland security”. You know, all of the government mandates that the conservatives hate. Um…nevermind. As to the OP, I wouldn’t listen to a “Liberal Rush” because I can’t stand the one-sided, hyper-partisan speech from either side. Personally I like balanced news, and I get to make my own decisions based on the what I feel is the validity of the views. leander…NPR? You’re comparing NPR to Rush Limbaugh? That’s just ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/49 "2003-02-22T00:05:11Z")
Nothing like a little **decembrist** rewriting of history. Talk show host Bob Grant fired for “philosophical reasons”? It was a little seamier than that. As noted by [fair.org](http://fair.org) (yeah, I know it’s bizarre for me to be quoting them): "The last straw for Disney/ABC was Grant’s comment after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown’s plane went down in Bosnia (4/3/96): “My hunch is [Brown] is the one survivor. I just have that hunch. Maybe it’s because at heart I’m a pessimist.” Grant tried to portray this remark as a momentary lapse of taste. “I never wished Ron Brown dead,” Grant told Newsday (4/19/96). “The only people I’ve ever wished dead were Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein.” But Bob Grant has long wished for–or gloated over–the deaths of his (disproportionately non-white) enemies. He prayed for Magic Johnson to “go into full-blown AIDS” (10/1/92); he commented that the black victim killed by a white mob in Howard Beach, Brooklyn “got what was coming to him.” (12/9/92) His solution to a gay pride march (6/29/94): “Ideally, it would have been nice to have a few phalanxes of policemen with machine guns and mow them down.” Classy stuff. As to conservative talk show hosts having a sense of humor - that’s highly overrated. Some of Rush Limbaugh’s bits used to be funny in a heavy-handed sort of way, but he’s cut back on them in favor of his perpetual self-adoring monologues. And he’s always lacked one key component of a sense of humor - the ability to make fun of yourself. When it comes to his own image or that of the people he promotes, no humor is allowed. If “content” was a requirement for a successful talk show host, we’d have an overabundance of dead air. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/50 "2003-02-22T01:13:00Z")
**GIGOBuster** : There is a big difference between acknowledging that Ms. Rhodes can succeed in Palm Beach County and alleging that there is a right-wing cabal to stifle leftists on the radio. That is silly. If it sells, no matter how brilliant, tasteful, stupid, or objectionable, they will supply it. I think having two hosts, one conservative, one libertarian (OK, liberal), would be a good idea. One host, re-regurgitating the same views over and over, gets boring quickly, IMO. I’ve listened to various radio hosts, tiring fairly quickly of all of them. I like Boortz right now. Not that I always agree with him, talk radio is entertainment after all. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/51 "2003-02-22T05:46:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jackmannii \* > Talk show host Bob Grant fired for “philosophical reasons”? It was a little seamier than that. As noted by [fair.org](http://fair.org) (yeah, I know it’s bizarre for me to be quoting them): > > "The last straw for Disney/ABC was Grant’s comment after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown’s plane went down in Bosnia (4/3/96): “My hunch is [Brown] is the one survivor. I just have that hunch. Maybe it’s because at heart I’m a pessimist.” Grant tried to portray this remark as a momentary lapse of taste. FAIR called Grant’s disgusting joke about Ron Brown “the last straw.” Not so. Grant was actually fired several months after making that tasteless comment. The real last straw was a campaign against Grant begun by an article in a liberal magazine, the name of which I have forgotten. He then became a liberal target. After that he was fired. Was Grant really a racist? He was verbally rough on people of all races who he believed behaved badly. He particularly didn’t like liberals or crooks or “fake, phony frauds.” He considered Ron Brown to be in that group. (Recall that Brown was about to be investigated for corruption when he died.) Grant was even rough on conservative callers who pissed him off. _“Get of my phone!”_ he would scream, as he cut the caller’s line off. Being irritable and nasty was his shtick. He would claim that he was an equal opportunity insulter, which he considered less biased than soft-pedaling bad behavior by blacks. That’s high-risk behavior for a media figure. In any event, it’s certainly true that Grant did viciously insult some black people. BTW I gathered that Bob Grant more-or-less invented conservative talk radio. He was the pioneer. This [cite](http://www.independentmedia.org/congress/1996/mediaacc.html) says it was FAIR itself who organized the campaign against Bob Grant. > [@](#): > > Janine Jackson of FAIR reported on how the group targeted Bob Grant, the highest paid broadcaster on ABC, whose racist remarks were documentable…FAIR organized a protest, centered on the quotes, and asked ABC to claify its policy on racist speech. So, I can sharpen the above statement. The real last straw was a campaign against Bob Grant organized by FAIR. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2003, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/52 "2003-02-22T06:28:08Z")
**december:** _Being irritable and nasty was his shtick. He would claim that he was an equal opportunity insulter, which he considered less biased than soft-pedaling bad behavior by blacks. That’s high-risk behavior for a media figure. In any event, it’s certainly true that Grant did viciously insult some black people._ For example, in the omitted part of your own quote from your own cite, above: > [@](#): > > [FAIR] found one instance where he refered to Africa n Americans as “savages” stating, “If they didn’t observe Martin Luther King day, the savages would get upset.” A few more [insults](http://www.fair.org/extra/9501/bob-grant.html) from the alleged “equal opportunity insulter”: > [@](#): > > One of Grant’s favorite words for African-Americans is “savages”: The U.S., he said (1/6/92), has “millions of sub-humanoids, savages, who really would feel more at home careening along the sands of the Kalahari or the dry deserts of eastern Kenya–people who, for whatever reason, have not become civilized.” […] > > Apologists for Grant say that he only uses “savages” to refer to rioters and criminals (as if applying racial stereotypes to criminals was not racist). But it isn’t true: Grant has referred to black churchgoers as “screaming savages” (4/30/93); he’s said (7/15/93) that black fraternity members represent “the savage mind, the primitive, primordial mentality.” After overcrowding at a charity event led to deaths, Grant referred to the crowd (1/6/92) as “the 3,000 to 5,000 savages who showed up for the rap stars’ basketball game.” […] > > African-Americans are not the only target of Grant’s bile: He remarked after a gay pride parade (6/29/94), “Ideally, it would have been nice to have a few phalanxes of policemen with machine guns and mow them > down.” […] > > But the old Bob Grant had simply denied that it was possible for whites to express racism, saying that it wasn’t allowed (12/13/93): “If they did allow it, the thugs, the savages, the refugees from the Kalahari would tear the place apart. But I guess our group has evolved too far. I guess that’s the price we pay for being a little higher up on the evolutionary scale.” \*Was Grant really a racist? \* If he wasn’t, he did a hell of a job playing one on radio. And another little bit you left out: > [@](#): > > As an anti-censorship group, FAIR did not, however, ask ABC to take [Grant] off the air. Instead, the group petitioned the network to air another person in the lineup who expresses opposing views. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2003, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/53 "2003-02-22T06:46:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beagle \* > **GIGOBuster: There is a big difference between acknowledging that Ms. Rhodes can succeed in Palm Beach County and alleging that there is a right-wing cabal to stifle leftists on the radio. That is silly. If it sells, no matter how brilliant, tasteful, stupid, or objectionable, they will supply it.** Well, the current owners of the AM stations already do it regarding the last two items 😃 But I think also calling it a cabal is silly (something that I did not do), to me is logic to say that MANY owners would limit programming that could step on the toes of advertisers (bad for some business), and besides those two examples, I think I remember another two hosts that have had the same trouble with syndication, I would not call this effect a silly thing. > [@](#): > > \*\*I think having two hosts, one conservative, one libertarian (OK, liberal), would be a good idea. One host, re-regurgitating the same views over and over, gets boring quickly, IMO. I’ve listened to various radio hosts, tiring fairly quickly of all of them. I like Boortz right now. Not that I always agree with him, talk radio is entertainment after all. \*\* I also pointed out that in another thread, that this is entertainment; entertainment that unfortunately is taken seriously by a good group of people (a good chunk of them do not tire of this). I do agree with the two hosts idea to make things fair. ---
**Author:** ![Zap\_Rowsdower](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3da27b/32.png) [@Zap\_Rowsdower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zap_Rowsdower)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513/54 "2003-02-23T17:00:50Z")
I have not listened to Rush in years, primarily because of time. But also I began to get tired of it because it was the same thing all the time, just him talking. While I did/do enjoy listening on occasion I do not go out of my way to hear him. I admit at times I prefer it when he has guest hosts filling in because it offers a little variety. The few times I am able to listen, I still find the show to be entertaining. As for a liberal show, I think if done right it could be just as popular. I remember when John Hightower originally got his show, I found it to be downright awful. It was probably around the holiday season and all he did each time I tuned in was complain and whine about the rich. I believe it was Malcome Forbes who had a huge party, costing some millions of dollars, and Hightower could only complain about the extravagance, etc. He never considered that a lot of the money went to working people, whether they were waiters, valets whatever. He pumped a lot of money into the economy and employed many people. My point is that Hightower and others did not offer anything positive. They griped and moaned about the rich and how bad “they” are. Before Rush, I for one viewed republicans as humorless and dour. Now it is the democrats that appear humorless and rather meanspirited. If they are not able to get rid of that impression, it is doubtful they will succeed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rush-to-create-a-liberal-rush/156513.md?page=2)