From ABC’s Jake Tapper:
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okl, claims he overheard Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barbara Boxer, D-Calf, chatting about how out of control talk radio had become.
“They said we’ve got to do something about this,” Inhofe told a talk radio host. “That ‘these are nothing but far right wing extremists, we’ve got to have a balance, there’s got to be a legislative fix to this.'”
I’m still waiting for comment from Clinton’s and Boxer’s offices….but this comes on the heels of a new study by a liberal group that claims that in Spring 2007 “of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative”
— which, to “liberals,” can only mean one thing: the rightwing noise machine has managed to brainwash the unsophisticated proles, and only by acts of compassionate legislation and forced re-education can the effects of such trailer park indoctrination — maliciously disguised as “freely chosen” or “market driven” — be remedied.
Sometimes you have to destroy a village to save it. And to do that, it, uh, takes a village — albeit one that isn’t so revoltingly packed with Ford pickups and a Wal-Mart.
But — lest we think this kind of thing is decidedly partisan — Tapper provides us with the necessary object lesson in political consensus:
Even Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., has complained about talk radio as of late, saying last week “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem” […]
Ah yes, Trent Lott — whose respect for “the people” always seems to stop wherever it rubs uncomfortably against his own conspicuous self-interests. Like, for instance, being lambasted by conservatives as a gladhanding phony with a penchant for goat fences and a head of hair that looks like it was fashioned from blown out Semi tires salvaged from the shoulders of some Mississippi highway.
At any rate, Boxer’s and Clinton’s offices are denying the conversation ever took place — making it, by their reckoning, just another moment in the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy that has hounded Ms Clinton ever since she dared speak Truth to Power (or Stand By Her Man, I can never remember which it is that supposedly launched the coordinated attack on her blameless idealism…):
“Senator Boxer told me that either her friend Senator Inhofe needs new glasses or he needs to have his hearing checked, because that conversation never happened,” says Natalie Ravitz, the communications director for Boxer.
“Jim Inhofe is wrong,” says Philippe Reines, Clinton’s press secretary. “This supposed conversation never happened — not in his presence or anywhere else.”
Just more rightwing flame-fanning, I guess — on par with the whole ridiculous Republican scare campaign suggesting that Democrats wish to bring back the pernicious Fairness Doctrine, with McCain-Feingold setting up a precedent to do so, according to Campaign law counsel to the House and Senate Democrats, Bob Bauer:
It seems reasonable, however, to take note of the mounting revolt against the assumption that some types of corporations‗media corporations”â€â€have the latitude to crusade in favor of specific candidates and causes when the same opportunity, sought by other corporations or by associations or individuals, is highly restricted and State-supervised…. these laws are related: they represent choices made by the State‗constitutive choices,” as Paul Starr has referred to themâ€â€which are fundamentally political nature […]
As others have noted, it is unlikely the Fairness Doctrine will be officially resurrected — which may not the goal of Democrats anyway.
Instead, they hope that the specter of demonizing “right wing” and TV in the run-up to the 2008 elections will intimidate broadcasters into self-“leveling” the playing field — against the wishes of the marketplace.
Illiberalism disguised as enforced tolerance. Welcome to today’s “progressive” movement.
****
related. See also, Hot Air.
257 news/talk stations… A privately supported, not-for-profit
membership organization, NPR serves a growing audience of 26 million Americans
each week in partnership with more than 800 independently operated, noncommercial
public radio stations.
They don’t ever stop to think that maybe…just maybe…the reason 91% of talk radio is conservative is because that’s what people actually WANT to listen to…
Radio stations will play whatever makes them revenue…even growing up around Asheville, NC (if you don’t know about Asheville, just take San Francisco and move it into the Appalachian Mountains) which is extremely liberal, most of the radio shows are conservative…they’ve tried many liberal shows, but they would only last for a few months before being taken off the air…
I guess this is just liberals trying to save us from ourselves…again…because they apparently know what’s best…maybe it’ll turn into 1984…wouldn’t that be fun!
I dunno…this just seems to dump all over the 1st Amendment…so I guess they can violate people’s rights when it suits them…but God forbid anyone else try it. =/
Sorry if this seems scattered…it’s just irritating…
Does this mean Air America is pretty much dead?
Shawn,
You got it. Nobody wanted to listen to Air America. Lots of people want to listen to Limbaugh and Hannity.
If there were an honest person in the entire Congress, the eventual bill would be styled “An Act to Stifle Rush Limbaugh.” That’s what it is, that’s all it is.
Regards,
Ric
I have a very a propos joke that I won’t tell in its entirety, but the punch line gives you the flavor:
"When the common man takes over, mate, you’ll do as you’re bloody well told!"
Contemporary liberalism needs control of thought and speech to survive. With Congress’ approval rating at its lowest-ever level, the Congresscritters will use every means possible to silence opposition and criticism.
That both Clinton’s and Boxer’s spokesmouths are denying that their bosses ever said such things conveys the idea that they know discussing limiting libertyies is political poison, unless you can hide it in campaign-reform finance law. Free-speech-hating John McCain was able to do that, but his Presidential ambitions are dead now – heh.
Silence the truth…..I belive this story, with the likes of Soros and Depodesta behind the Think Progressive movement. We will just to have to wait and see what happens……Any Armadillo dancing tonight?
So, once again the "progessive" left rips off the hockey mask to reveal the snarling fascdist dictator-wannabe beneath. Thugs, the lot of them.
fascist.
[…] more via Jeff Goldstein, JammieWearingFool, Bookworm Room Posted By: Sister Toldjah in: Outrageous, Congress, Clueless […]
BillyJeff commenting on Bloomberg’s leaving the GOP was state
Well, he’s a very smart fellow," said Clinton. "I suppose he couldn’t bear to be in the Republican Party anymore, which I thought showed great, good judgment on his part."
Again, along with the Dems fear of appearing on FoxNews and the [wink wink nudge nudge] "imaginary" conversation between Boxer and Hillary again underlines that "Progressives" don’t view their political foes as just mistaken, but illegitimate.
This touches on a point that comes up in other contexts, e.g., the debate over "reporter’s shield" and "blogger’s shield" legislation — Why is it assumed that the government has the power to decide who has the right to free speech?
The First Amendment (and its precursors) were a reaction against the government licensing of the press. Yet for some reason, the notion that Congress gets to say who is and is not the media — and confer rights or privileges upon them — has crept into the modern case law and political discourse. It may trace back to our government’s nationalization (and subsequent licensing) of broadcast spectrum, which is why content regulation rears its ugly head there first. But this is far from the only example where the government claims the power to say who is or is not the press — and to treat the press as having greater or lesser rights than others (despite the Supreme Court’s implicit rejection of that premise in Branzburg v. Hayes and elsewhere).
And just for the humor, that Fineman link of Jeff’s includes this:
Except for FNC, which must be shunned at all costs.
I’m not fond of huge media conglomerates owning dozens and scores of radio stations, either. I hate Clearchannel owning almost everything in a market, I hate their formats and crappy play lists.
At the same time, right-wing talk radio is popular not because it’s been foisted on an unwilling public by a media giant (that would describe Air America). It’s popular because, well, people like it. And thus, if none of these huge companies existed and every single station was owned by a single guy, they still would dominate AM radio.
And that’s what these guys hate. Because they know their ideas just aren’t popular.
‘Progressive’ totalitarianism…
Move over Hugo Chavez, it seems a couple of Dems (in a hallway gossip moment) let the Free Speech and Tolerance mask slip. Again.Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okl, claims he overheard Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barbara Boxer, D-Calf, chatting about……
And their ideas aren’t defensible, either. When they try to actually have interactive discussions with callers, they tend to get shredded by anyone with a clue.
Can we all stop referring to them as liberals? There’s nothing remotely liberal about them. They’re all crypto-totalitarians.
Ironic, isn’t it, that the same group of people that claim the First Amendment means unfiltered p*rn in public libraries and major newspapers destroying legitimate covert operations also claim that it doesn’t cover POLITICAL speech on talk radio, or within 60 days of an election or RELIGIOUS expression if the offensive Christian Cross is within eyesight of an offended atheist.
Here’s one of the self serving part of the Progress America Study;
And they go on to frantically build a justiification for government intervention, a la the Fairness Doctrine. While ignoring, as has been already stated, the overwhelming coverage and consistant liveral leanings of NPR.
What a friggin’ waste of money.
BJTexas
I believe they want to breakup radio stations into "local" only for a very simple reason…
such station owners can be easy to intimidate by the likes of MoveOn, etc.
“Sometimes You Have To Destroy A Village To Save ItÂ 
Jeff Goldstein looks at the growing–and surprisingly bipartisan–efforts to stifle free speech…….
Yuppers, Darleen. That also gives the local big city Democratic machines the opportunities to force local stations to carry "their" kind of programming. Bottom line is a puish to some set of regulatory guidelines that force large corporations to be broken up and cede local ownership, along with enforced gender and racial percentages. What a country!
LOL! I just noticed in my comment "…consistant liveral leanings of NPR."
*sigh* I miss preview…
It’s actually very simple – since you can generally listen to talk radio at work, unlike watching the TV, talk radio is naturally more popular among people who work for a living.
I used to force myself to listen to Hannity, just so I could stay up to date as to what the leftosphere was outraged (outrageosphere?) about this week. But I can’t do it anymore.
Hannity’s a putz. A great American, but a putz.
Could the gap be because the "progressive" airings are just predictable and dull? jeanie
Hard data on leftist media bias.
Wow, I should have quoted the last sentence from the above report fragment (emphasis mine);
This is insidious genius! While most of us would dismiss this as beyond irrelevant, the under the authority of "public trust" gender and racial diversity (ya gotta love the adding of the "local owners", like a camo outfit,) become the sweet sword that progressives use to forcibly balance the scales in their favor. Man, and these people think that Karl Rove is a puppetmaster? There is some serious Illuminati type stuff happening over on the left bank.
I wonder if they’ve designed the uniforms yet…
Illiberalism disguised as enforced tolerance. Welcome to today’s “progressive†movement.Forced intolerance, too. SUVs, smokers, evangelical Christians, Wal Mart, etc.
This would be hysterical if it wasn’t so sad. Evan Thomas admitted that mainstream media bias gives significant help to presidential candidates of the Democratic Party. Yet Senators Clinton and Boxer don’t seem to be concerned about that. Of course, liberal Dems aren’t the only folks who disapprove of radio talk shows. They may have a fervent Republican supporter in Trent Lott.
The irony of it all is that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham espouse views that were the province of traditional liberalism (no quotas, reasonable mariginal tax rates, keeping a check on the regulatory state, whether in its economic regulation form or personal lifestyle regulation form, and having a strong military). Unfortunately, traditional liberalism has morphed over the years into nannyism at home and, in the case of all too many liberals today, an "America is the problem" view in the international arena.
The liberals have never truly supported any rights for anyone. They only pretend to do so if it advances their agenda. They do not support the concept that people should have freedom of choice, unless it refers to abortion.They have never supported women’s rights unless it was to destroy the family unit. And, as all good Communists know, the way to control the people is to make them totally dependent on the state. That means no other support structures such as the family or religion. That also means government indoctrination through the schools-which is the real reason they hate home schools and church schools even though they do a much better job. It also means Nationalized health care-if they can control your body they can control your life-ask the people in Britain about the new changes in NHS coverage for an example of that. They do not support freedom of religion unless it is for Islamism or Rev. Gore’s Church of Gaia. Islam is their ally, their proxy army against western civilization. They think they will be able to control it once they are done destroying the west-they are mistaken. The Liberals are the ones being used by the Islamists, not the other way around. Rev. Gore’s religion is one that works very well with Marxism-you must give up everything for the "good of the planet" while the elite fat cats drive around in limos and fly on private jets.They do not support freedom of speech or freedom of the press for anyone except themselves. They will make us support NPR with our tax dollars but will shut down all other outlets which do not spout the party line and party propaganda. They say nothing about CNN/MSNBC/ABC/CBS/NBC and their biased broadcasts.They do not support the right to assemble unless it is for organizations such as UPJ and Code Pinko. The list could go on and on…. I am beginning to think that a little revolution every now and again is good for the soul.
Why can’t we just break up all the newspaper monopolies, and/or make them hire and promote conservative reporters and editors. If speech isn’t "speech" why is the press "press"?
YOU WILL LISTEN TO PROGRESSIVE TALK RADIO AND YOU WILL LIKE IT!!!!
Big Brother
Everything not forbidden is required
[…] – YES, THERE DOES SEEM TO BE A GROWING POLITICAL CONSENSUS in favor of shutting up the hoi […]
I’ll support the fairness doctrine as long as it applies to the network “news”. Wouldn’t it be fun to have CBS have to give Brent Bozell an hour every night?
The progs are so dim that they don’t see a problem with the fact that it requires government intervention to get their ideas heard on radio in a for profit media industry. Instead, they search in vain for “structural” explanations for the issue instead of accepting the fact that no one wants to listen to their tripe.
America – Love It, or Leave It!
Air America – Love It, or Else!
[…] ironic the Left would love to empower the federal government in order to diversity talk radio. Jeff Goldstein [via Sister Toldjah] rants,  which, to “liberals,†can only mean one thing: the rightwing […]
#36: Amen. When we see balance in cBS, nBS and aBS they can do as they please with radio…
Democrat Free Speech – Shut the other guy up…
…
Time for a Stalinist re-education campaign against talk radio listeners’ "false consciousness."
[…] THERE DOES SEEM TO BE A GROWING POLITICAL CONSENSUS in favor of shutting up the hoi […]
Ahem is right: don’t call them liberals. Call them leftists, but they aren’t liberal, not in the true sense of the word. Don’t let them steal the term from Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.
VRC rears it ugly head…
I think they should get someone with a lot of money, like George Soros, to bankroll it and hire a gifted Liberal Orator, like Al Franken, to anchor the network, and create a Liberal Left TM version of Talk Radio and call it something appealing, somet…..
I’m starting to feel that we should impose some sensible newspaper control.
Just exactly how does one go about determining that 91% of talk radio is "conservative" and not "liberal"? Doesn’t the distinction imply a completely subjective notion of where the center is? Doesn’t it also ignore the important contributions of people like Neal Boorz who are not clearly identified with either camp? Not everyone is a conservative or a liberal.
[…] Senators' solution to speech they don't agree with: raw censorship. Hooray for the First […]
Nathan:Step1: Insert hand in assStep 2: Pull
Free speech — so long as your speech doesn’t threaten their power.
Freedom of religion — so long as you don’t try to live by your religion, or express it in any way that makes them uncomfortable.
Freedom of association — so long as you don’t try to associate in a way they don’t like.
Self-determination — except for things like defending your own life, or being allowed to enjoy the fruit of your own labor.
Easy — the cash came from Soros with a directive saying that’s the number they should come up with.
Conservative talk radio is popular because all the lefties listen to it so they can be reassuranced that all conservatives are complete neanderthals. The talk show hosts are all too often chosen for the extremism, their shock value and, most of all, their ability to attract listeners — even if all the listeners hate his guts.A liberal is reassured after spending an hour listening that he/she is doing the right thing by opposing all that is republican. They don’t want to listen to someone they agree with, or (more likely) learn their favorite causes are controlled by idiots, too. Education is the LAST thing in the world anyone wants from these radio programs, left or right. That is why Air America failed so miserably.
Really?
Really?
Ogre had me up until that last bit, which implies that Air America is somehow educational, as opposed to more filled with hate speech than any of the right-leaning fare.
Reaching all the way back to happyfeet’s comment — NPR has “over 800” stations.
I downloaded the list of NPR Stations (PDF), pulled out the Texas stations (30 listings), and called up Radio Locator to find out about them. I’ll email the resulting .csv to anyone who cares to see it.
Of the 30, 14 (less than half) are “real” stations (i.e., a power level of 50 KW or better); 8 are hobby/vanity (5 KW or less); and one (KRTS Marfa) is no longer licensed.
Of the “real” stations, eight (over half) are University or college sponsored. Out of the whole list, two are religious (! — the Diocese of Brownsville) and eighteen are controlled by educational institutions.
Conclusion: If NPR were a fully commercial network and I were buying ad time, I would give them credit for just under 400 stations if what I was selling was designed to appeal to a college student audience. For a more general audience I would count it as somewhere around 250 stations, all of them with shares under 20% in their markets. “800 stations” is a brag, technically true but bullshit in reality. I would get more ears per advertising dollar buying from Clear Channel.
Regards,
Ric
Regards,
Ric
Let’s not all get twitterpated folks. The good senator has admitted that he might have heard something like this three years ago. Three years old, no context; you know, it’s just not a big story
Air America was indoctrination pretending to be education. What Rush and Boortz are primarily interested in, which they freely admit, is entertainment. They inform and educate, but that is secondary to being fun to listen to. Air America fucked up because they just weren’t fun to listen to. Unfortunately this theory has no explanation for Hannity or Savage.
Is that what you heard on the TV?
Funny; in another context, two people having differing memories was enough to land one of them in prison.
"Conservative talk radio is popular because all the lefties listen to it
so they can be reassuranced that all conservatives are complete
neanderthals."Please. Do you ever listen to it? Rush Limbaugh is actually two different people. There is the one that hosts a radio show daily, then there is the caricature Rush that the left like to call a Neanderthal. Clearly he has an opinion. He also has a sense of humor. He has gone overboard a few times, but he has been doing 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for how many years now? There are a few hosts that could fit that discription, and they do have their audience, but hey…so does Stern. If there was a market for the left, they would be on the radio. "Education is the LAST thing in the world anyone wants from these radio
programs, left or right. That is why Air America failed so miserably."Ok, thats funny. Wait….you were not be serious were you?
Ric – A colleague with the data says their audience is closer to 11.5M. That numbver doesn’t include kids, but, c’mon. Funny that you brought up that Marfa station. Memories…
Nathan raised one of the most important — and overlooked — points in all of this: Who gets to decide what is "conservative" and what is "liberal"? Moreover, who got to decide that "conservative" and "liberal" are the "two sides" that need equal representation? Moreover, who got to decide that there are two sides in the first place, or that there are only two, etc.?The idea that the government should be identifying and codifying ideologies is a little scary to me. That defining and codifying would be far more dangerous to free speech than the actual "equal time" aspect.
Are you kidding me? I have to manually create HTML paragraph breaks with this new commenting software?
Hmmm. now the good Senator cannot seem to decide whether he overheard the comments "the other day" or "three years ago."
Diversity — wonderful, as long as everybody thinks the way they do.
Once I took a driving trip in Northern Wisconsin, far far from metropolitan centers. There was only one radio station AM or FM that I could get… NPR.
Also, we really shouldn’t talk about the pervasiveness of the progressive message and not talk about CNN on constantly in every waiting area in every airport in the country.
Well, he’s a very smart fellow,” said Clinton. “I suppose he couldn’t bear to be in the Republican Party anymore, which I thought showed great, good judgment on his part.”
A very smart fellow? In the hope of being elected President, Bloomberg just switched his affiliation from Republican to Independent.
Number of Republicans elected President in U.S. history: 18
Number of Independents elected President in U.S. history: 1
Yeah, he’s a frickin’ genius.
You know, when I first read through this, I was thinking: Jeff, you’ve gone a bit too far here. But then I settled back and read again, a bit more carefully. "Ah!" said I to myself, "a penchant for goat fences! Okay, that’s all right then."
#43 Christopher Taylor said, "Ahem
is right: don’t call them liberals. Call them leftists, but they aren’t
liberal, not in the true sense of the word. Don’t let them steal the
term from Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry." Between 1968 and 1972 the left hijacked the Democrats and inherited the cover of the title "liberal" as a result. Before 1968 the left hated liberals more than they hated Republicans or conservatives. Imagine having for years to call yourself by the name of and pretend in public to be that which you hate. They never liked being called liberals. Meanwhile the real liberals came to be called conservatives.
Well that didn’t look like I thought it would.
One of my favorite talk radio hosts is Larry Elder, not just because he’s a fantastic radio personality with a steel-trap mind, but because he’s always willing to debate lefties, whether they’re callers or invited guests, with an abundance of facts and figures that often leave said lefties sputtering. He has a fantastic understanding of economics, especially. He’s had an open invitation for Michael Moore to come on his show as a guest for years, and Moore initially accepted. It’s been several years now since the invite was extended. I bring Elder up in response to Ogre’s comment. I don’t really dig Hannity or O’Reilly’s shows, and I don’t listen to Rush very often, but there are people like Larry Elder out there who dismantle leftist talking points with cool logic on a daily basis. And he’s considerate with his opponents as well. But what really riles up his ideological opponents is the fact that he’s–DUN-DUH-DUN!!!–black. He gets called all kinds of horrible things by the "tolerant" lefties, who think he’s strayed from the Dem plantation, and he laughs it off. If you don’t live in an area where his show is broadcast, you can listen online here between 3 and 6 pm weekdays.
Regardless whether Inhofe heard this yesterday ot three years ago, there is more than ample evidence to suggest that the left wants Talk Radio regulated. Both the (feeble) attempts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and the body of the America Progress study are sufficient grounds for elucidating this claim.
Why do we need government to regulate Talk Radio? The concept as put forth by the study is odious; they’d like us to believe that the demographic makeup of ownership unfairly skews Talk Radio to "conservative." As has been pointed out, what constitutes the definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" is suspect at best. We just saw and heard Digby complain that the MSM is insufficiently "progressive."
So, with all due respect to shine, adexterc and others, this is a significant issue regardless of Inhofe’s time frame. I couldn’t help but notice that none of you had anything to say about the Progress America report. Feel free to educate us on that little tome.
"Liberal" — one who seeks to establish their definition of social justice through applying the power of government upon public and private interactions, including controls upon the means of economic production.
"Fascist" — one who seeks to impose their totalitarian rule through applying the power of government upon public and private interactions, including controls upon the means of economic production.
The only difference:
One has the objective of "social justice".
The other, totalitarian rule.
What happens when, as humans do, the leaders get confused about the two … and/or perceive that elements of the latter apparently can help in achieving the former … in their eyes?
I would like to also note that as you get a bit older three years ago was "just the other day".
Meanwhile the real liberals came to be called conservatives.
That’s the wierd part. Conservative isn’t actually opposed to liberal, it’s opposed to collectivist and anti-traditionalist. What used to be called liberal is now called Conservative. What used to be called Anti-American radical is called Liberal today. Let’s take the name back and put it back to its place of honor.
In the context of the US, what there is to conserve is a free society.
Let’s take the name back and put it back to its place of honor.
[…] it’s fool’s gold they’re mining now. Jeff Goldstein says that it is “Illiberalism disguised as enforced tolerance. Welcome to today’s ‘progressive’ […]
[…] Michelle Malkin’s earlier June post on the CAP analysis here. And here’s something roughly contemperaneous from yours truly. Posted by Jeff G. @ 10:16 am | Trackback […]
[…] Senators’ solution to speech they don’t agree with: raw censorship. Hooray for the First […]