Air America Struggles to Stay Afloat
I'm a day one listener to Air America Radio, yearning to hear liberal talk since Rush Limbaugh first slouched towards a microphone in the '80s. I've never understood how there could be no market for it, especially in places where conservative gasbags saturate the air. In Jacksonville, at least three different stations broadcast Limbaugh's show live, so you can travel the length of the area and keep up with the latest world crisis or societal moral collapse caused by the Clintons.Air America's in financial trouble, which is no surprise because the network's been horribly mismanaged. An original founder ripped off a charity, misdirecting $875,000 to the fledgling radio network. The money's been repaid to an escrow account, but the scandal and the charity's shoddy financial accounting practices led to its closure.
You can say a lot about Limbaugh, and I have, but the guy never killed a children's charity.
Liberal talk would survive the closure of Air America, because two of the most successful hosts aren't members of the network: Ed Schultz and Alan Colmes. Colmes, who gets unfairly hammered as a liberal milquetoast, runs a funny late-night show after his Hannity & Colmes gig.
If Air America folds, I hope that it doesn't mean the end of Rachel Maddow as a nationally syndicated radio host. No one ever talks about Maddow -- Al Franken, Randi Rhodes and the unlistenable Jerry Springer get all the press -- but she's the best thing about Air America. She has a skewed sense of humor, an optimistic liberal take and likes to obsess over odd stuff, such as the announcer who introduces the presidential radio address each Saturday. Her program moves to 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern beginning on Monday.
One good thing that might come from the network's closure is the end of Springer's radio career. He's terrible, throwing out soggy liberal platitudes, agreeing with each caller and constantly pimping his own projects. If you think his Dancing with the Stars stunt is dull television, imagine hearing him devote an hour a day to it on the radio.
Comments
I think the mistake was in trying to set up a 24x7 network from the start. Limbaugh, Hannity (et. al.) built up slowly, proving they had an audience before going national. Colmes did the same on the liberal side.
The other problem: most of the Air America hosts were painful to listen to. Talk Radio is about entertainment, something Limbaugh gets. Randy Rhodes, Al Franken - listening to them simply isn't enjoyable.
YOU CAN'T HAVE A SUCCESSFUL TALK SHOW IF IT'S BASICALLY ANTI-AMERICAN!
Listening to Air America is usually much like being lectured by the eastern elite, never failing to mock rural accents and generally talking down to anyone who doesn't eat seaweed for nourishment.
The hosts scream (i.e. the absolutely awful Randi Rhodes) with disrespect and disdain for all who are even an inch to the right of Karl Marx. The spewing of hate talk won't be missed, but it is truly a shame that an alternative to conservative talk radio just can't seem to figure out a working formula.
The first time I heard Rush Limbaugh was in 1990. A friend of mine was rhapsodizing about this "great" new talk radio personality, and insisted that I listen to the program. As soon as I heard the bloated patriotic fanfare, I knew I was in for some painful listening. I was only mildly curious about what such a pompous windbag, who struck me as a buffoon spouting revisionist nonsense, had to say. I thought it was satire--he couldn't possibly be serious. I had to ask my friend to turn it off after five minutes--I just couldn't take it.
I was amazed that anyone with a college education would take Limbaugh seriously as a source of information. This was the moment when I realized my friend and I did not share a world-view. It wasn't so surprising anymore when I subsequently discovered that he was under the impression that Africa was one nation. Then I knew just how dim his understanding of world history and politics really was.
There might be some entertainment value in what Limbaugh says, if you take it as unintended humour, but I remain mystified how anyone can listen to such an abrasive voice, which has all the audio charm of fingernails dragged on chalkboard.
There aren't many tortures, this side of a secret CIA prison, worse than being stuck in a place where I can't escape the sound of Limbaugh's noxious rants.
The first time I heard Limbaugh was when he targeted one of my colleagues at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for harassment in the early '90s.
After she wrote a column that was critical of his show, Limbaugh took the classy step of reading it in full on the air and telling his listeners her phone number. The ferocity of the angry calls she got was a surprise to me (this was before the web).
My liberal talk radio station, thankfully, doesn't air Jerry Springer, I get Stephanie Miller instead (love her love her love her!). I also love Randi Rhodes. I'd hate to see Air America go under because of what it stands for. I hope liberal talk radio will live long and prosper.
Franken always struck me as a terrible spokesman for liberals, since he's boring and bored-sounding, like he's basically given up and is just reciting talking points but has no real hope of his philosophy being adopted by anyone. Randi Rhodes is simply awful, a net loss to the progressive movement because she's as repellent in her delivery as she is in her viewpoint. Shulz seems like a decent fellow, but I haven't heard Maddow. I thought it was pretty nasty of Air America to fire Mike Malloy the way they did, but it definitely wasn't surprising considering their track record.
Vince, Africa is one nation. Under a groove, that is, as is the rest of the world.
Liberal radio will prosper, or not, regardless of Air America, which was and always will be a product of wishful thinking rather than a product of demand for and supply of quality radio. It's one thing to covet Rush Limbaugh's numbers, and entirely another to produce them.
Uncle Mikey, re: "under a groove"...
Right-wingers should not be allowed to mention anything relating to P-Funk. I would have thought George Clinton's surname would be enough to scare you away.
Didn't they teach you at UNT that it's impossible to be right-wing and hip? They're mutually exclusive.
Tell me, has Rush been sending you some of his red, white and blue pills?
You can't lose underestimating the intelligence of your audience when dealing with the mass media. Radio, television, and the print keep a running proof before our eyes on a daily basis.
The occasional pocket of what passes for "high brow" programming sticks out like a sore thumb, whilst the moronic bleating of Coulter, Rush, and the like blur together in the cacophony. I have my doubts that programming dependant on listeners who desire to know more today than they did yesterday has a snowball's chance in South Florida of lasting very long.
For some reason I feel like a quote from PT Barnum coming on.
Regards,
etc.
There's the argument I was waiting for, the old "people are too dumb to realize how great my product is." Which is the first and last refuge of any failed business owner or supporter.
Not that it's not sometimes the case. I loved the now-cancelled Arrested Development, and although the network never promoted it correctly, it may well have gone over too many heads to be viable. But that's not the case with Air America. As James Robertson rightly surmises, AA's problem was expecting to be able to produce 24 hours of good programming right out of the box, further complicated by the lack of a nationwide audience. It's as if McDonald's had opened 5,000 restaurants on day one while making up the menu as they went. Not a workable plan.
Making a distinction between the relative intelligence of far-right and far-left pundits is just plain silly. What ends up mattering to listeners is tone and delivery. Whatever else may be true about Limbaugh and Coulter, their overall tone is upbeat and they don't try to convince their fellow Americans that we're the bad guys. Franken sounds miserable, Rhodes sounds insane, and I can't speak for the rest but from what I've heard they seem to bounce between bilious and paranoid.
Whether you like it or not, the average person in this country does not believe that we caused the world's problems or that we're incapable of helping to solve them. The average person in this country doesn't want to hear that the best thing for everyone is for us to stop being a superpower, to be put in our place, to be punished for our sins. The fact that most of Air America doom-and-gloom predictions haven't (and won't) come true is probably not helping their numbers either. Finally, I catch it from time to time in Austin and am always amazed at the amateurish quality of commercial break transitions (dead air, cut-off hosts and ads, etc.), so it's not like they've gone out of their way to polish the turd.
Air America will go away, but the better hosts will stick around and grow their market shares. Will any of them get Limbaugh-large (insert giggle here)? I think he may be a one-time event in our lifetimes. Not because he's so smart or well-spoken, but for the same reason there's one Heinz ketchup and Hunt's will never catch up (badump bump). It's a world of limited audience resources and increasing news/entertainment choices, and he built his audience over a long, long time when there were relatively few. When you can get your liberal spin by just reading a newspaper or turning on the evening news, who needs a liberal Limbaugh?
Limbaugh's and Coulter's tone is upbeat? Limbaugh has a one-note drone with the accent on the downbeat (the collapse of Western civilization if liberals have their way). Rogers summed up pretty much everything that needs to be said about this racist hack at his ESPN Fumbled post.
Coulter is a depraved, conscienceless hussy for whom no slander is too low (her treatment of the 9/11 widows said it all). She told us herself that she's a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative, and may I add, a hate-monger besides. Apparently, she'll say just about anything to get the attention she craves. I don't think it's out of line to call her the ultimate media-whore.
Let's hope they're both a one-time event in our lives.
Noone wants to listen to embittered people who hate their country and sympathize with terrorists.
heck, even liberals listen to some right-wing hosts because of their upbeat and humor.
Look, you liberals have the major media and networks.
Quit whining becuase you can't take talk radio. Noone wants to listen to the same thing you hear on tv.
there are tons of conservative hosts besides Limbaugh to listen to.
geez....don;t get out much,huh? ;0)
Vince, by upbeat I mean not defeatist, not whiny, not loserish as an overall tone. I do not mean happy/shiny. And Coulter may be all those things, but she's also a Deadhead. So there.
I still don't get why Limbaugh's comments on ESPN should have offended anyone but sportswriters. Donovan McNabb has many fine qualities, but he hasn't won the big one, the same reason John Elway supposedly was a failure until he did. Mcnabb shouldn't be shielded from criticism by the very people whose job it is to criticise athletes, and by my reckoning he hasn't been nearly as ruthlessly disembowelled as every other QB on a good team who always comes up short has been. And I'm an NFL fanatic who watches everything to do with the NFL on TV, and reads a lot about it too.
I agree with Limbaugh that there is a reluctance among liberals to be seen as too critical of African Americans, and it's the same sick reasoning that makes people think racial preferences in hiring and university admissions are anything but insulting, condescending and possibly counterproductive. Is it so surprising that among the huge self-reported preponderance of left-liberals in journalism jobs there might be some sportswriters? Not at all. The only conservative NFL analysts I've come across are former players.
I will say that other players are unreasonably protected from criticism, but always for the express reason that they've been champions in the past. Bret Favre comes to mind, and he should have been taken out behind the barn and shot early last season.
Limbaugh has indeed said some things I wouldn't have said and don't condone, but I'm not a baby-with-the-bathwater guy, and if I applied that standard to who I would and wouldn't watch or listen to, I'd have almost no one left to look at or hear, and Air America would cease to exist entirely. When you consider that Limbaugh's been on the air 15 hours a week for nearly 20 years, it's not terribly surprising he's said some regrettable things. So has every politician since Pericles, every journalist since Andy Rooney and probably every chatty primate since Homo Habilis. Isaac Newton, science mind supreme, believed in alchemy. People do and say dumb and incongruous things all the time.
Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are popular because they appeal to the basest inclinations of the troglodytes who listen to them. Coulter may call herself a Deadhead, but her deportment and utterances are opposed to everything the Dead stood for--the right of every person to explore his consciousness with whatever mind-expanding substances he chooses (not including the mind-dulling substances that Rush favors, and the heroin that Jerry Garcia eventually succumbed to).
You had to drag Brett Favre into this, didn't you? How dare you. His career is a monument to a great athlete, who dealt with his own addiction in a manly way, in contrast to the effete, pussy-footing way Rush handled the exposure of his.
Decent people in this country are hesitant to seem over-eager to criticise African-Americans, because blacks are a minority here, and still, generally, at a disadvantage competing with whites in our society, affirmative action notwithstanding.
Rush's football commentary was even worse than that Dennis Miller's. They should be sentenced to taking baths together, where they compare their miniscule appendages.
I'm impressed that you know who Pericles was, since a majority of recent Yale grads don't, if William F. Buckley, Jr. is to be believed.
I look forward to the day when this country will produce men of the calibre of Pericles, whatever his faults may have been, because I have faith that ignoramuses like George W. Bush will one day be relegated to the back of the bus, where they belong, even if we have to endure his assaults on the Constitution to get there.
P.S.
To clarify one point, I share the belief of William F. Buckley, Jr. that it would benefit our society if all drugs were legalized, because doing so would remove the profit motive for the criminal organizations who make so much money off the distribution of illegal ones.
When Air American first hit the "airwaves" we all speculated as to the length of time it would take to "belly/up".
Now we have our answer..........
The elite liberals do not "get it". Americans are free to support whomever they identify with. Obviously -- they do not identify with the liberal line.
Vince and Uncle Mikey serve as ideal examples of the Left and the Right, in the current divisions in our country.
While Uncle Mikey attempts to voice a pragmatic view of the way things are, Vince (in his persona of intellectual elitism,) resorts to denigration of those whose logic bears fruit.
Vince, you seem to think that the badge of authority is a college degree. I suggest you do some research into the intellectual capabilities of the average 8th grade student of a half-century ago, as compared to the average college graduate today.
Observer
If right-wingers are the ones with a "pragmatic view of the way things are," why are there no right-wingers in the Bush administration? I would've thought that's a good place to find some of them.
Mr. Cadenhead, I find it amusing that Liberals, when faced with a postulation they find difficult, turn the conversation to their favorite whipping-boy. Although your comment is not relavent to the observation I made regarding the debate between Vince and Uncle Mikey, I will (a bit later,) compare the pragmatism of those who support the Bush Administration to those of the opposition.
My original point was that Vince seems only able to discouse with vitriol, while Uncle Mikey uses logic and example, to make his case.
Back to your question: I think your pondering may disclose a bit about your own shortcomings. Why must the Left allow their hatred for George Bush to drive all of their emotions and logic?
Clearly, George Bush is a bumbling, inarticulate fool. But in these days when only fools and whores are drawn to politics, a pragmatist will vote for the fool, in the hope that the damage he does is less than that of the whores, who sell their souls as readily as they sell the future of their constituents.
Contrary to Vince's arguments, most people see through the lies of political whores. That is the reason Air America has failed. That, and as you observed, Rush Limbaugh never killed a children's charity.
Observer
Vince, you really should read that Coulter interview. You'd be surprised how alike she and the Dead really are, which is to say they weren't nearly as liberal as you'd like them to be. And Brett Favre's a great guy and everything, but what's so manly about this?
He was plagued by many of the drug's side effects. He was constantly dehydrated, acutely constipated - he often went a week or longer between bowel movements - and endured bouts of nausea and vomiting. He choked down the pills at precisely 9 each night and when they kicked in, he was so wired up he paced the house or played video games until the early morning hours, while an increasingly suspicious Deanna slept fitfully upstairs.
Sometimes, he would vomit up the pills, then carefully wash them off and force them down again.
Favre's agent, James "Bus" Cook, began to suspect his star client had a problem. Favre wrote that one of his best friends, Clark Henegan, told him bluntly, "Man, you've got to stop with the pills. It's gone too far."
A few weeks after Favre led the Packers to the 1995 NFC Championship Game - and threw three touchdown passes in a 38-27 loss to the Dallas Cowboys - he decided to quit Vicodin cold turkey. He polished off his stash of 15 pills and flushed the bottle down the toilet.
But his nightmare was just beginning.
In February 1996, Favre flew to Green Bay to have bone chips removed from his left ankle. After surgery, he was sitting up in his hospital bed, talking to Deanna, when he suffered a seizure. His eyes rolled back in his head, his arms and legs thrashed and his body stiffened. Brittany, who was in the room, asked Deanna, "Is he going to die, Mommy?"
The cause of the seizure was debatable, but the fact is seizures are one possible side effect of Vicodin. It was a wake-up call for Favre, who agreed to meet with NFL-appointed doctors at the urging of the Packers' medical personnel.
According to Favre's autobiography, the meeting took place in Chicago in March 1996. The league doctors asked him a lot of questions about his alcohol use. Finally, one of them said, "We know you're addicted to painkillers and we think you have a drinking problem, too."
They suggested Favre seek treatment at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kan. He got up and walked out of the room.
The NFL doctors kept calling. Favre kept ignoring them. Finally, a league doctor called and said Favre had been classified as behavioral-referred instead of self-referred because the Packers' team doctors had contacted the NFL about his addiction to painkillers.
Now, Favre had no choice. He had to report to the Menninger Clinic or he would be fined four weeks' pay, or about $900,000.
Nothing more manly than being refusing to do the right thing until you've been backed into a corner financially.
I didn't consider the discussion between Uncle Mikey and me a real debate. My comments were meant to be partly humorous (I thought Uncle Mikey was writing in the same spirit), but I stand behind my characterisation of Limbaugh and Coulter--they're not decent people. (I keep thinking of Limbaugh's statement that drug abusers should be put in jail and the key thrown away. He's a hypocrite to say the least.) This verbal sparring is my idea of fun, not serious debate.
Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have both been caught in fabrications and outright lies. I'm not here to make a case, because others have already done that.
Saying that I was amazed that someone with a college degree would take Rush Limbaugh seriously as a source of information doesn't translate to thinking that a college degree is "a badge of authority".
You've distorted what I said, and like your hero Uncle Mikey, you're arguing a point not at issue. You should leave that to the "bumbling fools" (this is sounding more and more familiar).
Uncle Mikey, who said anything about how liberal the Grateful Dead were? That wasn't the question. I don't believe a single member of the Dead would have endorsed Ann Coulter's hateful politics.
Observer, your comments reveal the confused mind of a fuzzy 'thinker' who contradicts his own points in the very act of making them.
Whether I'm right or wrong, at least I have the balls to attach my name to my comments.
Gee, Vince...For your sake, I hope you cleared your most recent remarks though the keepers of your Socialist Manifesto. I'm doubtful that you did, because it is not PC to refer to the power of your cojones, to gain force in dialogue. But then, being a lowly 'fuzzy thinker', not to mention a non-college graduate, I'm probably wrong in that too.
By the way, Uncle Mikey is not 'my hero'. In fact, I think he spends way too much time trying to talk sense into those that are too brainwashed to comprehend logic.
Regarding Coulter and Limbaugh, I'm wondering how you compare their rhetoric with the Fakirs of the Left (Michael Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, etc.)?
Observer
Observer, don't you have anything better to do than to argue with socialists? I just enjoy giving the right-wing knuckle-dragging peckerwoods who visit or hang out here (like the resident goof-ball, that young pup Uncle Mikey) a hard time. It's fun.
I'm not going to get into a discussion of the merits of liberal vs. conservative radio. But, Rogers, you need to be corrected about one thing: Rush Limbaugh did not "tell his listeners" your friend's phone number. I've been listening to him since he first came on the air in Jacksonville in 1988, and I rarely missed his show for a long time.
Limbaugh has never given out a phone number (other than his own) on the air. Never. In fact, he's adamant about not giving out numbers and has discussed the reasons why on a number of occasions. The main one? If he did give out a number, it would quickly melt down from the number of calls. So, he doesn't do it for the very effect it had on your friend.
He has adamantly refused to even ask his audience to do things like flooding congresspersons or the White House with protest calls and the like. You see, I think he believes that we can think for ourselves, and if people react a certain way because of something they hear on his show, they do that on their own.
If your friend's phone was ringing off the hook, it was because those people who called her looked the number up in some public record. Like a phone book. I'd be willing to bet that finding her phone number wasn't a really difficult thing to to.
And believe it or not, we conservatives do know how to look up phone numbers on our own. Despite what many of you might think of us, we can walk and chew gum at the same time, tie our own shoes, use a web browser and have an opinion. With or without Rush or anyone else.
If I ate a whole chocolate cream pie in two days would I be your hero? Because I just did.
Enough, Vince! Quit trying to masquerade as Uncle Mikey. Everyone knows that real men don't eat cream pies, especially chocolate cream.
Uncle Mikey...if that really was you, I have to assume you are one of those woosy 'compassionate conservatives'. Stick to apple pie (with vanilla ice cream!)That's what Rush eats!
Observer
Although Limbaugh mocks his own pomposity, I still don't like hearing it. Unfortunately, there was no lack of pomposity coming out of Air America, either.
The difference in success is, of course, because most of the Americans who do listen to Rush are patriotic, hard working and support constitutional values; as well as being morally upright: Middle-America, the "Silent" majority. Meanwhile, Air America does not have anywhere near that number of listeners, and certainly not the patriotic, conservative silent majority!
So, it is primarily the numbers (and which doesn't bode well for control of Congress), but there is also the format of the different shows. In Limbaugh's case, he is able to mock the Leftist/Democrats based on the truth presented by the words and actions they display. In the case of Air America, they have to erect a strawman (lie) they create, in order to mock it; e.g., Bush is a "liar" because no WMD were found, and etc.
The "truth" on the one hand, and "lies" on the other ...
... and you know in your heart that is the reason for the failure of that style of "Liberal" talk show ...
Franken was also a very bad choice for principal host. A lie from his mouth is oh-so very obvious; regardless of the humor involved. Indeed, what "humor" is present cloys swiftly when one is forced to listen to Franken's continuous whine, at the same time ...
Limbaugh has never given out a phone number (other than his own) on the air. Never.
My recollection of the incident is that he read her direct office number on the air, which led to a torrent of abusive calls.
I could be wrong, of course, but he was a more abusive character on the air in the early '90s than he is today. That was the same period of time when he derided Chelsea as the "White House dog."
Hey, Tadowe's back. I was just wondering where he had gone and there he is. It's not the same here without him.
And he's right. Liberal radio is so often tortured in its reasoning, ignoring the big issues when their positions are unpopular and going to ridiculous, nitpicky extremes to make a case against Bush and co. The Plame nonsense is a fine example, and it's not at all surprising lefties are now pretending it never happened. They have no other choice, given their absurd pronouncements on the subject.
In terms of daughter hotness, the 2004 election was a decent one. I don't want to toot my own horn (if I could do that, I wouldn't be here with you numbskulls ... badump bump) but I had a close encounter with the Bush twins at a karaoke bar. They were butchering some song most horribly with their entourage, and because I didn't know who they were I asked if they could do me a favor when they came offstage. The one who isn't called Barbara said, "Sure, what?" To which I responded, "Never sing in public again."
Again, I didn't know who they were, and if I had known they could have me killed I would have kept my mouth shut. The fun part was that one of their friends got such a kick out of it that she laughed her pretty little head off and grabbed my hand and dragged me onto the dance floor, where my then-early stage girlfriend (and future wife) saw us, marched up, slapped the girl's hand off of my arm and claimed me like a lion tearing a gazelle haunch from a hyena's jaws.
And that's when I knew we would be married. Thanks, Bush twins!
The Plame nonsense is a fine example, and it's not at all surprising lefties are now pretending it never happened.
How is it nonsense, considering Libby's indictment and Judith Miller's jail time? It's one of the biggest scandals of Bush's term in office, and the fact that it didn't become a bigger story (i.e. Fitzmas) doesn't turn it into a non-story.
All we really have to do is give these misnamed 'conservatives' lots of slack, and they'll hook themselves every time. Then, we reel them in, fillet them, and toss their sorry carcasses into the polluted waters from whence they came.
That's why the Democratic party seems so strangely inert and bereft of ideas--it hasn't seized the initiative and pounded the Republicans on their dismal fiscal record (the biggest expansion of government in the U.S. since the New Deal) and every other act of perfidy by the crooks who replaced the bunch they booted out.
I will defend chocolate cream pie to the death, damn your eyes. Apple pie is for deckriding catamites (I don't know what that means, but as it was lifted from an NFL pool flamewar, I'm sure it's pretty bad).
I think the answer to the Libby and Miller questions is obvious (they happened before Armitage confessed), but let's start with Plame not being a covert agent in the first place (something Fitzgerald doesn't challenge), not having worked undercover out of the country for the previous five years. Not to mention being self-outing to an alarming degree, assuming she ever thought of herself as covert.
Then let's remember it was Armitage, not Rove, Libby or Chimpy McHitlerburton, who let the info slip. You can fantasize all you want that Armitage is a Bush puppet, but don't expect anyone with any sense or information to come along. He's been against the Iraq war from day one, and he could have copped to the outing at any time if he cared to spare Bush the embarrassment.
More than anything, this whole "scandal" is a product of Joe Wilson being a lying piece of shit who never should have been in Niger in the first place. Had Plame not been part of the reason he was sent, we wouldn't be flogging this dead horse today.
Liberal pundits couldn't shut up about it until Armitage confessed, but now they don't say a word unless it's to feebly contend that while it's not the victory over Bush they had hoped for, it still somehow means that Karl Rove did something bad. Which is exactly my point about liberal radio: if you have to twist the world around you that much to make a case against Bush, you're not convincing anyone of anything but the fact that you've got no meaningful leg to stand on. The really offensive part of all this is the fantasy that liberals give a shit about whether covert agents, or programs, stay covert. It's partisan nonsense and frankly far beneath the lot of them.
Vince, can you explain who you think you've filleted?
You won't win many converts, Uncle Mikey, by using witticisms like "Chimpy McHitlerburton", even if it's meant ironically. I won't waste my breath trying to persuade you or your sweaty posse that you're wrong, because you've made your mind up, and are insensible to the healing balm of reason.
Frankly, I don't understand why you and Tadowe and my sweetheart, 'Observer', waste your energy spilling your guts about your political views here--no one gives a rat's ass what you think, because we're all communist pinko hippie fags who smoke reefer.
And, just to set a twisted mind straight, there is no pie in my universe but rhubarb pie, so in the words of that inimitable zen-master, "Eat my shorts." Or, if you prefer, try on the words of
a real bling-whore, "Let them eat chocolate cream pie".
Uncle Mikey, I'm talking about the sharks in Congress. Better lay off the pies, you're looking more and more like shark bait.
Rogers says, "I could be wrong, of course, but he was a more abusive character on the air in the early '90s than he is today. That was the same period of time when he derided Chelsea as the 'White House dog.'"
Yes, thanks for the reminder -- I had forgotten this and what was given as the excuse at the time: mockery of Nixon's daughter by the street-ranging Leftist/Democrats!
And, although not mentioned directly, Air America isn't anything, if not "abusive." Another reason their listenership has declined precipitously -- all the lemmings are too busy swimming, now, to listen ...
"I did not do that twice, I swear"
You installed a wireless mouse, software, but still haven't bothered to set-it-up ... ?
Mikey says "The Plame nonsense is a fine example, and it's not at all surprising lefties are now pretending it never happened."
Rogers responds, "How is it nonsense, considering Libby's indictment and Judith Miller's jail time?"
How many times did Libby go before the Grand Jury? 5 times? More?
How do you think you would do, Rogers, if you were deposed 5 times about ... say, censoring my comments? Not that you are "guilty" or anything, but could you remain consistent in your responses about that over a 2 years period of time?
You are a very intelligenct person, but apparently won't let yourself wonder why this story has appeared? It is there for the very reason the correspondent mentioned: an excuse for Fitzgerald to drop the Libby endictment!
Come on! The CIA doesn't want this trashed out in court! It would demonstrate that members of that organization literally plotted treason!
And... Miller is the only legitmate lawsuit which will come out of this fiasco, as she sues the US Attorney General's office for false imprisonment!
Wilson endangered Plame's status with the CIA, himself ... and you know it!
"It's one of the biggest scandals of Bush's term in office, and the fact that it didn't become a bigger story (i.e. Fitzmas) doesn't turn it into a non-story."
It is a "story" alright! One of treason and suborning of treason to gain political advantage!
That's what it is!
Deckriding catamite says, second (2d0 paragraph, "... Frankly, I don't understand why you and Tadowe and my sweetheart, 'Observer', waste your energy spilling your guts about your political views here--no one gives a rat's ass what you think, because we're all communist pinko hippie fags who smoke reefer."
It is an effort to clarify for the audience, Vince. For example, you claim not to "give a rat's ass" about various comments, and some might actually believe you -- for whatever reason -- and attempt to support your obvious lie. Replying with a dose of reality could save them some embarrassment: you claim to not care but inanely use four (4) paragraphs to do so!
Third (3rd) paragraph, "And, just to set a twisted mind straight, there is no pie in my universe but rhubarb pie, so in the words of that inimitable zen-master, "Eat my shorts." Or, if you prefer, try on the words of
a real bling-whore, 'Let them eat chocolate cream pie'."
I'll bet you're glad Rogers likes this sort of pseudointellectual idiocy, eh?
Fourth (4th) paragraph, "Uncle Mikey, I'm talking about the sharks in Congress. Better lay off the pies, you're looking more and more like shark bait."
In expectation of a victory in Congress! Then your pie filled benefit from tax cuts will disappear, Mikey!
The Tax Sharks Will Be In Control Then!
It was supposed to be a joke, Tadowe. I didn't think you would take it seriously, but I guess I should have known you wouldn't let a chance to expel some hot air 'pass'.
Vince says, "It was supposed to be a joke, Tadowe."
No kidding? Imagine that?
"I didn't think you would take it seriously, but I guess I should have known you wouldn't let a chance to expel some hot air 'pass'."
You dropped my name and issued pejorative inferences -- I can "take" your comments any way it pleases me, Vince. What "understanding" do you think your attack deserves?
What I do understand is that your snide "jokes" are ad hominem, and you invariably whine and make excuses whenever someone gives you a dose of your own medicine. You apparently run away from taking responsibility for issuing them, in the first place.
I won't characterize that image further ... everyone can see you in their own light ...
I had forgotten this and what was given as the excuse at the time: mockery of Nixon's daughter by the street-ranging Leftist/Democrats!
That's slightly before my time ... all I remember of the Nixon era was my grandmother keeping the "Nixon Resigns" paper around. What did Dems say about Julie Nixon?
Rogers says, "That's slightly before my time ... all I remember of the Nixon era was my grandmother keeping the "Nixon Resigns" paper around. What did Dems say about Julie Nixon?"
Looking for material? Pretty much the same sort of calumny used against the Bush daughters, and Clinton's. This isn't anything new, Rogers, even Truman's daughter was a target for attack, and Mort Saul was a "liberal." (Indicating that Congress, the administraion and the courts were all "liberal," and humor against the minority was like kicking the tar-baby ... so the "targets" for "humor" were limited.)
Why, I was even listening to Air America when the Bush daughters were categorized with a plethora of undesireable characteristics and characters!
I'm sure they are as arrogant about the "excuse" they have for doing so; i.e., Limbaugh dissed Chelsea, along with Jay Leno, Conan O'Doyle, David Letterman and every standp-up comic in the business! So, they have a right, right?
Isn't that what you are saying?
I won't waste my breath trying to persuade you or your sweaty posse that you're wrong, because you've made your mind up, and are insensible to the healing balm of reason.
Frankly, I don't understand why you and Tadowe and my sweetheart, 'Observer', waste your energy spilling your guts about your political views here--no one gives a rat's ass what you think, because we're all communist pinko hippie fags who smoke reefer.
So I win, then?
Uncle Mikey, I would never hope to 'win'. It's more entertaining to goof on you and to be goofed on, and especially to watch the fireworks when the Oregon volcano erupts like Workbench's very own Mt. Etna.
To bad he doesn't spew chocolate cream.
Vince discloses, "Uncle Mikey, I would never hope to 'win'. It's more entertaining to goof on you and to be goofed on, and especially to watch the fireworks when the Oregon volcano erupts like Workbench's very own Mt. Etna."
Are you for real, Vince? Rogers has a whole thread on why "outing" on-line personalities is "evil!"
Are you actually this dense?
I'm not sure what Vince means by Oregon volcano and eruptions, but I do have an erection now. Then again, maybe it's from looking at Katherine Harris earlier.
The CIA has been a rogue agency for a long time, with cowboy characters who gave citizens LSD without their knowledge.
The nuts-and-bolts people whose toil holds it all together may be consumate professionals in their field (or not), but the rogue personalities used to get all the sexy press.
Now, it's different. In the 'trenches' of Langley, the real 'enemy' may be something else entirely than what the administration (or anyone outside Langley) says it is.
Uncle Mikey, that's more information than we need to know about you. I don't know what Tadowe's talking about, either, because he told us where he lives.
Wow, only one unobservant day and now I see that all hell broke loose. Vince is getting pounded and Mr. Cadenhead isn't providing much support (I'm sure he's smiling though; this single post has apparently quadrupled his readership.)
You guys covered 37 years of history but have still not reached consensus? Maybe it will take a doubling of that research, to find where the country really started its decline.
In any event, once we irascible conservatives have achieved an irreversible level of global warming, Vince will be too busy trying to rescue his rhubarb, to continue this battle.
Observer
Someone says, "... this single post has apparently quadrupled his readership..."
Funny.
"You guys covered 37 years of history but have still not reached consensus?"
"Consensus?" Are you some kind of wide-eted optimist? Isolated from "civilization?"
That the Leftist/Democrats are still denying a Republican victory in 2000, should alert anyone with access to the "news" that they aren't in any way into "consensus." And the Plame affair?
Go to any Leftist/Democrat blog to see the radical zealots still claiming that Plame was "covert" and that this "leak" is the greatest treason ever in the history of the country!
You can stuff your dreams of "consensus" in your hookah, and smoke it . ..
(I'm sure he's smiling though; this single post has apparently quadrupled his readership.)
I don't know what you're basing that claim on, but it's wrongheaded. This site gets around 10,000 visitors a day whether or not people are engaged in an ongoing argument.
We were talking about "gasbags" and "wind bags":
If the 'conservative' politicians quit emitting so much gaseous verbiage to distract us from the real issues, I would expect a measurable decrease in the rate of global warming.
All joking aside (well, mostly), that's one subject I'd like to hear radio talk show hosts/commentators address in an ecumenical way.
Personally, I don't worry as much about the never-ending depressing events in the Mideast as I do about our deteriorating environment.
To show good faith and a genuine commitment to addressing air and water pollution problems in this country, the government should implement the Kyoto Protocol of the international treaty on climate change, rather than enabling polluters. It doesn't even have to sign the agreement. George W. Bush could save face and would have a chance to prove that he's not committed to letting corporate interests plunder the common inheritance of the people of the United States.
Corporate polluters will never take pollution reduction standards seriously without mandatory targets for maximum allowable levels of greenhouse gases discharged into our atmosphere.
I feel more threatened by the spectre of disastrous climate change than I do by terrorists. Some sceptics of the assertion that global warming is caused by man's activities offer up a simplistic scenario for its effects.
Europe may actually get colder if ocean currents in the north Atlantic are diverted by temperature changes. So it's understandable that Europeans might view the obstructionist environmental policies of the United States (Australia's emissions are a fraction of ours) with dismay.
I should have said 'ratify' the agreement. The U.S. is a signatory, but it's only symbolic till it's ratified.
Vince
This site gets around 10,000 visitors a day
Yes, but at least a quarter of that are here to masturbate to your picture.
Vince, what about the depressing events in the Midwest? I hear the Omaha Pickle Festival is soon to begin. Who will speak for the cucumbers?
Uncle Mikey, that's another image I really didn't need to have in my mind. Thanks a lot.
I'm too busy saving the rhubarb to worry about cucumbers. Listen, do you want me to send you a free membership to a sex club? Are you sure you're not gay? You seem to have a very healthy interest in phallic objects. Frankly, you seem obsessed, and I'm afraid that no vegetables are safe until you deal with this.
From my observation, it appears that Uncle Mikey and Vince have caused the quality of this discussion to degenerate and I'm concerned that if something isn't done, Mr. Cadenhead will lose some of those 10,000 daily visitors, of which he is so proud. So I'm going to try to get us back on track of matters of importance.
The media news and blogosphere are still abuzz today, in reaction to our ex-President's tirade on Fox News yesterday. I missed the original airing on Fox, but have since gone to their archives and watched the whole thing.
Wow! Slick Willy has not been so finger-pointing indignant since he assured all of us that, "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski!" And was it only my imagination, that with each thrust of his finger the clown-in-chief's nose grew a good inch, during the interview?
Poor Bill! He TRIED, but for some reason, the CIA, FBI and Military Leaders refused to follow his orders! I must admit, I'm having difficulty understanding Mr. Clinton's defense in this regard. As I recall, the Directors of the CIA and FBI are presidential appointees, and serve at the pleasure of the chief executive. And then of course, there is that pesky element of our Constitution that says the President is Commander in Chief' of the armed services. But nope, none of those guys would follow his orders.
According to Bill, the CIA, FBI & those military guys were all too intimidated by that irascible right-wing conspiracy, who were plotting against Mr. & Mrs. President.
Willy Jeff didn't mention the National Security Advisor during the interview and some have wondered why? One pundit surmised that Bill is unhappy with Sandy Berger those days, because Hillary keeps eyeing the bulge in Sandy's pants. Doesn't she know that is where the ex-NSA keeps all of his important documents? Although that may be humorous (if a bit crude,) I doubt the truthfulness. Doesn't Hillary swing in opposite direction?
Giving Mr. Clinton all the respect he is due, I would like to believe that he really did try to get bin Laden. Perhaps he even spelled out a specific plan while dictating to Monica...and she just blew it.
Observer
Someone was observed to say, "Giving Mr. Clinton all the respect he is due ... "
Here is another example of where Leftist/Democrats literally lie to themselves and preach to the choir: Clinton is perfection personified!
They haven't the objectivity nature provided an ant and the only consensus is in the timing of their goosestepping rote ...
Rogers asked:
"How is it nonsense, considering Libby's indictment and Judith Miller's jail time? It's one of the biggest scandals of Bush's term in office, and the fact that it didn't become a bigger story (i.e. Fitzmas) doesn't turn it into a non-story."
Well. Begin with the fact that we now know who leaked the information: Armitage. Armitage is a known opponent of Bush's Iraq policy, so it wasn't intended to "punish" Plame or Wilson; rather, it was part and parcel of Armitage's long career of showing journalists how important he is due to how much "important stuff" he knows.
Fitzgerald was asked to look into any crimes surrounding the leak of Plame's name, and he knew about Armitage from day one: meaning, if there had been any violation of the 1917 espionage act, Armitage would have been on the hotseat. He wasn't, which left Fitzgerald in "now what??" mode. Like too many prosecutors (and software managers, for that matter), he decided that "too much money had been spent to just pack up". So he went after Libby for perjury. It's unclear to me whether we have actual perjury or a case of faulty memory, but either way, the supposed primary crime is completely absent.
Which means that the "scandal" is non-existant. Heck, the Democratic party knows this; no one is pushing it as an election story. There's a reason for that.
The end of Air America was well predicted by many.
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