I Heart Alan Colmes

I've been exchanging e-mail lately with Alan Colmes (namedrop!), the cohost of Hannity & Colmes and his own nightly radio show. This isn't payola; I'm doing this as an expression of love. As a huge fan of talk radio I've wanted to adopt a liberal show on the Drudge Retort, inspired by Matt Drudge's relentless self-promotion of his Sunday night show.

Every night as Colmes airs, the Retort will post live links to upcoming guests and a place to talk about them. I don't know how this experiment will go -- my visitors are a hard-edged crowd, as Colmes must have realized when he read one of the first responses:

... Alan looks like someone who skinned some guy and is wearing the face.

As a person whose head was once compared to a bore brush for a 50-millimeter rifle, I feel Alan's pain. (My wife assures me I look very distinguished.)

I began listening to Colmes when I got XM Radio, which airs his show weeknights from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Eastern on Channel 167.

In spite of being the most-watched liberal TV host with an audience of two million viewers, Colmes takes an unbelievable amount of flak from fellow travelers on the left. People accuse him of being the Washington Generals to Sean Hannity's Harlem Globetrotters, always reaching for the ball just as it gets passed through his legs for a thundering dunk by Mort Kondracke.

A funny thing happens to Colmes when he doesn't have to share air with that oxygen-hog Hannity. He runs an entertaining show that's unabashedly liberal but free of the tweedy, eat-your-vegetables tone that makes too much of Air America sound like homework.

One of the best things about his show is that conservatives are comfortable calling it, which gives him a chance to talk them into indefensible positions. Listening to him coax a dumb caller out onto a limb that doesn't support their weight is comedy gold.

I've attached an example of this from last night, when a cranky caller berated the actor Bruce Campbell for simultaneously being too famous and so obscure she'd never heard of him.

Television · Radio · Publishing · Politics · Podcasts · Movies · 2005/06/16 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

I actually like Alan Colmes, thought I don't listen to his radio show, or regularly watch him on TV. He seems pretty level-headed and really believes what he preaches.

I don't listen to him, or watch the prime-time shows on Fox of CNN, because of a reason I have posted about on my own blog many times...I feel that they serve no helpful purpose, and the only further polarize their viewers. These shows are all about the shouting, back-biting, stick-this-in-your-pipe-and-smoke-it, up yours moments that get ratings. They care nothing about discussing the real solutions to our country's problems...they only want ratings and soundbites.

It seems no one is interested in having a true, meaningful debate anymore. Not even the election debates contain any substance. It's all a made for TV fashion show that feeds the mob's need for simplest-terms, stylishly-packaged drivel. In the end, a large number of US citizens decide to vote for who they think put together the best stage show, and those who follow this pattern are typically too lazy or indifferent to actually make it to the polls.

What I wouldn't give for a forum that fosters real debate: Here's a problem, here are the possible solutions, let's discuss and figure out which is best for We the People. I don't want another forum that either feeds my own conservative views or riles me up with ultra-liberal angles. I want to see or hear real people, who love this country and care about it's future, and I want them to thoughtfully and respectfully debate the day's issues in an open forum.

Do such people or forums exist? I certainly haven't found any. They don't exist in our educational institutions, they certainly don't exist in the media, and they definitely (and sadly) don't exist in Washington D.C.

#1 · David K · 2005/06/16

I can't think of a place on the web where politics is discussed constructively without shrill partisanship from one or both sides of the spectrum.

The closest that comes to mind is Crooked Timber, a left-leaning community weblog that has surprisingly erudite comments.

#2 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2005/06/17

Thanks for the link...I will definitely bookmark that one.

Is it possible that I am evolving?

#3 · David K · 2005/06/17

I discovered Colmes many years ago when here in Baton Rouge his show was on a local station. I too was impressed with Colmes. However, when I saw him on the show I like to refer to as Hannity and Very Little of Alan Colmes, I was disturbed. Not just because it gave me definite proof of Colmes being a pod person, alien or relative of James Carville, which by definition means all three are true, but Colmes had apparently decided to be something on television that he wasn't on radio. Pick a persona and stick with it. I don't find most pod people, aliens or relatives of James Carville to be quite so indecisive.

#4 · Lone Star J.R. · 2005/06/20

While I cant stand Alan Colmes, I still have to respect him for his controversial views. Our new site is up and a forum for open discussion is available on BOTH sides of any issue.
Alan Colmes Sucks

#5 · Frank Gatlin · 2007/04/08

It seems to me that alan is the most hated man on tv and i think that he diserves to have a little repect. he speaks for thoes liberals who can't speak for themselves.

#6 · shawna · 2007/12/29