Crush Liberalism

Air America growing…why am I glad?

From NewsMax.com:

Air America, the upstart liberal radio network, is finally gaining some traction in the industry after a rocky, uncertain beginning.

Despite being placed on life support shortly after its much-hyped March 2004 launch, The Wall Street Journal reports Air America has spread to 45 markets, including New York City, Boston, Miami, San Francisco, and Portland, Ore.

(snip…)

But the network has a long way to go to counter its more successful conservative competitors.

Michael Harrison, editor of the industry’s Talker magazine, told the Journal that 75 to 80 percent of total talk programming is conservative.

And, the Journal reported, “a June 1 study from Washington, D.C-based Democracy Radio reported that national and local conservative programming totaled over 40,000 hours every week, while progressive, or liberal, programming totaled just over 3,000 hours.”

Profitability also continues to elude the network. It’s president, John Sinton, told the Journal Air America is still in the red, though he expects to turn a profit soon.

Adds Harrison, “When they start earning money as opposed to raising money, then we’ll know they’ve made it.”

Why am I hoping that Air America catches on? Mainly, for one reason and one reason alone: the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.”

In 1987 that the FCC rescinded the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.” Under this doctrine broadcast stations had to make time available to all parties to present opposing views on various issues. Seems harmless, right? Wrong.

The plan made no sense. In a community with 25 radio stations and only one newspaper it was the radio stations that were forced to present all sides of an issue, while the newspaper went on it’s merry way. Political activists soon found out how to use the “Fairness Doctrine” to harass any broadcast outlet that had the nerve to allow an opinion to be expressed with which they disagreed. Richard Nixon was heard to brag about how he used this tool to hammer those who criticized him on radio and television.

With the end of the “Fairness Doctrine” talk radio broke through and the AM band was salvaged. Today radio stations, like newspapers, are free to broadcast without suffering harassment at the hands of those who can’t stand the free expression of opinions with which they do not agree.

If market forces allow Air America to survive, then life is good. If market forces cause Air America to crash and burn, then look for the left to try to ram the “Fairness Doctrine” down our throats and put an end to talk radio…all in the name of “fairness”, of course! After all, owning the MSM is not enough for liberals, since we red-staters are bypassing their leftist drivel by getting information from other sources, i.e. talk radio and the Internet. If they try to shut down talk radio today, they’ll aim for regulating Internet speech after that.

So let’s hope that Air America survives…just don’t listen to it! Let liberals listen to other liberals, and continue to lose elections.

January 26, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

"ANOTHER COLUMNIST WAS PAID TO PROMOTE BUSH PROPOSAL"

This is the headline on Drudge’s web site. The story is as follows:

In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush’s push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.

But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president’s proposal, reveals Howard Kurtz in Wednesday runs of the WASHINGTON POST.

“The Bush marriage initiative would emphasize the importance of marriage to poor couples” and “educate teens on the value of delaying childbearing until marriage,” she wrote in National Review Online, for example, adding that this could “carry big payoffs down the road for taxpayers and children.”

Gallagher explains to Kurtz: “Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don’t know. You tell me.” She said she would have “been happy to tell anyone who called me” about the contract but that “frankly, it never occurred to me” to disclose it.

National Review Editor Rich Lowry said of the HHS contract: “We would have preferred that she told us, and we would have disclosed it in her bio.”

Sorry, but while I do support President Bush and did vote for him twice, there are a few things about him that bother me. One of them is that for a “conservative”, he sure does spend like a drunken sailor…and I’m not counting the defense budget, since only a liberal would argue for the need to cut defense spending during a time of war.

First, there was Armstrong Williams getting paid nearly a quarter of a million dollars to promote Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” program. Now we find out that Maggie Gallagher was paid to promote another Bush idea! Is this the best use of public dollars? The President has persuaded me (and millions of others) on the merits of his ideas…why in God’s name did his administration feel the need to pay people to persuade others?

Sorry, folks, but while I do like the man, I have to call things like I see them…and these two payoffs were horrible moves on this administration’s part!

I don’t condone paying private citizens with public money to lobby other private citizens on behalf of pet legislation…from the left or the right…period. While it may not be illegal, it sure is wrongheaded and wasteful, especially since we’re running a defecit.

January 26, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Ted Turner, off the deep end

From Neal Boortz:

Ted Turner is not what you might called thrilled with the surge of Fox News Channel in the cable television ratings. After all, CNN is Ted’s baby. I can remember many many moons ago sitting with Ted Turner at a private lunch at the Commerce Club in downtown Atlanta. At that time, the early 70′s I think, I was hosting a television show on Turner’s WTBS. Turner sat there at lunch and told me of his plans for a cable television news service. I nodded politely and tried to keep my elbows off the table. Little did I know the level of success that Turner would achieve with his dream. Now that success is sullied by the growing popularity of Fox News Channel … and Ted is torqued, and Ted felt the need to go on the attack against Fox News. So, attack Ted did … at the National Association for Television Programming Executives meeting in Las Vegas.

In attacking Fox News I suspect Ted is faced with the same problem that my more liberal listeners have been faced for the entirety of 2004. In January of 2004 I challenged my listeners to watch Fox News carefully and to call my show with any evidence of any right-wing bias in the presentation of news stories on any Fox News program. Obviously you will find bias on the opinion programs, that’s to be expected. But my challenge dealt with the presentation of actual news stories. Well, the entire year went by with repeated goading from me, and not one listener ever made one phone call or sent one email which illustrated even one instance of right wing bias in the presentation of news stories on the Fox News Channel. Not one. Turner faces a similar dilemma. He has no examples either, so what does he do? He does exactly what our friend Steve did! He goes the “Nazi” route! Yesterday Ted Turner was out there in front of God and all those people comparing the Fox News Channel, and it’s superior ratings, to Hitler! Yeah, Ted says, Hitler was popular with the people too! So, Ted Turner is comparing people who watch Fox News Channel instead of CNN to the people who put Hitler in power in Germany! I particularly like the response to Ted’s tirade from the Fox News Channel spokesman: “Ted Turner is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind. We wish him well.”

So do I, Ted. Enjoyed the lunch.

Oh .. one more thing. “Nazi” is actually an acronym for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Ted Turner has publicly stated that he is a socialist. Hmmmmmm. Nazis were socialists … Ted Turner is a socialist ……. Oh well, never mind.

Last year or the year before, the former Mr. Jane Fonda said that while Fox News had great ratings, he didn’t care…ratings weren’t everything. Now that’s a message you, as CEO or Chairman or whatever the hell he is, want to send to the advertisers, shareholders, and employees of CNN, huh? “We’re second rate, but hey…who cares?” If I’m an advertiser, I’m looking at maximum exposure to my paid ads, and here’s Ted Turner telling me that the exposure I seek for my product or services is not to be found on his network…and he doesn’t care! Needless to say, I will advertise elsewhere.

In 1996, Turner apologized to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for comments he made comparing FOX head Rupert Murdoch to Hitler. Teddie flunks “Political Discourse 101″, which says that when you invoke the name of Hitler to prove a point for or against a political position, you have automatically lost the argument. Seems that leftists lose a lot of damned arguments these days, doesn’t it?

January 26, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment