"I'm sure senators on both sides of the aisle are being pounded by these talk-radio people who don't even know what's in the bill," Lott said. (WaPo, 6/15/07)
The Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who supports the bill, said: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.” (NYT, 6/15/07)
I don't know if "by deal with the problem" Lott means restoring a version of the Fairness Doctrine but Lott is clearly upset with the gasbags and they aren't too pleased with him. Here's some of what Fats Limbaugh had to say yesterday:
When I hear a United States senator say that what I do for a living is a "problem" that the government has to "deal with," you can interpret it any number of ways. He's either saying, "Well, we're going to have to come up with our own ways to overcome them," or, "We're going to just have to wipe them out." What does it mean?
Talk radio is the greatest democratic forum in the country today. It is truly diverse. There are more ideas, there's more back and forth, there's more so-called diversity. There are all kinds of great things to say about it. Talk radio is the American voter. I bet most of the people who listen to talk radio are voters. That's what bothers Trent Lott.So you got a Republican talking about talk radio the way liberals talk about talk radio...
The notion that people freely expressing their opinions on radio is a "problem," should scare every one of us that loves liberty.
So the effort to demonize you is on, and I think Lott was trying to do the same thing: demonize you. When you demonize talk radio you're demonizing the audience of talk radio.
I think Fats made a serious tactical error by claiming that talk radio was diverse. Only the lunatic fringe can believe that and most people will recognize it as a blatant lie. This lie harms not only Fats but all of gasbag radio and that is a good thing. The more we can chip away at the respect these hacks are given, the less influence they will have.
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