ART BELL & FATS LIMBAUGH

Back in the 90s, I used to listen to Art Bell's show Coast to Coast AM and I was concerned that his show was promoting irrational thinking. His show originally was a political talk show and I assume it was right-wing because that's the kind of show Roy (then and now Mark) Masters' Talk Radio Network prefers. I think he switched from political irrationality to a more general version and that upset Masters.

Bell apparently decided that the wingnut political radio was too crowded. That didn't stop Fats Limbaugh, who has kept up his agit-prop for over 20 years. As Bob Somerby points out, the mainstream media almost never bothered to call out Fats for his many lies and smears. In 1994, Howard Kurtz did mention one of Limbaugh's more outrageous claims:

KURTZ (3/12/94): On Thursday, a newsletter published by the consulting firm Johnson, Smick International alleged without evidence that Foster committed suicide at a secret apartment he shared with top administration officials, and that his body was moved to the Virginia park where it was found. Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh went a step further, saying the newsletter "claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton." White House spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers called the newsletter report "a complete fabrication," but several media outlets picked it up. "Foster's secret apartment hideaway revealed," the New York Post said.

Somerby notes that there were practically no repercussions for this lie and goes on to add that in 1994, then-Governor Huckabee thought Fats went over the line in this case but in general he was merely an entertainer who provided an outlet for conservative ideas.

What unites Bell and Limbaugh is that both of them cater to the uniformed and uncritical mind:

BRUMMETT (3/27/94): [My view] was that the horror of Limbaugh is that he gives mainstream legitimacy, before an afternoon radio audience of 15 million people, to the late-night AM radio subculture of conspiracy nuts and assorted weirdos who have nothing else to do with their wasted lives other than stop talking with Elvis or put down the National Enquirer long enough to listen to, and call, radio programs that spread malicious, unsubstantiated rumor as if it were fact.