FARGO -- Ed Schultz is unfazed when his nose begins dripping blood a few minutes before the Monday debut of his national radio talk show. He called it the "perfect prop" to open the program.
"I'm so mean, there's blood on my sheets of paper," a smiling Schultz tells his listeners, kicking off a project that members of the Democratic Party and other supporters have billed as an alternative to conservative talk radio. [He's so mean there's blood on his sheets of paper? Oh please, please regale us with more wit.]
In the opening monologue, Schultz, who is an avid hunter and fisherman, told listeners: "I'm a gun-totin', red meat-eatin' liberal."
" I don't have to apologize to anybody for being here," he says. "I mean, there's no magic to this stuff. (Rush) Limbaugh has proven you don't need a Ph.D. to do this. Come on. It's radio. It's people, it's places, it's happenings, it's events."
After the opening segment, the executive director of the show, Paul Woodhull, took a swing with an imaginary baseball bat and said: "Home run."
"I expect a grand slam every day," Woodhull said during a break. "It's not about the politics, it's about the passion. He's a competitor with a passion for winning." [What a shame Ed is such a loser.]
Woodhull is president of Media Syndication Services of Washington, D.C., a distributor of radio programs.
Schultz, 49, was recruited by Democrats after spending a dozen years as host of "News and Views," a talk show on Fargo's KFGO Radio. A new studio has been built in the Fargo building that houses KFGO and other Fargo stations owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc. of San Antonio.
Schultz is continuing his KFGO show in its usual morning slot, 9 to 11:30 a.m. KFGO is not broadcasting Schultz's national show, which will be broadcast from 2 to 5 p.m. on weekdays.
About a dozen stations are carrying the show, mostly in smaller markets, said Amy Bolton, vice president and general manager of Jones Radio Network, a radio programming company based in Englewood, Colo. She hopes to get the program on 40 stations by year's end. [Wow, forty stations! That'll get that dim message out!]
Bolton said the program also will be available on XM Satellite Radio, although the network did not list Schultz on its Monday roster of 64 talk hosts. XM has 101 channels, including sports, talk and a variety of music. "There's a preconceived notion that he's not conservative and therefore won't work," Bolton said. "But a lot of stations flat out tell us, 'You sign up a few more stations, and we'll sign up.' They want something different."
Jason Stverak, director of the North Dakota Republican Party, said Schultz is good at "whipping up" people's passions. But he said Schultz's views are contrary to the opinions of most people in the state.
"I wish him the best of luck," Stverak said. "Obviously there are a lot of things that we don't see eye to eye on."
Democratic lawmakers have pledged to raise money for the show, which is being marketed by Jones Radio and Democracy Radio. Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., were among Schultz's first guests. More yawns
Different. Yeah, that's what businesses always want when they've got a hot, profitable commodity like conservative talk shows...."something different".
So typical of dims to think all they have to do is throw money at it and it will work. I hope they throw ALL their money down this particular spider hole!
Oh good, nothing will energize a radio audience like two droning, flat, monotonous voices. I have to laugh at the Dems. They think that putting a lib on the air will get their "message" (whatever that is) out, but that works only if they break everyone's fingers to prevent them from changing stations. The reason conservatives like Rush, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jim Quinn, etc., have the big audiences is because people want to listen to what they have to say. A simple notion like that - supply and demand, giving the customer what he wants - escapes the left.
John Dean? Yes, I'm sure he's really "in the loop":
A NOT very nice book by Nixon's White House counsel John W. Dean will drop on us. "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush" says Bush's team has an obsession with secrecy and their willingness to deceive make them even more dangerous than Nixon's men." The book calls it "weapons of mass deception." Dean writes about Bush's "emphasis on image over substance . . . angry mistrustful personality . . . excessive fear of leaks . . . imperial governing combined with deeply flawed decision making . . . serious abuses of national security secrecy . . . the administration's refusal to explain the precarious health of the powerful vice president . . . the imprecedented secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism." Little, Brown publishes it in April, the heat of primary season. (Cindy Adams)
Cindy also reports on Weasley's latest effort:
EVERYONE'S peeing upon the adminis tration. Next September, Public Af fairs publishes Gen. Wesley Clark's "Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism and the American Empire." Our retired Supreme Allied Commander bleats about "the shortfalls" of America's methods and "consequences" and "sobering implications." He offers "informed alternatives." The general says things like, "strong convictions carry a high price." And that we've never before been "so isolated." And that we "mortgaged" ourselves to knocking off Saddam. [Presumably, he would have said the same thing in 1945 about another genocidal dictator] And with diplomacy not creating unity, he asks, "Is this victory?" He says, "Now the bills must be paid." He also says, "The war isn't over."
Gossip alert:
SO WHO was that world famous enter tainer who overdosed over the holidays on prescription medication to which he has long been addicted . . . SO WHO is the male half of a married acting couple who had to hire security men to keep his heavy drinking wife from leaving her trailer and wandering off with whatever attractive crewmember caught her eye? (LizSmith)
I'm guessing Melanie Griffith for the latter.