Posted on 04/02/2004 9:51:22 AM PST by areafiftyone
Things turned ugly on the new liberal talk radio network "Air America" Wednesday night, with guest Ralph Nader blasting the Democratic Party's counterweight to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly as "Hot Air America." The perennial candidate said the fact that Democrats couldn't hang onto what he described as their presidential victory was the party's own fault.
And for good measure, Nader blasted ex-President Clinton as "a draft dodger."
It was all downhill from there, as Nader and Rhodes screamed at one another for the next ten minutes.
Some selected highlights, as transcribed by the Web site "The Daily Kos":
On Clinton
RHODES: You know the Democrat's policy, you know when the Republicans talk about regime change was the Clinton administration's policy, but it was regime change from within. It was never military action on our part on Iraq. That was not the policy . . .
NADER: . . . You know, Clinton was a draft-dodger so he wasn't willing to take on the Pentagon. And he wasn't willing to take on the Congress on many huge military expenditures and that starved many of the necessities back home among the American people --
On Nader's Presidential run
RHODES: How many ways to Sunday do I have to tell you. We can't afford you.
NADER: I'm sorry, Can you afford freedom? Can you afford choice? Can you afford civil liberties? --
RHODES: Gimmie a Democrat President!
On "Hot Air America"
NADER: -- can you -- is this the way you want to start Air America? You want it to be Hot Air America?
RHODES: Oh, no, you see --
NADER: -- Log on to the web site votenader.org --
RHODES: -- Ralph, let me tell you something. If you did get to be president, tell me who you would caucus with. Tell me who you could get to vote for your ... views and visions, and your, your bills! Who is an independent other than Bernie Sanders and Jim Jeffords? Who are you gonna count on? You -- let's say you win. Okay?
NADER: You can't win without a huge mobilization of voters --
RHODES: -- let's say ya do --
NADER: -- that would replace many members of Congress.
RHODES: -- let's say it's seventy years old, from your house in Connecticut, your little house --
NADER: -- now wait a minute. now wait wait wait. You're --
RHODES: -- you are, you are ready to do this.
NADER: -- listen, listen. Now you're getting nasty.
RHODES: I'm not!
NADER: You are ruining the first day --
RHODES: I'm not ruining anything.
NADER: -- the first day of Air America.
RHODES: This is Air America.
NADER: -- you're not letting your, you're not letting your guest be, have a chance to speak. You're --
RHODES: I asked you a question. --
NADER: -- you're not letting your guest have a chance to speak.
More bickering
NADER: -- you've got a very bad interviewing technique --
RHODES: -- uh uh uh. I am not --
NADER: -- and you're not going to get an audience by overtalking --
RHODES: -- interviewing you --
NADER: Do not overtalk!
RHODES: I am not ... interviewing you!
NADER: Do not overtalk!
RHODES: I mad at you! Don't you understand the difference?
NADER: Fine, just close up and start screaming to your audience.
RHODES: [laughs] Look. Don't tell me how to do radio; I've done it for twenty years. You screwed up the last election, and now you want to screw up this one, and I'm pissed!
NADER: (pause; speechless) You know, you ought to be ashamed of yourself because you --
RHODES: But I'm not! You know you should --
NADER: -- you agree with me --
RHODES: -- be ashamed of yourself! --
NADER: -- you agree with me on so many issues. You really ought to be ashamed of yourself.
RHODES: I'm not ashamed of myself. I can't afford you! [End of Excerpts]
And I saw one of the founders on a news piece the other night, the reporter asked him, "How will you know if you've succeeded here with Air America?" His answer? "This November." There was an awkward pause, then the reporter asked, "This November?" And the co-founder said, "After the elections this November."
This is a radio station people!
Ratings success and eventually turning the ratings success into revenue generation should be the ultimate goal, but these guys have put this thing together for the sole purpose of throwing an election.
I have some bad news for them. Even Rush Limbaugh, with 600+ stations and his long term relationship with 12-20 million listeners couldn't stop Bill Clinton from being elected in 1992 or from being reelected in 1996. Yes, talk radio is powerful, it may have made the difference in 2000, but Air America is not going to have even a microscopic effect on the elections in Nov. I assure you.
Wait a minute...an extremely partisan hardcore leftist coming from Public Radio? How bizarre!
??
Since when do the scumbags, any of them, care about "facts"?
Look, Kerry and Nader just had a big pow-wow on how to defeat Bush. Now if Nader and Kerry have the same goal then why is Nader still in the race? It makes no sense unless they have decided to turn a Nader into a viable "libertarian/conservative" alternative 3rd party candidate. The best way to do that is to get every liberal in the country furious at Nader and to make some conservatives such as you start saying "he has some good points". It may not work so all Nader has to do is later withdraw and throw his support to Kerry ala Perot.LOL
It was just beyond belief. With all I know about the self-centered arrogance of Lieberals it was *still* just unbelievable. As someone else said, Ralph would have gotten a better hearing out of Limbaugh, or Hannity, or *any* conservative host, for that matter (and I think he knows it... Ralph may have had a *real* epiphany out of that experience.) (But nothing in the preceding should, of course, be in any way construed to imply that I don't think Nader is a socialist scumbag who should be hung from the nearest lamppost - I just think there should be a little *decorum* maintained during the hanging ceremony, OK? Is that too much to ask?? Even of a Lieberal??? Even if they're doing it for the wrong reason???? NO?????)
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