Michael Graham is allegedly a conservative. He has been an author of several books (”Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War”; “That’s No Angry Mob, That’s My Mom: Team Obama’s Assault on Tea-Party, Talk-Radio Americans”) and has been on radio stations like WMAL in Washington D.C. (got thrown off after CAIR complained).
I can’t take his raspy, fast talking voice. He has been at
WTKK (-FM) Boston for several years. Recently when the controversial Jay Severin was fired by WTKK— then hired
by WXKS (AM) for the 3-7 pm slot, WTKK suddenly decided that maybe putting Graham in the same slot would make
sense. (That is, they would rather have a political talk
host opposite their former employee Severin and WRKO’s
Howie Carr, himself also a Herald columnist, instead of
the lukewarm host they’d put in the afternoon drive slot.)
Graham got divorced from his wife Jennifer (”the Warden”); for a time,
her website had a family picture—with Michael airbrushed out. He’s since been re-married.
From Wikipedia:
>>In July 2005, Graham used Islam and terrorism as the basis for a multi-day discussion on his WMAL talk radio show. A number of Graham’s comments prompted over one hundred complaints to the station and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued action alerts to its subscribers encouraging them to contact WMAL to urge that “Graham be reprimanded for his anti-Islam statements”, ultimately prompting WMAL to suspend him. After 28 days, WMAL elected to terminate Graham stating that he violated station policy and disregarded “management direction” to redress the situation. The situation prompted angry editorials [columns?] from Graham as well as appearances on nationally televised news programs to discuss the firing.
LLS
With respect to the article, I think Graham is being too clever by half in his criticism of IAWL. I get what Graham is trying to say, that George Bailey, with his skill set, could have been a tycoon living in a penthouse in New York City. But that probably wouldn't make for a very warm and fuzzy Christmas movie.
Only a very few people can make it to the level of a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, no matter how smart and competent they are. Getting to that level also involves a lot of luck and being in the right place at the right time. For every Steve Jobs, there are thousands of other people with the same skill set who also have very successful lives but on a much smaller scale. That does not make them failures!
In my opinion, anybody who works hard all their lives and is able to support themselves and their family through their own efforts are a success.
In the movie, it ended with George Bailey being toasted as "the richest man in town" by his younger (and more financially successful) brother. Yeah, it's a little hokey but many of us would be glad to trade places with him. Especially with that Donna Reed by his side!