Hannity is kindergarten for conservatives. Rush is post-graduate.
I agree with your comments about Hannity, and part of the problem is that he is very demonstrative and declamatory, but he wears a RNC ring in his nose, like Michael Medved and a couple of other soft-conservative, more "Republican" talk-show talents, Mike Gallagher and Dennis Prager.
I think the intellectual heavyweights are Bill Bennett, Doc Savage, and, more because of their astuteness, Rush, Levin, and Glenn Beck, despite Beck's openness to being lured (IMHO, I just have an impression about it w/o having listened to his show a lot) into areas calculated to damage his credibility.
Rush is living proof that you don't need a master's from a liberal arts college or JFK or an Ivy, to have a good all-round political education and a public man. The snobs would like to change that, take politics private.
I lost the link when I lost my post, but here is a good whine from the Left about talk-radio, dating from 1/07.
Air America’s ideological course has often been unclear if not wishy-washy. Over all, while hosts have been good at belittling George Bush and other Republicans and conservatives, they have not been good at articulating a progressive agenda. This may stem in part from the way Air America hosts tend to cleave to a Democratic Party line that has itself often been hard to decipher in recent years.
This would not happen in conservative talk. For one thing, the Republicans with whom the conservative talkers ally themselves are virtually never at a loss as to exactly what their agenda is. But there’s also a spirit of independence in conservative talk that leads hosts to sometimes criticize the Republicans for not taking a principled right-wing stand. For instance, recently conservative hosts have widely criticized congressional Republicans and the White House for being soft on immigration and federal spending.
Right-wing radio’s role as a conservative vanguard may be irksome to GOP officials on occasion, but conservative talk, even when it’s critical, still benefits the GOP. That’s because conservative talk radio is not just a laboratory and echo chamber for testing and amplifying the party’s ideas and policies. More than that, its most influential hosts—e.g., Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage—are often ideologically situated on the far-right flank of the party, so conservative talk serves to widen the national political spectrum to the right, giving cover to Republican politicians by allowing them to appear more moderate by contrast.
(Emphases added)
Praise extorted from the mouths of your enemies is the sweetest whine of all.
Hey, this is really turning into a talk radio seminar. I’ve always liked Dennis Prager. He is just not on the air in these parts. Have been thinking of subscribing to his podcasts.
I also like Joe Paggs (subs for Beck) and Mike McConell (moderate/conservative in Chicago) and Roger Hedgecock (San Diego - used to sub for Rush) just because they are characters with a kind of bent to them and smart guys. If their personality is interesting and a bit quirky, they’ve got me as a listener.
I think Monica Crowley has a talk radio show, but I’ve never heard it. I like her analytical skills when she is on TV, but they waste her talents by always pairing her with the juvenile Alan Colmes. I could listen to Mark Steyn all day long if he had a radio talk show.
Hannity is just too monotonous for me. The same cliches every day. I don’t think he does a lot of research and prep for his show. He talks over his guests because he can’t engage them for long on an intellectual basis. Hannity is just a twittering socialite. No depth to him.
So back to you Smyrna boy. You did say you lived in Smyrna for a while right?