Right Wing Radio 'Drunks' Decried by Liberal Activists

CNSNews.com ^ | 6/06/03 | Marc Morano

[kattracks]

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Talk radio and cable news outlets were blasted by liberal activists during a seminar in Washington, D.C. Thursday, with one speaker describing the followers of conservative-dominated radio programs as "drunks."

The three-day "Take Back America" conference is being sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, which states as its goal pushing the Democratic Party to the left. Several Democratic presidential candidates addressed the group Thursday - but noticeably absent was Connecticut U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who is trying to appear more moderate than his rivals for the party's 2004 nomination.

Activists pulled no punches in attacking not only conservative-dominated media outlets, but also the Bush administration.

Jeff Faux, distinguished fellow at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, lashed out at the culture of talk radio during a panel discussion entitled "Shrubbed: The Radical Project of George Bush."

"I turn on the radio, and I hear these talk shows with right wing drunks calling in, and I ask myself, where are our drunks?" Faux said. But, he added: "The advantage of being a progressive is that you don't have to get drunk to make your speech."

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, charged that "Rupert Murdoch [and his] cronies" are "stifling our messages and keep our messages from being heard, and when we get them out, they are drowned in a sea of lies." Murdoch is chairman of News Corp., which owns the Fox News Channel.

Gandy described her reaction to being seated near Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor, at this week's Congressional Correspondents' Dinner in Washington.

"As I looked over at him at the next table holding court, I thought of the fact that there are literally millions of people who get their news from Bill O'Reilly," Gandy told the audience. "[They] actually think that he is telling them the truth about what is happening in the world.

"They get their perspective on the world from The O'Reilly Factor and from Stupid-borough Country, uh...Scarborough Country," she added, a reference to MSNBC's Scarborough Country, hosted by former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough.

Gandy believes conservatives control the media in America.

"It's gotten to the point that Pat Robertson can just retire from his television career because his job has been taken over by Fox News and MSNBC and Clear Channel Broadcasting," Gandy said.

She praised the country music singing trio, the Dixie Chicks, who received a torrent of criticism from conservatives after challenging the wisdom of President Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq. "Can we hear one round for the Dixie Chicks?" Gandy asked to loud applause. "They have lots of new fans all over the country."

Thursday's panelists also laid into the Bush administration and its allies in Congress. Bush is running "the most right wing administration in modern American history," according to Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way.

"George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Trent Lott, [John] Ashcroft - they are the schoolyard bullies, and what do we do with schoolyard bullies? We stand up to them, and we stand up to them and fight," Neas said.

Neas had pointed criticism for the president's federal judicial nominees, warning that the U.S. is "facing one of the greatest constitutional threats to our constitutional scheme of government since the Founding Fathers.

"We are going to block any right wing nominee in the mold of Scalia and Thomas," he vowed, a reference to conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, blamed "ideological extremism on the right" for making bipartisanship "impossible."

"You can't have bipartisanship when one side treats you like a tornado treats a trailer park," Henderson claimed.

Maude Hurd, president of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), said liberals have been "bushwhacked" by the president.

"George W. Bush has pushed so many right wing proposals through Congress that many progressives have begun to despair," Hurd explained. "Bush's endless demands for tax cuts for millionaires are so willfully blind that he reminds me of a substance abuser," Hurd added.

Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters, asserted: "This is undeniably the worst administration that we have seen in the history of this nation on [environmental] issues."

Callahan lamented the opposition that the green agenda encounters in the current political environment and said she yearns for a return to the 1960s.

She told the audience that she once asked former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall how it felt to be able to pass environmental regulations during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations without much opposition.

"I asked: 'What was it like when you were running the Interior Department, and you all created the Endangered Species Act, you protected amazing lands, you did these new and insightful and far-reaching things to protect our natural environment?" According to Callahan, Udall answered: "Basically, if you could think it up, you could do it."

Gandy observed: "I have come to realize that is my guiding principle. I want to return to a time in this country when if we can think it up, we can do it."

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Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.

[Libloather]

...which states as its goal pushing the Democratic Party to the left.

Strap yourself in and hold on tight. This is gonna be one fun ride...

[American in Israel]

We must bury our cars, trade in guns for crossbows, and work fields without insecticide.

Kinda ruins the serf image if we drive a car, and if we have guns it is hard to rape our women. Oh for the days of old...

[Lady Eileen]

bump...thanks for the post.

[sergeantdave]

My senator is a drunk, too. When he comes around here - once every six years - he arrives in a wheelbarrow. Does that count as a drunk for the other side?

[aruanan]

"George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Trent Lott, [John] Ashcroft - they are the schoolyard bullies, and what do we do with schoolyard bullies? We stand up to them, and we stand up to them and fight," Neas said.

Sounds as though Neas never had any experience with schoolyard bullies. Sounds as though Neas is just quoting Mommy. That's just something Mommy says to make kids feel better about getting their butts kicked--"Well, if I decide to stand up to the bully, he'll stop. So I'm the one who's really in control." Yeah, right. Usually standing up to the bully just gets you pounded.

Of course, though, in this case, the bully isn't Bush and the cowards aren't Republicans.

[hchutch]

Now, this entire article is what I call a target-rich environment.

:)

[Beck_isright]

Absolutely. Fortunately I can state that one of my Senators, Bob Graham, is not a drunk. Senile, yes. A liar, yes. A protector of socialism, yes. Hating the military, yes. As far left as Kennedy, yes. But definitely not a drunk.

[Publius6961]

The three-day "Take Back America" conference is being sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, which states as its goal pushing the Democratic Party to the left.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

I guess the seeing-eye dogs of these metaphorical mental cripples haven't sent the message that they're already over the ideological cliff.

Buh bye.... losers...

[headsonpikes]

"Where are our drunks?"

In the Senate, at last report.

[oyez]

bfl

[Publius6961]

Thanks to all for starting off my Friday with the best laughs I have had in weeks.
You can't make up stuff this funny!

[Maelstrom]

"George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Trent Lott, [John] Ashcroft - they are the schoolyard bullies, and what do we do with schoolyard bullies? We stand up to them, and we stand up to them and fight," Neas said.

MARK THIS QUOTE!

This is the correct reaction to a schoolyard bully and the exact action to receive the greatest punishment from our liberally dumbed-down school system!

[arasina]

Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way: "We are going to block any right wing nominee in the mold of Scalia and Thomas," he vowed, a reference to conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas."

Did I miss something? Did We, The People, elect Ralph Neas to a position in government that allows him to BLOCK JUDICIAL NOMINEES?????

[EdReform]

Bump & Ping

[Maelstrom]

Correct answer: Look in a Mirror, Faux Pas, Look in a Mirror

[bvw]

The three-day "Take Back America" conference is being sponsored by the Campaign for America's Failure, which states as its goal pushing the Democratic Party to the left.

??!! Did I read this correctly?

[Morgan's Raider]

The three-day "Take Back America" conference is being sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, which states as its goal pushing the Democratic Party to the left.

There ain't enough Scotch whiskey being distilled to allow me to to put up with three minutes of this marxist drivel, much less three days.

Their audience isn't drunk, they're permanently brain-damaged from street-level pharmaceuticals.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna finish my breakfast Michelob.

[Leisler]

Ivins, on the right.

[hellinahandcart]

I never have figured out exactly who this Mellon-Scaife guy is...I guess he's the rich guy who funds the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.....and now that I've said this publicly, I can expect a visit from the Wetworks Committee any moment.

You must have pissed somebody off, wimpycat. Even the newbies get Omaha steaks and Fruit-of-the-Month Club from dear Mellie. That's just the standard "Welcome Aboard" package.

I'm coming up on my third anniversary, so I had a list of gifts to select from. (I picked Baccarat. Stemware for 16, and a trip to Monte Carlo. :D)

I can't figure out why you're being snubbed. Did you say something liberal one day?

[ModelBreaker]

When you get right down to it, yeah the Left is worried. And with good reason. The days when they set the agenda and used to ignore conservatives and pull the wool over the eyes of the American people are over. Times have changed and now conservatives are in the drivers seat.

I only partly agree. We are NOT in the driver's seat. We are now competitive in several areas where we were not even in the game thirty years ago:

* We now have access to media that can present the conservative viewpoint--talk radio and Fox. We did not have that before. But the left still dominates the large news outlets and has viewership and readership far greater than the conservative outlets.

* We have three of nine supreme court justices that are "originalists." Occasionally, they team with two RINO justices to issue a conservative opinion. But again, all we have is representation in the arena of ideas. We don't drive.

* We have between 35 and 40 conservative Senators. Again, it is enough to get conservative ideas presented but not enough to drive a conservative agenda, without huge concessions to RINOS. As to any truly conservative ideas--reducing the size of government--that is a pipe dream given today's political alignment.

Don't get me wrong, I like being competitive. The left hates it because their dominance of American politics for almost a century was based on their ability to squash any opposing viewpoint and--to be honest--the absence of any compelling alternative until Buckley and Meyers and Goldwater and Reagan created the modern conservative movement.

But don't mistake the ability to compete with being in the driver's seat. Before we have that, we have to take back the universities, defund the leftist NGO's, get our viewpoint presented on ABCNBCCBSNYT . . . and most important, have 5 originalists on the Supreme Court and 51 conservative senators.