It's a lazy Thursday afternoon here in Houston, so of course I'm at home watching the Astros game (we're currently winning, by the way, which will make it 8 in a row). But I digress. I just saw the most despicable, classless, tasteless commercial for a local talk radio station here in Houston - 740 KTRH.

I've been wondering how left wing radio could be more successful, and figured that some insight might be gained by mimicking how Republican Radio does it, except from the Democratic perspective.

Follows is a typical outline of a Hannity style Democratic show during this election cycle.

I have listened to Republican Radio for over 15 years. And I have never been more disturbed by it than I have come to be this year. It has always been bad, it has always been simplistic. But this year in particular it has become blazingly clear just how destructive to the health of our country and citizenry this vile stream of verbiage really is.

Now I cannot stand to listen to it even for the sake of "hearing what the other side is saying." I've tried, flipping the dial for a quick listen. Hearing Limbaugh's or Hannity's voice is like having a bucket of sulfuric acid thrown onto me. The sound makes my skin burn. I cannot endure it more than 10 seconds tops.

First, a friendly hello to everyone. I'm a 21 year old college student in Northern California, I've been a long-time reader, but I only recently created an account here. For most of my teenage years, I was a conservative, primarily due the faith I was born into (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormons). I gradually became less and less conservative after I quit the Mormon church at 17 (a long story for another time that basically boils down to my bishop not being able to adequately answer why we were an officially racist religion for so long, among other questions). That really shook the foundations of my conservatism, and I find myself sharing similar company on sites like DailyKos, these days.

Four teens were charged with ethnic intimidation and aggravated assault, two of them were charged with murder, in the beating death of an undocumented Mexican. Unindicted cosponsirators are millions of Americans and the rabid right-wing talk radio.

I'll use Handy Hannity as the example although this diary could easily include Limbaugh (at least 97%) or O'Reilly (99%) but here is the bottom line:

98% of Americans do not listen to John McCain's chief surrogate Sean Hannity.  If they did, then why would Handy Hannity's favorite candidate Rudy Giuliani get only 1 delegate after spending 30 million dollars?  Or why would Mitt Romney not prevail on Super Tuesday after Limbaugh AND Hannity urged their listeners to come out for Romney?  This is a Republican primary and even in Republican primaries, most REPUBLICANS don't listen to Limbaugh or Hannity.

You hear the numbers.  We have 13 million listeners, 20 million listeners, blah blah blah.  NO THEY DON'T.

How Much responsibility do they bear when their talk leads to Mayhem?

Let’s be honest now.  Let’s examine all the facts in the latest case of utter mayhem, in which two apparently superb human beings had to perish, and seven others were grievously hurt, on the altar of hate spewed by those who manage to have both brain anomalies and a National Forum.  Think about that convergence for a moment – it’s becoming more and more national in scope.  A hate meister with a national audience? Does that sound like America?  Or what it used to be?  I’m probably old enough to remember when such a thing wasn’t possible.   And what does that say about the audience?

In another major blunder, John McCain went on Sean Hannity's radio show this Monday after spending time with Hannity last week. McCain's chief surrogate Hannity is the venomous, hateful, Fox News talking points regurgitator and host of a radio show which garners about 2.5 million listeners, or less than 1% of the US population, per day.

I said back in 2005 that if Sean Hannity becomes the face of conservatism and the Republican Party, then Democrats can win all 50 states.  Hannity turns conservatives into moderates and moderates into liberals faster than anybody I've ever met.  We couldn't ask for a better foil since his nastiness, phoniness, lack of intelligence, and cowardliness speaks for itself.

Now John 74+ Flip Flop McCain has been "Hannitized" and apparently McCain's misguided and backfiring ad was at Hannity's urging.  (Thank you Handy Hannity for the Barack Bounce)  Now let's finish the job and tie McCain to Hannity and sink the entire Republican Party for decades to come.  

Most conservatives will tell you that they abhor the tragic violence in Tennessee, and that they condemn it.  But they also will most likely deny that any of their actions or beliefs could possibly be the cause of it, be it their help in the emergence and dominance of hate radio by the right wing, or their seemingly endless and unconditional support for a thoroughly unconstitutional Presidency.

What they most definitely will not tell you is that we've seen this pattern of violence before. That the rhetoric they espouse was used by another regime to begin the process of exterminating millions.

The details are still coming in about the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, but it's becoming clear that the gunman holds a grudge against "liberals" and "gays". We have no idea whether or not the gunman listened to right wing hate radio, but the daily barrage of hate based on a person's race, sexual orientation or political affiliation, can and HAS resulted in mass murder on an unimaginable scale. I'm talking about the Rwandan Genocide.

We have now entered into the twilite ZONE!

Every station has the same retoric about the other candidate, saying the same thing, with the same misinformation.

The Left is accussing the Right and the Right is accussing the Left.
You assholes are now making as much sense as Cable news. Where they repeat the same news cast only with a different comentator.

Why don't you talk about solutions and to the existing problems?

George Cook of the African American web site  letstalkhonestly.com discusses whether political correctness has gone to far

Our legal system is commonly referred to as an "adversary system."  The theory is that both sides should zealously represent their clients, that said clients are being represented by competent counsel, and that the side with the better arguments on the facts and the law will prevail in this system.  In a perfect world, the side with the better argument should always win.  If all other factors are equal, this will almost always happen.  But all factors aren't always equal.

External factors such as skill level, local knowledge, the process, money, etc... can change the playing field, sometimes to the point where the weaker side prevails.

The same logic holds true in a political debate.  Put any conservative in the country in a debate against me in a fair forum and I win 100% of the time.  Change the rules to make my job harder and that percentage goes down.  Make the rules really unfair and my percentage will drop below 50%.

The goal here is to minimize and eliminate the unfair advantages.

I'm writing this from memory from my car ride home this afternoon but during the last half of the 5 o'clock hour, 3 callers got through to Handy Hannity's radio show and absolutely kicked his right wing ass despite Hannity talking over them, eventually cutting the mikes, and calling people names after he hung up on them.  It shows once again that Handy Hannity, when faced with someone who knows how to debate, has to run and hide.  Hannity even ran from a bunch of Republicans in the streets of New Hampshire because he couldn't handle their questions.

Given that Handy Hannity is McCain's surrogate and a deplorable hateful individual, Democrats would be wise to link McCain to the radical Hannity by simply highlighting Hannity's nutcase associations, their quotes, and Hannity's quotes and history itself.

I have a thing against right wing talk radio, and in Indianapolis, that means WIBC.

WIBC has a host named Greg Garrison.  Greg is the normal type of conservative host, pompous, arrogant, given to saying that people who don't think like him are brainless (Obama), Marxists, basically stupid and brainwashed.

So, as he is an easy target, I've kept up a running commentary against his grosser stupidities.

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The nearly-8,000 word cover story on radio talker Rush Limbaugh in The New York Times Magazine last Sunday drew surprised approval from many conservatives -- and, now, condemnation from many others. Eric Boehlert at Media Matters, for example, ripped the Times today for "duping" its readers by assigning a conservative "dittohead" staffer, Zev Chafets, to write the piece without informing its readers of this "alliance." He asked for Public Editor Clark Hoyt to look into it.

Chafets appeared with host Bob Garfield on the weekly NPR program "On the Media" last weekend, and the show has now posted the revealing transcript.

I've never written a diary here before, but I heard some BS this weekend and thought I had some obligation to address it.  Beyond the Beltway is a nationally syndicated radio talk show hosted by Bruce DuMont and airs on Sundays.  It generally features a panel of 3 or 4 guests representing a mix of liberal, conservative, and "middle" positions.  Mr. DuMont is in many cases a fair moderator, but sometimes lets wacky callers and guests dominate a conversation.

Last Sunday, Dan Proft was the "conservative" guest.  As unfamiliar as I was with the man (regular conservative talk show commentator, which about sums it up), I didn’t know that I was in for a snide serving of bile.  Following a few angry, ranting calls, including a condescending white fellow who presumed to speak for all African-American men, the issue of Barack Obama and the performance of public schools in Chicago reared its head.  From multiple sides, the specter of Democrat-led Illinois was paraded onto the stage for a summary whipping.

So I was dropping my kids off at summer day camp before starting work, and was able to catch Bill Press's "Parting Shot" segment that closes his show on XM. He was very rightly calling out BushCo for failing to catch Osama bin Laden nearly 7 years after the 9/11 attacks, and blasting Bush for making it (finally) a priority now that he is essentially a lame duck, doing whatever he could to salvage his tarnished legacy.

I agreed with everything Bill had to say during this segment, but an error he made caught me quite by surprise. It's normally something that the right-wingers are prone to say by "mistake."

More on the jump.