Bill Press - Toxic Talk

ALSO BY BILL PRESS

Eyewitness

Spin This!

Bush Must Go

How the Republicans Stole Religion

Trainwreck

How the
Radical Right
Has Poisoned
Americas Airwaves

BILL PRESS
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
ST. MARTINS PRESS
NEW YORK

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS .
An imprint of St. Martins Press.

TOXIC TALK . Copyright 2010 by Bill Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com

ISBN 978-0-312-60629-9

First Edition: May 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Milo and Prairie

There can be no higher law in journalism
than to tell the truth and shame the devil.

W ALTER L IPPMANN

You cant just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.

O n January 23, 2009, three days after taking the oath of office, President Barack Obama invited congressional leaders of both parties to the White House.

It was more than just a house-warming party. Obama asked the assembled Democrats and Republicans to join in supporting his plan to bring the nation back from the brink of economic disaster.

But House Minority Whip Eric Cantor threw cold water on any hope of bipartisanship, telling the president bluntly he wasnt sure the stimulus package was something Republicans could get behind.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for Obamas reaction. After pausing for a few seconds, the president began by repeating his pledge to reach across the aisle and seek bipartisan support. But then he warned the Republicans present he was willing to enact the stimulus package without them, if necessary. We just had an election, he reminded them. I won. Im the president.

At which point, Obama turned directly to Cantor and fired his final salvo: You cant just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.

A nd so the battle was joined. Between a newly elected, immensely popular president and the longtime, and still influential, king of right-wing talk radio.

Nothing better illustrates the power of conservative talk radio today, or the prominent place it commands in American political discourse.

No doubt about it: Talk radio is the most powerful force in the media today. Especially conservative talk radio. It is more powerful than newspapers, the television networks, or cable newsall of which take their cues from the right-wing radio bigmouths.

Its also more powerful than the Internet. For all the buzz about bloggers, none of them yet have the power, reach, or viselike grip over segments of the electorate exercised by right-wing radio talkers Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and others.

Conservative talk radio is even more powerful than conservative politicians. Not so long ago, conservative talk radio hosts considered it their job to drum up support for policies or legislation initiated by Republican politicians in Washington.

Today, its just the opposite. The tables have been turned. With such a vacuum in leadership among Republicans in Washington, conservative talk show hosts have rushed in to fill the void. In this new world of conservative media and politics, talk show hosts set the agendaand both public and politicians follow their lead, no matter how crazy.

Rush Limbaugh, for example, no longer listens to John Boehner or Mitch McConnell to know what to talk about that day on his program. Instead, Boehner and McConnell listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, or Savage to decide what the big issues are and what they should be focusing on.

When Lou Dobbs insisted there were still unanswered questions about Barack Obamas birth certificate, ten Republican members of Congress sponsored legislation requiring all future candidates for president to produce valid proof of birth before filing.

When Glenn Beck accused White House czars of plotting the overthrow of the government, Republican leaders in Congress requested release of all background information gathered during the administrations vetting process for presidential appointees who did not require Senate confirmation.

When Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist on national television, South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson felt empowered to call the president a liar on the floor of the House of Representatives during Obamas State of the Union address.

When Fox News headlined irregularities at a collection of community-based organizations called ACORN as the biggest news story of the decade, House Republican Leader John Boehner demanded that President Obama tell the nation where he personally stood on ACORN.

Right-wing talk show hosts are so proud of their new power to set the agenda that Glenn Beck could even boast: If it wasnt for Fox or talk radio, wed be done as a republic.

The battle between Obama and right-wing radio talkers had, in fact, been brewing for some time. Crisscrossing Illinois as a long-shot candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2002, Obama asked voters what the most important issues were in their own lives. As he recounts in his memoir, The Audacity of Hope, Obama was surprised to discover that some people merely recited what they had heard on Rush Limbaugh or NPR.

In May 2007, as a brand-new senator, Obama joined forty other Democratic senators in signing a letter written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Mark Mays, CEO of Clear Channel Communications (which broadcasts The Rush Limbaugh Show), demanding an apology for Limbaughs reference to Iraq veterans critical of the war in Iraq as phony soldiers.

And, during his campaign for president, Obama often singled out Limbaugh for criticism. Addressing a Florida fund-raiser on May 22, 2008, for example, Obama told the crowd: A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. Theres a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year. If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, its not surprising that would happen.

For his part, just two days before Obamas White House meeting, Limbaugh had chastised fellow Republicans, including John McCain, for expressing their hope that Obama succeed as president. Limbaugh strongly disagreed. We are being told we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over and grab our ankles because his father was black, because hes the first black president, weve got to accept this, he told his loyal listeners.

Limbaugh, who proudly proclaimed himself the new, de facto leader of the Republican Party, preached just the opposite. He put it bluntly: I hope he fails.

And with that verbal salvo, Limbaugh launched a war against Obama, soon joined by all other right-wing talk show hosts, that continues to this day: a war that has only intensified in the level of ugly, hateful, personal rhetoricto the point where anything goes, no insult is considered over-the-line, and name-calling has become the standard fare of conservative talk radio and television.

In late 2009, the hostility broke out into open warfare between the Obama White House and Fox News. Tired of the nonstop attacks from Fox hosts Glenn Beck, Bill OReilly, and Sean Hannity, the administration struck back. In an interview with CNBC, Obama himself singled Fox out for criticism: Ive got one television station [network] that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration. And on September 20, when he scored what Beltway pundits call the Full Ginsburg, named after Monica Lewinskys attorney, William Ginsburg, the first to appear on five Sunday morning talk shows the same day, Obama shut out Fox, granting an interview to Univision instead.