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| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Tags: Helen Thomas, Michael Medved, President Bush, talk radio, White House
Right-wing radio hosts keep on getting invited to private meetings with the president. After having Hannity & Co. over last year, he brought his old friends back yesterday. These guys are pretty ubiquitous as it is with corporate-owned, conservative mouthpiece radio stations dominating the airwaves, but Bush can’t seem to get enough of ‘em so he keeps bringing them down to the Oval Office for off-the-record tea parties.
I’ve become a regular over at Michael Medved’s blog since I got called a “turd,” a “cockroach,” and a “worm” (posted in comments here) there last month. Medved couldn’t go into much detail about the meeting, but wrote the stuff that appears in bold:
Anyone who doubts that this chief executive enjoys the Presidency and its demands has never seen him in the White House.
Who would doubt that Bush “enjoys the Presidency?” Wouldn’t you enjoy getting your friends out of jail and hooking college buddies up with sick jobs?
As the President unequivocally declared (and as I think I'm permitted to quote): "I like the atmosphere in the Oval Office."
Well, when you get some of the most influential voices on talk radio to blindly follow your every move, level of ridiculousness notwithstanding, and then take an hour out of, you know, being president to chill with them, it's not hard to see why you might "like the atmosphere in the Oval Office."
Medved doesn’t see anything wrong with having these little objectivity-compromising powwows with Dubya:
Some callers to my radio show sharply questioned the propriety of the White House meeting -- suggesting that it represented some illegitimate effort to manipulate the press. In less than a year, I've received three Presidential invitations and flown to Washington each time for the chance to see Mr. Bush. Can I claim to maintain my objectivity when the chief executive himself has worked to build this sort of comfortable and friendly relationship?
I guess not.
These relationships don't pose a problem because they're not the President's only connection with the press. Like President Kennedy, President Bush holds regular press conferences where he fields questions from all comers (even David Gregory and – groan -- Helen Thomas, who's called him the worst President in history).
First, Helen Thomas will cut you. Second, I guess Bush “fields questions from all comers”…except when he doesn’t. I always wanted an excuse to throw these minutes from the official White House transcript up on the blog:
Q What, do you think I'm going to ask a question?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I did think you were going to ask me a question, yes. (Laughter.)
Q I am. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, maybe some other time.
Q Oh, but do you think you open --
THE PRESIDENT: See what I'm saying? (Laughter.)
Q You can't come to the press room, especially a modern press room --
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute, let's do this -- let me cut the ribbon, and --
Q You think anything has changed?
THE PRESIDENT: Let me cut the ribbon -- are you going to cut it with me, Steve -- and then why don't you all yell simultaneously? (Laughter.) Like, really loudly. (Laughter.) And that way you might get noticed.
Q It doesn't sound like you're going to answer --
THE PRESIDENT: No, I will. I'll, like, listen --
Q And leave?
THE PRESIDENT: -- internalize, play like I'm going to answer the question, and then smile at you and just say, gosh -- (laughter) -- thanks, thanks for such a solid, sound question.
Here we go, ready? I'm going to cut the ribbon. (Laughter.) Then you yell. I cogitate -- and then smile and wave. (Laughter.)
Are you going to come, Laura? Here we go.
(The President and Mrs. Bush cut the ribbon.) (Applause.)
Q -- (inaudible) --
THE PRESIDENT: Brilliant question.
Q -- (inaudible) -- cogitating that, right?
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. See you soon.
Holla.
!
""These guys are pretty ubiquitous as it is with corporate-owned, conservative mouthpiece radio stations dominating the airwaves, ""
"Corporate owned" simply means there's a business that's been given steward of a particular frequency, and they have a financial incentive to develop that frequency.
NPR isn't substantially different - if the government cut off the funding tap, their advertiser dollars and subscriber support would enable them to continue right along in corporate form.
The only difference is that they aim at *different demographics*.
We tried Air America, and it failed because there was no demographic demand for it. People were already listening to NPR, or in my case the Michael Baisden Show, or one of the more political program hosts on 97.9 La Raza (Sorry, don't speak Spanish, don't know much about them beyond that such hosts do exist, and helped organize the may day protests over immigration reform)
This idea that "corporate" inherently means "un-progressive", or that the notion of the corporation is somehow in conflict with our notions of progressivism, is downright absurd. Corporations are not the primary threat to progressivism in this country, and the use of the term "corporate-owned" as a derogatory slur are best left to the Anti-Globalization protesters and their ilk (the breeding ground of the next John Birch Society if there ever was one).
The issue isn't corporatism. The issue is that there's a huge demand for right-wing talk radio. The guys who are on "non-corporate" stations broadcasting locally are usually even more beyond the pale than the Michael Savages of the world - white nationalists, militant secessionists and the like.