Thursday, June 3, 2004

AIR AMERICA?  NEVER AGAIN

OK ... that makes two times now I've accepted an invitation to be a guest on Al Franken's show on Air America.  You know what they say:  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Well .... shame on me.  What an idiot I am for accepting that second invitation.  No more.

As I've said from the beginning ... I want Air America to succeed.  If Air America fails the left will use that failure as yet another excuse to try to limit, control, reign in or otherwise bring down conservative talk radio by a notch or two.  More talk radio stations, whether liberal or conservative, attract more listeners to the genre.  That's good for all of us! So ... my thought was that if I could help Air America by appearing on the air with Franken once in a while ... no problem!  Let's do it.

Well, yesterday afternoon I made my second visit to the Al Franken show on Air America.  There was no "Hey, Neal.  Thanks for being on the show!"  No "How are things going?"  It was just attack attack attack from the minute I came on the air.  "You said this.  You said that.  How do you explain this.  You're a liar!"  Franken seems to be obsessed over whether or not I did or did not invite him to host my show at some time in the past.  I do remember asking those clowns from Democratic Talk Radio to host the show once, but they demanded full control of all production aspects and the phone calls, and we said no.  All that Mad Al could talk about yesterday was whether or not I had specifically invited him!  You know what?  Frankly, I can't really remember.  After 35 years of talk radio how in the hell can you remember who you did and who you didn't ask to guest host.  Besides .. it's really just not that important!  So ... just to get the record straight, I went ahead and invited Franken to host the show while I was on the air with him yesterday.  His answer?  "No."  Then he segued into more charges that I was a liar and somehow changed the topic into whether or not Democrats were opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Wow!  Compelling stuff!

This is supposed to be fun, folks!  We're supposed to be entertaining listeners.  I do guest shots with talk show hosts, conservative, libertarian and leftist, virtually every week.  Mike Malloy and I do a bit on CNN Daybreak every Tuesday morning (around 6:40 EDT).  We agree on almost nothing, yet we've been friends for years,  remain friendly on the air, and manage to have a bit of fun with Carol (sigh!) Costello.  The difference?  Mike Malloy is a professional broadcaster.  He gets it.  Ed Schultz, another leftist talk show host, is a professional broadcaster.  He gets it.  Mike and Ed are professionals who know how to entertain.  Al Franken approaches his show with a nasty demeanor and mean temperament.  This meanness permeates the entire Air America broadcast day.  One Air America host even suggested on her show that Bush should be taken out and shot.  Franken?  He's a comedian who has lost his sense of humor.  He walks around with clenched fists, which makes it impossible to shake his hand.  No wonder he's working for free!  Life's too short, Al.  See ya later. Don't call me, I'll call you. Maybe.

DID YOU READ THIS IN YOUR NEWSPAPER?

Iraq's new Prime Minister Allawi held a news conference on Tuesday.  During that news conference he switched to English to say "I would like to thank the coalition, led by the United States, for the sacrifices they have provided in the process of the liberation of Iraq."  Then President Bush had a news conference in Washington.  Three times during that conference Bush said that he appreciated Allawi's words of thanks to the American people. According to Fox News Channel as of Wednesday evening not one major American newspaper had reported Allawi's remarks.  Not one.  The only thing you could find was a story in the New York Times reporting that a Bush spokesman had said that Allawi had issued those remarks.  The Times was at the Allawi press conference .. why didn't they report the expression of gratitude?  You know why, don't you.  Because when the new Prime Minister of Iraq thanks the people of the United States for their sacrifices in the liberation of his country, that story helps George Bush.  I will guarantee you that if Allawi had made some negative comments about the American presence in Iraq that would have made the Times front page.  Ditto for the Washington Post. 

Again, folks.  It's the template.  You don't have to actually lie in writing your stories.  Just follow the stories.  If the story would help George Bush, bury it.  If the story would hurt George Bush ... run it until the presses melt down.

THE LIBERAL MEDIA, EPISODE XVII

Thanks to James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" for this gem. 

Howell Raines was the executive editor of The New York Times.  Raines recently had some things to say about President Bush in the Guardian, a left-wing British newspaper. 

"George W represents the conservative, greedy wing of the Privilege party. . . . George W got into the Air National Guard when others couldn't through his father's political pull, . . . he got into flight school ahead of others due to his father's political pull, . . . he was allowed to skip his normal weekend drills and make them up without being punished because of his father's political pull. . . . Cheney used graduate-school deferments to beat the draft. . . . The incumbent looks like Goofy when he smirks."

Now, how many of you think that you can convince the rational world that Howell Raines even attempted to oversee a balanced, objective reporting of the Bush presidency?

Howell had even more spectacular things to say in his Guardian article.  Tune in today ... it should make for some good discussion.

FRANCE SAYS IT WILL SHOOT DOWN PRIVATE PILOTS

You read that right.  France is saying that it will shoot down any private pilots who fly into airspace that is restricted for this weekend's ceremonies celebrating the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landing at Normandy.  So, if you're flying your Cessna near the ceremony, and they launch an anti-aircraft missile to bring you down, you're pretty much toast.  Your best hope is that the French Air Force launches a Mirage 2000 fighter after you.  Just turn your Cessna toward the French jet fighter, act aggressively, and watch him run!  Here are the [pdf file] details for the restricted airspace so you don't have to frighten any French military pilots.

BUSH COMPARES WAR ON TERROR TO WWII

File this one under "getting it right."  In a speech to graduates at the Air Force Academy in Colorado yesterday, President Bush compared the war on terror to World War II.  "Our goal, the goal of this generation, is the same.  We will secure our nation and defend the peace through the forward march of freedom," said the President.  Despite The Poodle's incessant drumbeat about jobs and health care, this is the most important issue in this election.

It's too bad, but typical, that a lot of people don't understand the seriousness of this war on terror.  They take our safety and security for granted.  How easily people have forgotten 9/11.  It's been almost three years...you remember, don't you?  That's when the Islamic terrorists  killed 3,000 innocent Americans on our own soil.  That's when Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, after 8 years of appeasement from the Clinton administration, decided to attack.  They want to do it again - and they're spending every hour of every single day planning their next attack.  Their next big thing will be to try and detonate a dirty bomb in the middle of a populated city.  How many people will that kill?  Hundreds of thousands? 

In some ways, the stakes are higher in the war on terror than World War II.  Were the Nazis going to take over the United States?  Hardly.  We dealt with them pre-emptively.  Same thing with Saddam Hussein.  It's time to pay attention....we are at war...World War IV..the war on Islamic terrorism.  If you don't value your freedom -- and many Americans don't -- then maybe you value your physical safety.  Aren't you just a little appreciative of the fact that there hasn't been a terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11?  Do you like being able to go out for lunch without a suicide bomber blowing up the restaurant?

Then vote for a candidate who has actually shown with his actions that he will defend this country ... not one who changes his stance depending on just who he's trying to impress at the time.

WHAT PUPPET GOVERNMENT

The interim Prime Minister was announced the other day by U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.  The U.N. has been in Iraq consulting with the Iraqis to see who the choices would be for the interim government.  Yet, despite this, numerous headlines thunder around the world about this being a "puppet government" that was "installed by the U.S."

What are they talking about?  President Bush has said that he had zero input into the decision.   If the United States wanted a puppet government installed in Iraq there would have been some viable evidence of U.S. pressure and arms being twisted.  That didn't happen, and so now the Bush-haters are just making stuff up.

The left can't stand this, but the undeniable fact is that the only interest the United States had in going to war with Iraq was the removal of Saddam Hussein and furthering the war against Islamic terrorism.  Not to become an occupying force, not for oil, and not for anything else.  So there.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

The Cato Institute, a highly respected Libertarian think tank, has come out with a study proposing a $300 billion downsizing of the Imperial Federal Government of the United States.  Only $300 Billion?

Peggy Noonan sizes up college grads, secular Europeans, antismoking zealots and John Kerry.

The invasion of Iraq has gone exceedingly well, despite liberals' attempts at re-writing history, says Ann Coulter.  As always, a very good read.

Do you enjoy dealing with the TSA at your local commercial airport?  Maybe that's because you're dealing with what is essentially a Soviet-style bureaucracy.

How would you like to live in the lap of luxury like The Poodle?  Well now you can...courtesy of a game of Kerryopoly.  Be sure to land on Idaho.

Some idiotic government official in New Jersey has cancelled ladies night at bars in the state because it's discriminatory. What a moron.  The next thing you know, they'll ban strip clubs because they don't allow ugly women.

Upset about the gas prices?  How about drilling in ANWR, which could produce an extra 9 to 16 billion (with a 'B') barrels of oil.  But nooooo....the bedwetters won't let us.  Here are the top 10 reasons why we should.

Men who served with The Poodle in Vietnam are threatening to sue him if he doesn't stop using their picture in his campaign ads.  Some happy band of brothers there, isn't it?

Will the Libertarian Party candidate be George Bush's Ralph Nader in 2004?  Julian Sanchez investigates.

Saddam and Osama....Osama and Saddam...like two peas in a pod.  Think there's no connection?  As badly as the liberal media and the Democrats want to convince you otherwise, there very much was one.

You know all that whining from the left about manufacturing jobs?  Well guess what....the factory sector is booming.  Larry Kudlow details the rebound.

What does John  Kerry stand for?  The Poodle may not know, but William F. Buckley has a suggestion for a campaign slogan.

Does America have the guts to win the war in Iraq?  Can we win the war on terror?  Ross Mackenzie has more.

When things were going wrong in World War II, nobody questioned the competence of the military or the president.  Thomas Sowell talks about war, then and now.

Bashing President Bush has taken over as the national pastime, as Larry Elder reports in part two of his series on the subject.

Al Gore is accusing the Bush administration of ignoring the Geneva Convention.  Rich Lowry talks about exactly what it says, and why it is outdated.

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