BO CHANGE = BUSH STYLE
FEAR
 Amid
all the sturm and drang of the Primary battle of the century, there is
an uncomfortable deja vous clawing at the raw nerve ends of memory.
It has to do with the blogs, the pundits, the meanstream media mavins and
especially with Air America Radio.
What a joy it was
for many of us when AAR first came on the air. After months and years
of little or no Liberal Talk, either on radio or TV, finally there were
voices that echoed our own thoughts and even expanded them.
Along with this
delight came hosts that were exciting and erudite. They informed
and incited us to action. They united us as one voice against the
Bush administration, gave us an outlet for our feelings and reported the
other side of the news that had been missing for years.
Finally we had a
voice after so many mute years and just in time to change things in Washington,
DC. Then, even though no one appeared to set out a chair, reality
sat in.
It began slowly
with the start of the Primary. At first it posited each campaign
in a fair manner, giving equal consideration to the large slate of candidates.
Then gradually
it all changed as host after host made their choice and slanted the information.
This gave rise to callers choosing the host that favored their own candidate.
These shows were then reduced to love-ins and very little else in the way
of discussion of candidate merits.
From simple preference
came the beginning of what would quickly become full-blown prejudice against
another candidate, culminating in the absolutely inexcusable rantings of
Randi Rhodes.
Once Edwards bowed
out and left Hillary and Barack as the sole contenders, outright nastiness
inflamed the blogs with AAR hosts not too far behind as they encouraged
callers to go to and beyond the limit with their comments. Thus HRC
was excoriated while BO was canonized as a saint that could do no wrong.
AAR became AOR- Air Obama Radio -- and it still is.
MSNBC, led by
Russert, Olbermann and Matthews, had long been spewing hatred toward women
in general and Hillary in particular. It kept kicking it up a notch
by bringing in AOR hosts, such as Rachel Maddow, who barely pretends to
be without bias, and the most vicious voice against Hillary, a real crap-act
-- Ed Shultz.
Blitzer of CNN and
his pit bull, Cafferty vied with MSNBC for the title of who could slap
Hillary down the hardest. This rather backfired as it stirred up
many still apathetic women and men voters. And surprisingly, Lou
Dobbs became one CNN host who showed great fairness toward Hillary and
even criticized BO at times -- something unheard of by the majority of
pundicrats.
Strange to say,
FOX News became the station of choice for Hillary supporters simply because
it was FAIR AND BALANCED TOWARD HER AND THE OTHERS.
Still, AORadio continues
to do yeoman work for the BO campaign using the very tactics it once called
despicable when the Repugs radio/TV did it; the hosts embraced the hallmark
of George Bush et al. and made it their own -- INDUCE FEAR.
Here's host Lionel
exhorting listeners about how to whip those women supporting Hillary into
line and onto the Obama-train: "Be nice and reasonable,"
he cautions. "The key is to scare the hell out of them.
"Remind them
of how old the Supremes are getting and how McCain would pick someone who
would make abortion illegal. Women want the war to end and MacC will
make war last 100 years. Women are suckers for kids, universal health
care and schools so remind them of how these programs will not happen and
what we now have will be under funded. Tell them Mc'll privatize
SS, etc."
In short, Lionel
and others are advocating exactly what they screamed about when they first
broadcasted as Air Americans. See what a difference an -O- can make?
Politics as usual -- Obama style, is patterned after Bush's success
with fear mongering. Oh, brave new obamaworld.
gapperserve@comcast.net
http://gendergappers.blogspot.com
2008-024
Copyright
2008 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished
for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that
this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: gapperserve@comcast.net.
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