The "Equalizer" Does not Provide Equal Time
I read with some amusement this morning an article by Brian Maloney, who blogs as the Radioequalizer. Maloney is a right-winger, who seems to be obsessed with liberal talk radio. About 90% of the articles on his blog deal with lib talk and about half of these articles f
ocus on Air America Radio and their former top talker Al Franken.
Now that AAR is temporarily out of the news and Franken is gone, Maloney is looking for other lib talk topics to blog on. This morning it was another left of center talker that Maloney had it in for – Tom Finneran.
The morning host on Boston’s mostly conservative talk station WRKO, Finneran has been the target of a least a half dozen articles on the Radioequalizer blog. In fact, Maloney has so much antipathy towards Finneran that he has actually created a blog to just attack WRKO’s decision to give the former Democratic state legislator his own talk show!
Today, Maloney attacked Finneran, who made a made a bad joke about fellow WRKO talk show host, Howie Carr. Carr's conservative talk show is carried on weekday evenings on the Boston talk station.
Last week,
Finneran, who was interviewing Massachusetts Governor Devel Patrick, said that the two of them should take "Howie Carr for a ride," and "only two will come back."
Patrick was the in-studio guest of "Finneran’s Forum" last Wednesday. The joke was prompted when Finneran and Gov. Patrick were commenting on a never-before-seen photo in the Boston Herald of 1976 Irish mob victim Richie Castucci’s final resting-place in the blood-soaked trunk of his Cadillac.
Well, needless to say Carr was not very pleased about the joke. He was quoted in the Herald as saying "Real men don’t talk about putting people in trunks, they just do it." Carr also referred to Finneran’s legal problems. He was convicted of obstruction of justice and sentenced to 18 months of unsupervised probation.
"I think the judge ought to send him to jail," Carr said. "That’s where he belonged in the first place and this just reiterates it."
And this is where Maloney jumps in.
He made the following comment on his blog today.
"In your office, would it be okay to suggest out loud that a hated co- worker oughta get whacked in a mob hit?If you're looking for an early retirement, give this a try sometime. In Boston, however, convicted felon- turned- morning host Tom Finneran has done just that, with Howie Carr, the target of his affection, demanding jail time as a result of the on- air threat."
It’s interesting that Maloney, who wants Finneran to be punished for making a bad joke, never had anything to say when several right-wing talk show hosts and commentators expressed similar death wishes over the air.
Where was Maloney when Melanie Morgan, mid-day talker on KSFO in San Francisco and TR’s "worst talker of the week" said "its time to put on bull’s eye" on Nancy Pelosi. Morgan also said that she "would have no problem" with New York Times executive editor Bill Keller "being sent to the gas chamber" if he "were to be tried and convicted of treason" for the publication of an article about a Treasury Department program that monitors international financial transactions for terrorist activity.
Or when Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
How about when Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said that the Los Angeles Times editorial board wouldn't understand O’Reilly’s objection to legal representation for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until terrorists kill editorial page editor Michael Kinsley.
Or when Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck said he was "thinking about killing [filmmaker] Michael Moore" and pondered whether "I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it."
I searched Maloney’s blog and did find any references to these death wishes.
Also, I did not find any articles about conservative talk hosts who were convicted felons.
There was no mention of convicted Watergate burglar, G. Gordan Liddy, who does a daily talk show for Radio America, or former talk show host and convicted Irangate conspirator Oliver North, or for that matter, convicted drug user and number one conservative talk host, Rush Limbaugh.
No, Maloney’s outrage about Finneran’s legal problems is not expressed when talkers on the right hope that liberals or Democrats get whacked. Or when right-wing ex-cons get gigs as talk show hosts. The Radioequalizer is not an equal opportunity outrager.
ocus on Air America Radio and their former top talker Al Franken.Now that AAR is temporarily out of the news and Franken is gone, Maloney is looking for other lib talk topics to blog on. This morning it was another left of center talker that Maloney had it in for – Tom Finneran.
The morning host on Boston’s mostly conservative talk station WRKO, Finneran has been the target of a least a half dozen articles on the Radioequalizer blog. In fact, Maloney has so much antipathy towards Finneran that he has actually created a blog to just attack WRKO’s decision to give the former Democratic state legislator his own talk show!
Today, Maloney attacked Finneran, who made a made a bad joke about fellow WRKO talk show host, Howie Carr. Carr's conservative talk show is carried on weekday evenings on the Boston talk station.
Last week,
Finneran, who was interviewing Massachusetts Governor Devel Patrick, said that the two of them should take "Howie Carr for a ride," and "only two will come back."Patrick was the in-studio guest of "Finneran’s Forum" last Wednesday. The joke was prompted when Finneran and Gov. Patrick were commenting on a never-before-seen photo in the Boston Herald of 1976 Irish mob victim Richie Castucci’s final resting-place in the blood-soaked trunk of his Cadillac.
Well, needless to say Carr was not very pleased about the joke. He was quoted in the Herald as saying "Real men don’t talk about putting people in trunks, they just do it." Carr also referred to Finneran’s legal problems. He was convicted of obstruction of justice and sentenced to 18 months of unsupervised probation.
"I think the judge ought to send him to jail," Carr said. "That’s where he belonged in the first place and this just reiterates it."
And this is where Maloney jumps in.
He made the following comment on his blog today.
"In your office, would it be okay to suggest out loud that a hated co- worker oughta get whacked in a mob hit?If you're looking for an early retirement, give this a try sometime. In Boston, however, convicted felon- turned- morning host Tom Finneran has done just that, with Howie Carr, the target of his affection, demanding jail time as a result of the on- air threat."
It’s interesting that Maloney, who wants Finneran to be punished for making a bad joke, never had anything to say when several right-wing talk show hosts and commentators expressed similar death wishes over the air.
Where was Maloney when Melanie Morgan, mid-day talker on KSFO in San Francisco and TR’s "worst talker of the week" said "its time to put on bull’s eye" on Nancy Pelosi. Morgan also said that she "would have no problem" with New York Times executive editor Bill Keller "being sent to the gas chamber" if he "were to be tried and convicted of treason" for the publication of an article about a Treasury Department program that monitors international financial transactions for terrorist activity.
Or when Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
How about when Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said that the Los Angeles Times editorial board wouldn't understand O’Reilly’s objection to legal representation for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until terrorists kill editorial page editor Michael Kinsley.
Or when Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck said he was "thinking about killing [filmmaker] Michael Moore" and pondered whether "I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it."
I searched Maloney’s blog and did find any references to these death wishes.
Also, I did not find any articles about conservative talk hosts who were convicted felons.
There was no mention of convicted Watergate burglar, G. Gordan Liddy, who does a daily talk show for Radio America, or former talk show host and convicted Irangate conspirator Oliver North, or for that matter, convicted drug user and number one conservative talk host, Rush Limbaugh.
No, Maloney’s outrage about Finneran’s legal problems is not expressed when talkers on the right hope that liberals or Democrats get whacked. Or when right-wing ex-cons get gigs as talk show hosts. The Radioequalizer is not an equal opportunity outrager.
3 comments:
Maybe he's like Michael Moore: mention the things that support your case and ignore the ones that don't.
He has covered some conservative talk hosts and their foibles, like John
DePetro (fired by WRKO), Michael
Savage, and Jay Severin (fake
Pulitzer, etc.) but yes most of his focus is on libtalk.
>>weekday evenings
actually 3-7 pm, afternoon drive
I think Brian uses "equalizer" in the sense of "most media leans left but I'm leaning right".
Brian didn't attack Beck for his
comment re: Moore but he did attack
him as a "loose cannon" who makes
"foolish statements that damage the conservative cause.
Oh wait: he did mention the Moore
situation, 18 Jan '06:
"--- Can he stay in control? Sometimes, Beck loses it on the air. While it seems to be part of his act, television suits have thin skins. Some of his outbursts are Michael Savage-like in their intensity, such as when he pondered killing lefty film producer Michael Moore.
"Actually, I've never heard Savage go that far, have you? And as you may remember, "The Savage Nation" host didn't last long on cable, did he?"
He's a right wing dirty trickster pumping out enough disinformation about Air America to try to collapse it. Baloney realizes that even a fledgling or FAILING radio presence that speaks truth to the right wing radio LIES, threatens rightist Nazi's into jackboot activism. They are counting on a populace so dumbed down that they can still sell their putrid lies (WMD, Kerry's unearned medals, Gore's lies, etc, ad nauseum) and keep control which they stole using our AM radio dial.
At the recent CPAC conference, a workshop on talk radio featured Baloney and other rw tricksters bragging about how they have "derailed" Air America, taken over the busy Ed Schultz message board, and plan to pressure advertisers to stay on the ABC boycott list. I say let's hit them back with twice that!
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