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by Dave "Doctor" Gonzo

Tuesday, Sept. 21, 1999--NEW YORK--We've seen quite a few letters recently criticizing American Politics Journal's use of the term "hate radio" to describe the overwhelmingly mean-spirited, dishonest and outright fascist tenor of what is more commonly referred to as "talk radio."  And we've responded to every letter.

But we also receive the occasional note from readers such as Rich Graham to keep us up to date on the latest outrages being mouthed by the fringe right.  I want to thank Rich for passing along this example from the Sept. 16 edition of the radio program hosted by the self-proclaimed "Mr. Excellence in Broadcasting," Rush Limbaugh, concerning last week's shooting incident in a Fort Worth, Texas Baptist church in which a number of teenagers were killed:

"Voila!  Automatically we've got another mass shooting.  The minute Congress gets back and starts to work on new gun legislation...guess what? I'm drawing no conclusion.  I'm just telling you.  It's very, very strange.  'Well, gee, Rush, it sounds very sinister.'  It may be.  Look.  I don't doubt for a minute that Democrats are capable of staging any kind of event whatsoever...in order to gain advantage in the causes they support. I've said it before.  It's nothing new."

"Drawing no conclusion."  Yeah, right--just before he claims that the Democrats staged the shooting.  There's a term for Limbaugh's brand of weasel-wording--hypocrisy.

I can practically hear Rush's excuse for making this hateful and completely implausible assertion: "My program is only en-ter-TAIN-ment."

Rush has fallen back on that old, hypocritical line many a time--when in fact he has acted as the "talking drum" for the RNC, various right-wing think tanks, hard-right periodicals.

Entertainment.  Sure.

Entertainment as an "excuse" for having insulted and bad-mouthed members of the Clinton, Kennedy, Dukakis, and Gore families (just to name a few), implicated the Clintons in ridiculous crime "conspiracy" scenarios, accused liberals of being everything from baby killers to Satan worshipers, or told outright lies as fact.

Entertainment planned and executed to fan the flames of extremism and hate toward anyone left of center--among some of the most unstable elements of American society who might take your assertion a step further and decide to "take it out" on one or two of those "extremist Liberals who want to take our guns away."

And in this latest example, entertainment at the expense of families in Fort Worth who had to bury their kids after they were murdered in a church--by a psychotic man who fell through the cracks of George W. Bush's "compassionate conservative" Texas.

Entertainment with blood on its hands.

I can practically hear the insolent Rush following up with, "When you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns."

Horse puckey.  The fact is, thanks to hard-right think tanks and a conservative-biased broadcast establishment, liberals have been outlawed from getting in front of the mike--

--and now only the outlaws have microphones.

'Nuff said