Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine, the bible of talk radio, feels that it's more than just the election. "There's a new paradigm of stationality, a scramble to find new positions," said Harrison. "And only the best of the neocons will come out the other side in a George W. Bushless world." In Harrison's judgment that means Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and the soon to be radio talking head, CNN's Lou Dobbs, with Sean Hannity taking over the number one spot.
On the left side of the dial where they can't get the smile off their faces over the right's infighting, top-rated liberal talker, Ed Schultz, syndicated by Jones Radio, says that it's more a right-wing fear that McCain could bring a bit of harmony in Washington.
"John McCain has a lot of democratic friends in the Senate," says Schultz. "He might actually listen and even negotiate with them. This breaks down the ideological wall that the right loves to shout from and it scares the hell out of them."
Hannity's liberal sidekick on Fox and a radio talker in his own right, Alan Colmes, believes that conservative hosts have talked themselves into a corner. "How do they come to terms with themselves if McCain is the nominee after they've been blasting him as 'too liberal?' Liberals don't complain that a Democratic candidate is 'too conservative.' And how would they support a flip-flopper like Romney after what they did to Kerry?"
You mean, Alan, the demonizing of war veteran Kerry when conservative talk show hosts were... UNDERMINING THE TROOPS?"
No matter the reason for the infighting, the tendency for conservative sameness in talk radio seems to have finally hit a terribly loud bump in the road and whether it ends up in a grisly crash or just a detour to a fresh approach to political talk, it should be fun to watch...or listen to. With stations having an ungodly mix of the ego-heavy right wing adversaries on the same schedule, you just have to believe talk show program directors like KABC's Eric Braverman are doing their best Lt. Colonel Kilgore impressions as they get the stations' helicopters ready for a bloody evac.
And that would even be worse than undermining the troops. That, my friends would be... SURRENDER.
Award-winning television writer and author of Great Failures of the Extremely Successful", Steve Young, is a former talk show host, writes ad finitum on talk radio (www.greatfailure.com), and his "All The News That's Fit To Spoof" appears in L.A. Daily News opeds every Sunday(www.dailynews.com/columnists), right next to Bill O'Reilly's...really.
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