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After Imus: Limbaugh, Savage, O'Reilly, others targeted  Breaking News


Now that radio talk-show host Don Imus has been banished, it's time to clean up the rest of talk radio, says a partisan media watchdog group headed by David Brock.

Next in the crosshairs for alleged expressions of "bigotry and hate speech targeting, among other characteristics, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity" are, according to Media Matters for America, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, John Gibson and Michael Smerconish.

In a 6,000-word report, Media Matters documents what it perceives as the case against the talk-radio hosts.

Limbaugh is upbraided for the following satirical "offenses":

On March 2, Limbaugh said "since [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-Ill.] has – on his mother's side – forebears of his mother had slaves, could we not say that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then wins the presidency, he will own [Rev.] Al Sharpton?"

On Aug. 23, 2006, Limbaugh commented on a season of CBS' reality TV program "Survivor" in which contestants were originally divided into competing "tribes" by ethnicity. Limbaugh said the contest was "not going to be fair if there's a lot of water events" and suggested that "blacks can't swim" – a reference to a statement that got former Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager Al Campanis fired in 1987. Limbaugh stated that "our early money" is on "the Hispanic tribe" – which he said could include "a Cuban," "a Nicaraguan," or "a Mexican or two" – provided they don't "start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves." Limbaugh added that Hispanics have "probably shown the most survival tactics," that they "have shown a remarkable ability to cross borders," and that they can "do it without water for a long time, they don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do." When the "Survivor" producers decided to dissolve the show's racially segregated "tribes" after only two episodes, Limbaugh said "[t]here can only be one reason for this ... that is the white tribe had to be winning."

On Jan. 10, 2006, Limbaugh said some women "would love to be hired as eye candy."

On July 17, 2005, Limbaugh announced a new "advertising campaign" for the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He renamed the facility "Club Gitmo, the Muslim resort," a "tropical paradise down there where Muslim extremists and terrorist wannabes can get together for rest and relaxation." On his website, he sold "Club Gitmo" T-shirts that read: "I Got My Free Koran and Prayer Rug at Gitmo," "Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress of Jihad," "My Mullah went to Club Gitmo and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt," and "What Happens in Gitmo Stays in Gitmo."

On March 1, 2005, Limbaugh said "[w]omen still live longer than men because their lives are easier."

On June 14, 2004, Limbaugh shared his "pet name" for the National Organization for Women: "National Association of Gals" (his acronym: "NAG").

Responding to an Associated Press report that women had recently been appointed as chiefs of police in four major U.S. cities, Limbaugh said May 27, 2004, referencing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib: "If we've got four new female police chiefs out there, then I guess we can watch out for some naked pyramids among prisoners in these new jailhouses that these women ran, because we had a woman running the prison in Abu Grab."

The report also references his repeated use of the term "femi-Nazis," part of the unique Limbaugh lexicon and his resignation as a football commentator for ESPN over the well-publicized Donovan McNabb incident in 2003.

As for Savage, another one of the nation's top-rated talk hosts, Media Matters cited the following comments as objectionable:

On March 30, Savage said that he "agree[d] 100 percent" with a caller who said: "I'm very concerned that the Jews are now accepting gays as rabbis. And as a Catholic, I can tell you it almost destroyed our church when we accepted gays as priests." The caller added, "[T]hey were raping teenage boys, and if you allow them to come into your churches, I'm sorry, your synagogues, I have no reason to believe they're not going to do the same thing." Savage responded: "The idea of a gay rabbi is an oxymoron. Think about it: 'Rabbi' means teacher. You cannot have a homosexual teacher teaching boys how to be a Jew," adding, "I'm not going to mince words for fear of offending homosexuals. They're everywhere, anyway, trying to tell me what to say and what not to say and what to think. I know what's right and what's wrong. And that's all there is to it."

On March 20, Savage discussed a San Francisco Chronicle report of the murder of someone whose sex was being changed. Savage read a sentence from the article stating "it appeared the victim had been in the process of becoming a woman," to which Savage replied: "Yeah, process of becoming a woman – psychopath. [She] should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major medication." He went on to say, "And what's this sympathy, constant sympathy for sexually confused people? Why should we have constant sympathy for people who are freaks in every society?" adding, "But you know what? You're never gonna make me respect the freak. I don't want to respect the freak." Savage concluded: "The freak ought to be glad that they're allowed to walk around without begging for something. You know, I'm sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down."

On March 16, Savage played audio clips from Barbara Walters' interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling her a "double-talking slut." Savage added: "She's an empty mind-slut. She'd peddle anything for a ratings point." Savage went on to call Walters a "mental prostitute" and said, "I think that the woman is vermin. I think she's dirt."

On Feb. 26, after playing an audio clip of the beginning of singer Melissa Etheridge's acceptance speech at the Academy Awards in which she thanked her "wife and four children," Savage said: "I don't like a woman married to a woman. It makes me want to puke. ... I want to vomit when I hear it. I think it's child abuse."

On Feb. 7, Savage claimed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "was chosen by George Bush as part of an affirmative action program in order to make his Cabinet look like America." he called her "a schoolmarm who has been pushed up the ladder all of her life because of social engineering." Savage added Bush's secretary of state "should have been a man because he would have more respect in the Middle East than does a woman to begin with."

Savage was also taken to task by Media Matters for advocating a ban on Muslim immigration into the U.S., banning the construction of mosques and making English the official language.

On his radio program last night, Savage predicted a campaign to target him and other talk-radio hosts now that the Imus campaign was successful.

"It is as if this country no longer understand and appreciates satire," he said. "They don't allow satire in China. They don't allow satire in North Korea. They don't allow satire in Syria. That's where we are headed if satire is allowed to be destroyed in America."

cont'd

Glenn Beck, who hosts a syndicated radio show as well as a TV show on CNN Headline News, was singled out for calling Rosie O'Donnell, co-host of ABC's "The View," a "fat witch" who had "blubber ... just pouring out of her eyes. He allegedly asked, "Do you know how many oil lamps we could keep burning just on Rosie O'Donnell fat?" Later on the March 23 edition of his radio show, Beck said, "I'm a little ashamed" for calling O'Donnell "a fat witch" – then added, "But she's so fat."

Beck's other offenses, according to Media Matters, include:

On March 15, he said: "Hillary Clinton cannot be elected president because ... there's something about her vocal range." He went on to say, "There's something about her voice that just drives me – it's not what she says, it's how she says it," adding, "She is like the stereotypical – excuse the expression, but this is the way to – she's the stereotypical b––, you know what I mean?" Beck later qualified his statement: "I never said that Hillary Clinton was a b––. I said she sounded like one."

On Nov. 14, on his CNN show, Beck said to Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim ever elected to Congress: "OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. ... With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, 'Let's cut and run.' And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'"

On Sept 5 on CNN, Beck warned that if "Muslims and Arabs" don't "act now" by "step[ping] to the plate" to condemn terrorism, they "will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West."

On April 27, 2006, Beck said there are three reasons an illegal immigrant "comes across the border in the middle of the night" – "one, they're terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country."

On May 17, 2005, Beck said he was "thinking about killing (filmmaker) Michael Moore and wondered out loud whether "I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it." He concluded: "No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out – is this wrong?"

Bill O'Reilly, host of the No. 1 cable TV show, Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," is also a syndicated radio host. Media Matters challenged his right to the airwaves for the following alleged indiscretions:

On April 6 O'Reilly said that Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf "should be baking pies, not running a major city."

On April 2, while discussing the British soldiers captured by the Iranian government, Nancy Soderberg, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated that "the Arab Sunnis are uniting against Iran" and said: "t's going to be the Arab world against the Persian world. And that's a fight we don't want to have played out in Iraq." O'Reilly responded: "Well, I'd like to see that fight with us out of it. That's what I'd like to see." O'Reilly continued: "I want – let them kill each other."

On Dec. 13, O'Reilly dismissed a report on same-sex parenting by asserting, "Nature dictates that a dad and a mom is the optimum" form of child-rearing. O'Reilly asked "why," if children suffer no psychosocial deficit from being raised by same-sex parents, "wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake?" O'Reilly declared that by arguing in favor of same-sex couples' right to raise children, "you're taking Mother Nature and you're throwing it right out the window, and I just think it's crazy."

Syndicated radio host Neal Boortz faced the following indictment:

On July 19, Boortz claimed that "at its core," Islam is a "violent, violent religion," and said, "[T]his Muhammad guy is just a phony rag-picker." Boortz asserted that "t is perfectly legitimate, perhaps even praiseworthy, to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins."

On March 31, 2006, then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-GA, "looks like a ghetto slut." He was commenting on a March 29 incident in which McKinney allegedly struck a police officer at a Capitol Hill security checkpoint. Boortz said that McKinney's "new hair-do" makes her look "like a ghetto slut," like "an explosion at a Brillo pad factory," like "Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence," and like "a shih tzu."

On March 27, 2006, Boortz suggested the U.S. government should "store 11 million Hispanics" who entered the country illegally in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans before deporting them to their home countries.

Michael Smerconish was next on the hit list. While sitting in for O'Reilly on radio April 4, Smerconish repeatedly discussed "the sissification of America," claiming that political correctness has made the United States "a nation of sissies." Smerconish also claimed, several times, that this "sissification" and "limp-wristedness" is "compromising our ability to win the war on terror."

Lastly, Fox News Channel host and syndicated radio talker John Gibson crossed the line May 11, according to Media Matters, for advising viewers of "The Big Story" to "[d]o your duty. Make more babies." He then cited a May 10 article, which reported that nearly half of all children under the age of 5 in the U.S. are minorities. Gibson added: "By far, the greatest number [of children under 5] are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic." Gibson later claimed: "To put it bluntly, we need more babies." Then, referring to Russia's projected decline in population, Gibson claimed: "So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can't carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way – a slogan for our times: 'procreation not recreation.'"

CBS fired Don Imus from his radio program yesterday, a day after MSNBC announced it was discontinuing a simulcast of the show on cable TV. Imus initially was given a two-week suspension for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on the air last week.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

Imus, once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, issued repeated apologies as protests intensified.

Brock's Media Matters was "developed" with help from the Center for American Progress, funded by billionaire George Soros, a major financial backer of the Democratic Party and allied groups such as MoveOn.org.

Brock, formerly of the conservative American Spectator, is backing a "Renew the Fairness Doctrine" campaign to have the Federal Communications Commission monitor and regulate talk radio. His group is "dedicated to correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."

Personally I think the comments made by Imus was completely wrong and repugnant. What I find interesting though is that the ones crying the loudest over this are the same ones that have made many racially abhorrent statements and actions themselves yet are still being allowed to go on unrestrained in the media and in politics without a single word of disdain from the liberals. Some of these very prejudiced people crying out about this disgrace the word Christian by attaining to be such.