UPDATED: Godtalkers: do you know who rabbi daniel lapin is?

Godtalk Update: after Rabbi Lapin discussed Berkeley's actively discouragement of  Marine recruiting, a listener writes: "This is a Godtalk topic?!?" Later Lapin managed to get into the religious conversation: "I don't like the BBC, I don't like PBS, and I don't like NPR... they shouldn't exist."
    Another listener comment forwarded this to us: "Please, please PLEASE, get Rabbi Daniel Lapin OFF THE AIR!!! You are insulting every minute Bernie spent on the air. I have been a faithful listener for years, but no more until Rabbi Lapin is history. He gives us nothing to contemplate, but much to hold in contempt. While Bernie spoke to the best in all of us, the Rabbi makes even the pacifist want to consider mayhem. He is narrow-minded, condescending, self-absorbed, and about as deep as one layer of vaneer. As Bernie would say, "He parked his brain at the door and picked up his Crayolas." The loyal God Talk audience deserves FAR BETTER. If you keep him, you would do well to  rename the program "God Forbid Talk."
~~
Godtalk, Bernie Ward's interfaith dialogue is too popular to cancel at San Francisco's KGO (Sundays, 6-9a). But what would he say if he could comment on how his show is being shepherded over by one of the most virulent clergymen in the American religious right?

For three weeks now, former KSFO right-wing talker, Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Seattle has hosted the weekly, liberal, one-world exchange of views that often range far afield from those of the Judeo-Christian practitioners whom Lapin's always championed as the sort of "Master Race" of religionists.

We've written about him here for years. He's David Duke's favorite Jew; was inextricably involved as a bagman and sock puppet for Jack Abramoff; addressed the 1996 Republican convention; and has been a controversial voice in the far, far right his entire career. (check the links below)

(Despite all his high-toned, moralistic rhetoric, Lapin's moral authority is equal to Newt Gingrich's, who once claimed Lapin as his "spiritual adviser;" which, judging both men's behaviors and beliefs, is no doubt true).

Besides all that political stuff, Godtalk's gentle listeners may not know how the smooth-talking, former South African rabbi really feels about beliefs and believers outside the Judeo-Christianity he believes is superior in every way.

Our 2006 piece, "Rabid Rabbi" for The San Francisco Bay Guardian, spells it out rather devastatingly:

Lapin often says non-Judeo-Christian cultures and secular liberalism are more of animals than of God and holds historically contentious theories that Western scientific superiority was developed directly from Judeo-Christianity. "Why didn't the periodic table surface among the Eskimos?" he asked in a 1996 Eastside Week article. "It doesn't make sense that Africa hadn't figured out the wheel by the time England was at the end of the Industrial Revolution."

The reason, Lapin said in that article, is because they never had the opening lines of the Bible, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth."

His mission, as stated on his Web site, is "standing astride America's secular path to decline, decadence, and depravity." But his version of Judeo-Christianity looks like a right-wing Republican wish list. Lapin believes that currency and capital markets are revelations granted by God to the Jews and passed on to Christians.

As a man of God, he not only supports stable marriages, family life, faithfulness, and integrity, but (along, he says, with God) favors tax cuts, property rights, sodomy laws, school prayers, school vouchers, arranged marriages, and elimination of government social programs. He opposes promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality, welfare, crime, funding for the arts, gun control, environmental laws, and black people giving their kids "funny" names.

"Recycling," Lapin told the Guardian, "is the sacred sacrament of secularism." He told KSFO listeners recently that saying a prayer over your dead pets is sick and bizarre.

According to Lapin's writings, Terri Schiavo's death was a "premeditated murder-plot," and he's said on the radio that living wills are "suicide notes." Tattoos, birth control, piercings, abortions, and assisted suicide are all sinful because, as he told us interviewing him for the Guardian piece, it's not your body, thank you very much, you're only a tenant. And tenants, in Lapin's view, have no rights, especially when it comes to moving or evictions.

Lapin crusades against gays and is a headliner and co-organizer, with virulent Seattle homophobe Rev. Ken Hutcherson, of the effective, anti-gay Mayday for Marriage rallies, one of which drew some 150,000 supporters to the Mall in Washington, DC, just before the 2004 elections. He makes appearances on the pulpit of Hutcherson's megachurch near Seattle and they've jointly been involved in other political activities. (Hutcherson, along with Lapin and others on the national religious right have been engaged recently with a cockamamie attempt at buying Microsoft stock to affect the company's "liberal" politicking. Hutcherson is the evangelical who bullied Microsoft in 2005 into withdrawing support for a gay rights bill before the Washington State Legislature, which effectively killed it).

These are views that have got to be abhorrent to those who love Godtalk.

That Lapin is taking over this radio bastion of the religious left is an example of tin-eared KGO programmers. There's got to be a better choice: KGO news reporter Ravi "RJ" Peruman, has been a more-than-adequate fill-in for some time; and a closer fit with the show's philosophy of anti-dogma.   
...
Our Lapin files:
Daniel Lapin: The Right's favorite Rabbi; Bill Berkowitz, Media Transparency
Meet the Lapin Brothers; Rick Anderson, The Seattle Weekly

BlatherWatch posts
More abramoff embarrassment for rabbi daniel lapin
Rabbi Daniel lapin's name resurfaces in investigation
Seattle Times: rabbi daniel lapin abramoff connections
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: show rabbi of the racists
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: "The Man Who Stands By His Scandal-Ridden Friends"
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a long look backward

Comments

[sparky]

Bernie would probably begin by engaging him in debate, and then see how quickly he could bury Lapin in his hypocritical views.

I miss Bernie so.

[joanie]

Why would they replace Ward with Lapin? Some kind of inside joke?

[sparky]

He isnt a replacement as such, but a fill in. There have been several hosts filling in. I would hope that if Bernie is not ever going to come back that they will do away with that program.

[DT]

BM, after you profile talk shows in other cities, any chance you'll do some of one's in Seattle? One's people on this blog actually listen to? How about some current profiles and commentary on the hosts at Air America or KUOW?

[blathering michael]

I have a national readership, as well, DT. balancing the locals, the national, and getting in the political licks I need to get in for my own enjoyment, is always a problem for somebody. (many times, god bless it, it's you). I've followed Mercer Island extremist broadcaster, Daniel Lapin's lucubrations as long as I've blogged, and always will. It's paid off: he will never stop having a national face, and BW is a go-to place for info on him. (try googling his name). Sticking with a story despite commenters'gripes has paid off many times...
It's gotten harder to do local as the local talk programming has dried up as it has.

[Loozertarian]

I can vouch for the national readership, having introduced a number of Midwest and East Coast friends to this site. Of course, I did it mostly to prove to them that the Seattle talk radio scene stacks up well against any soap opera on American TV today. (And if things get much more lurid, it will stack up well against any Mexican soap opera.)

[meta]

I Read BlatherWatch from Mesopotamia.

[Loozertarian]

Also, in a modest case of harmonic convergence, I was just reading a Wikipedia article about a World War 2 Jewish organization called Group 13. This charming outfit was made up of Polish Jews who were employed by the Nazis in occupied Poland to infiltrate the various Jewish resistance groups, specifically in the Warsaw Ghetto, in an effort to destroy them. (It was generally unsuccessful and - surprise - was eventually liquidated by the Germans.)

And then a few minutes later I come here to find a thread devoted to a man who, well, you get the picture....

[DT]

Thanks for the explanation. I'll have to look into him, his show, and his views more. From what I understand, he is filling-in, or is a guest host, or is replacing Bernie Ward, who I have also never heard. And I'm assuming that both shows were/are called Godtalk. Liking people to be even-handed, if one of the criticisms of Lapin is that that on Godtalk he talks about topics unrelated to religion, then I hope those who preferred Ward's show also complained if and when he did topics unrelated to religion.

[loren]

Rabbi is one of the most brilliant scholars around.

Godtalk is a perfect venue for him. He has many important things to say so let him be heard.
He is a real theological scholar unlike the pedophile Bernie Ward.

[Tommy008]

Lapin is a fascist scumbag. Bernie is innocent until proven guilty.

[DT]

I just did some reading on Lapin, and the controversy surrounding him. My analysis: Liberals don't like him because Lapin doesn't think like them.

(And I consider myself a liberal).

[Loozertarian]

"Bernie is innocent until proven guilty" only because he is an effective critic of the right. If the sort of allegations he faces were made against Rush Limbaugh instead of him, some of you would be warbling a far different tune. In fact, I can recall rumors of a similarly gruesome nature regarding Limbaugh's sexual tastes being happily repeated in this very forum. (Something about traveling to the Caribbean in search of little boys, or some other nonsense. The only foundation for those rumors was wishful thinking.)

[wutitiz]

It appears Lapin's most heinous crime was to hold an opposing point of view(OPOV).

For that he gets the ultimate penalty of being labled a 'fascist' which, confusingly, is an early 20th century variant of progressivism/communitarianism. The 'fasces' is a bundle of sticks, which was a Roman symbol for the strength of community. Oh, well.

So Lapin got caught up w/ Jack Abramoff, who was engaged in a scam whereby he exploited the tribal gaming clusterfunk. The whole business is an exploitation, and Dems are the kings thereof. Lapin was guilty of emailing that he would issue a phony award, in order to get Abramoff into some DC good ol boy club. That's it. Not even a trumped-up indictment for him.

Lapin is a sometime brilliant, but largely boring, talk host, with a tendancy to prattle on about family values.

To sum up then,

Crime: OPOV;

Sentence: to be labeled as subscriber to early 20th cent. variant of progressivism.

[sarge]

If any of you Lapin defenders read Bl'am's posts on Lapin and the other articles, you wouldn't be so dismissive. The man is from the farthest reaches of the right. He has been disgraced nationally and diminished hugely in the eyes of the people who used to support him. His non-profit is defunct, he hasn't been able to keep a radio job.

[wutitiz]

spot on, BART. nothing drags a show down like Sunday-school-itis and boy-scout-itits.

I'd rather listen to Luke Burbank talking to 3 soon-to-be brides about hipster Seattle weddings and the toll it took on their dads' Amex cards.

[BR]

To correct wutitiz above, Lapin didn't just use his charity to create phony academic awards for Abramoff, which he denied to the press. The House Government Reform Committee report listed the details of the awards a year later and Lapin has never issued a retraction for his lies.

More importantly, Lapin's tax exempt charity was a regular conduit for laundering money for Abramoff. This included money from gaming companies, which Lapin has publicly opposed.

Full details on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lapin