You stupid fuck, Tom C wasn't even there. You're a fuckin liar. Don't ever cross my path, you got me?--Mike Webb to BlatherWatch. 9.15.05
We kid Mike Webb.
He's a self-described "Liberal with a Capital L" (KIRO m-f, 9p-1a) and one of the longest running, and lowest rated liberal talkers in Seattle.
We kid Mike Webb, whose anger management problem is bigger than Hurricane Katrina's and humor deficit large enough to fill the canyon of George Bush's curiosity deficiency.
We kidded Mike Webb in our critical review ofKIRO's "Battle of the Talk Show Hosts," last week-- that's why Webb's is making those threats and swearing at us.
He can dish it out, but he can't take it.
Off-line, we often email with the conservative talk-hosts upon whom we're pooping, and not one has ever threatened us, or gotten so pissed off as Mike Webb.
Oh, Sean Hannity called us BlunderingWatch; we get some haughty, passive aggressive stuff from the Michael Medved staff, and a few on-air insults from Mike Siegel fill-ins...but these are merit badges we wear proudly.
Webb's conservative colleague Dori Monson, (KIRO m-f,12-3p) who we've kicked around as unmercifully as we have Webb, writes: ITAL"I find it very funny that other hosts get so pissed off at your blog - you're just doing what we do."
The seriously deluded rightie, John Carlson (KVI m-f, 3-6p) who we trash repeatedly, writes lengthy and collegial emails discussing political topics.
We kid The Bad Lieutenant, Bryan Suits, (KVI m-f, 6-9p) who actually engages readers in our lively comments columns and is generous with his sarcasm and alleged wit.
But when we kid the liberal, we get threats and the f-bomb. We're embarrassed by him.
We kid, but this isn't the first time Webb's come after us. Back in 2003, after we wrote a talk radio piece for a local magazine that didn't give him enough ink (he thought the song was about him), he wrote: "Fuck You. Don't come near me. That would be regretful." Then he tried to murder us with the publisher, the editor, and threatened to report us for harassment to our Internet provider.
Recently, he wrote: "So, please, just leave me the fuck alone and have fun on your little 'website.' Let me be clear: the next email from you will be considered harassment."
(We've seen his show's "cumes" and we can assure you, our "little website" has more readers on a Sunday than he does his little talk show 'most any day. We kid Mike Webb, but his ratings are lower than Mike Siegel's).
At least one major blogger has been scared off of even mentioning Webb's name after such threats.
Criticizing a public figure is "fair comment" and protected speech, as Mike well knows, he does it every day. Approaching a public figure on their published email address is not even close to harassment.
He's known around KIRO for threatening litigation and many give him wide berth on account of it.
Being an asshole isn't illegal, but we expect more from liberals...although, we're not so sure Webb isn't just playing one on the radio. He told us in a 2003 email that he put Rush Limbaugh on KVI and is proud of that. He's also worked hard to unseat his own union at KIRO, even though he champions "stakeholders" over "stockholders." He denigrates yuppies, and rich people, but drives a black Lexus he never talks about on-air because it would mess with his radical lefty image. He denigrates callers who disagree with him--talks over them, makes fun of their rurality (he even plays bluegrass music over them when they're talking.)
He packs a gun for "protection." He's the only armed gay liberal we know. Gay columnist and Stranger editor, Dan Savage who actually is famous, and has lived with death threats for years, and walks among us armed only with his formidable wit.
Webb uses Sean Hannity's unliberal technique of lecturing a caller or guest, then asking them a do-you-still-beat-your-wife-question, then, when they start answering, he starts interrupting, then yells something like "you're delusional!," and hangs up on them. He not only does that to dopey callers, he does it when he's losing the argument.
We kid Mike Webb but we expect more from progressives. Hell, we expect more from Sean Hannity...
His is the overcompensation of a bully; and like all bullying, its roots are in weakness. His inability to hold up his end of a debate for righteous causes with righteous arguments usually ends with a show of power that bottom lines: I've got a dump button and you don't.
Webb says he's passionate and the right can't handle it. His passion, however, is an anger that he apparently can't handle and serves only to make his opponents seem reasonable.
It's bad radio and bad politics and his bad ratings reflect it--he dropped from 15th to 25th place in the last book.
Webb typifies the state of desperate state of local progressive talk in Seattle. We've got Dave Ross. Period.The rest--Webb, Allan Prell, Tony Ventrella, and Erin Hart are missing one or more of the necessary ingredients for talk radio success: talent, skills, the inclination, the energy, or the je ne sais quoi to be anything but local niche-midgets who are either taking up valuable band space or are comfortably stuck in ratings ghettos like late night and weekends.
Prell has taken the time to get up to speed on local issues; Webb and Hart have not. They indulge themselves with repetitious silliness, b-list guests and their ratings are rivaled only by tiny rural stations reading school lunch menus to tiny rural audiences.
Webb told us in 2003 that local politics are "BOR-ing." He'd apparently rather spend hours on his true love: spinning oldies from the golden days of his 1970's youth.
Meanwhile, because of local conservative talkers doing local issues, Republicans have driven the media on local issues such the Un-lect Governor Gregoire distraction and the anti-roads repair initiative, I-912.
And they do it in drive-time and they lead newstalk ratings in Seattle.
We kid Mike Webb, but when will someone grab that microphone out of his face and give it to someone who's got talent, new energy and gravitas? Meanwhile, we'll be watching our back--what's scarier than an angry talk show host with a gun?
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