BlatherWatch

KIRO: news chooser, snoozer... or loser?

Email we got from a KIROFM staffer after Friday night's I-5 shooting near the North Seattle Community College.

As Dori would say, "it's pretty self-explanatory." 

It ain't the first amendment.

The Glenn Beck ad boycott continues- 46 majors have now jumped. Beck (KTTH m-f, 6-9a) is casting himself as a free speech victim, and Obama as an evil "oligarh" using the brute force of government to rob him of his blessed First Amendment rights, if not his precious bodily fluids.

Limbaugh, eclipsed for once by somebody else's shit machine, tried to scramble back in by phoning in his "unbridled support" on the teevee show Wednesday, bolstering a stone-faced Beck, and proclaiming the "radical regime" is trying to shut down a dissenting voice.

Hearkening unto Little Red Riding Hood, Warren Zevon, and citing Chicken Little, Beck told Rush, “... radical wolves ... are about to devour our republic.” [...]

"Even if the powers to be right now succeed in making me poor, drum me out ... I will only be stronger for it," Beck said, choking back a tear.

Jason Linkins:

Nothing really beats Glenn Beck when he goes on a full-tilt victimization binge. [...]

    BECK: I'm tired of being a sheep. I'm tired of being a victim. I'm tired of being pushed around. You know what? The gloves come off.

I have no idea who is pushing Glenn Beck around! He gets his very own television show and radio show and book deals and he gets to say whatever in the world he feels like saying and people give him millions and millions of dollars for it. He can have, if he wants, his very own pony at his gigantic and secluded manse to ride on whenever he wants and can hire someone to bake him delicious funnel cakes any time he likes! These are the hard won perks of being a celebrity, earned from having a dedicated fan base.

Neither he nor his fellow right-wingers try to defend the stupid, indefensible things he said that caused advertisers to flee. He revels that he makes so much money in his very assholiness. “You know that foam when somebody vomits?" he once asked his listeners. "I took that foam and made it into a diamond.” 

It can be argued that Beck is raising race-hatred for a legally-elected minority president to a heavily-armed population in a wartime recession. Could this be yelling fire in a crowded theater?

It won't be judged thus in the vitriolic climate we've got used to, but this ain't about the First Amendment.

Conor Clarke on the Atlantic On-line writes:

This is a pretty big, basic misunderstanding of how free speech works. Free speech is a "negative" right: It prevents the government from silencing you. But it doesn't guarantee you the right to a soapbox or a megaphone or an audience. And it certainly doesn't guarantee a gigantic corporate paycheck for speaking your mind.

Just as he obviously does at the supper table, Beck is certainly helping himself with this headline-grabbing mishegoss:

Beck attracted 2.81 million viewers Monday, his third-largest audience since his show launched on Fox News in January, according to Nielsen Media Research data provided by the network. On Tuesday, nearly 2.7 million viewers tuned in, his fifth-largest viewership to date. And the conservative host got a plug from former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who urged people to watch his program in a post on her Facebook page.

Beck's fans come in 3 flavors: a) pissed off paranoids looking for validation of their conspiracy theories, and perchance to hear a new one; b) partisan conservatives and Obama-haters who listen only to what they want to hear; or c) those who tune him in like a NASCAR race hoping for a gory, yet amusing, wreck. (Racists are a subsets of a & b, we fall under category c).

Beck brays that he's being persecuted and forsoothes the heavy government boot will come down on his neck any day, where would the boots come from? The FBI, CIA FEMA, The US Army? Must Obama declare martial law and shut down Fox News? (He'd have to- no government agency, including the FCC, hasy jurisdiction over cable content. No government agency, including the FCC, has the legal power to shut down radio or teevee).

Claiming government persecution is just a pathetic attempt to make himself sound important enough to be persecuted. The administration, with so much on its plate, would be remiss if it even swatted at the annoying blowfly that is Glenn Beck, much less declare martial law. This is all a tempest that Beck has brewed himself in the cable teapot.

(Image: a few accounts Beck's scared-off)

That said, we doubt that Fox News will fire Glenn Beck: he has too many viewers and listeners. There's simply too much money to be made off him. If his behavior effects the profits too much or for too long, they'll junk him temporarily, but in the end, he'll be back as assuredly as Don Imus was.

Whatever Fox corporate does about or to Glenn Beck, it will not be an act against free speech, it'll be an act against losing money.

(Stay tuned for news of Beck's "probable" honoring by the City of Mt. Vernon).

Seattle ratings breakout shows more trouble for conservative talk radio

Right-wing talk stations are missing in top 15 rankings in Seattle (where you'd expect) but also in the rest of the market as well (including Arlington, Mount Vernon, and Bellevue).

A fascinating breakout of Seattle's July radio ratings has been posted by Eric Lacitis at the Seattle Times. (Seattle for the ZIP codes from Greenwood to Seward Park compared with the Metro region including King, Pierce, Snohomish, Thurston, Skagit and Island counties).

Glenn Beck lays it out- could someone translate this into English... please?

Does this guy the speak for you? ... why? 

Old Seattle Radio Saturday: seattle's 1961 'little goldcup'

From left: KOMO's Captain Puget (Don McCune); Pat Lewis (KING); Dave Clarke  (KVI); Lan Roberts (KJR); Bryant's owner; Lee Perkins (KJR); unidentified guy; and Frosty Fowler (KING). Thanks, Bill Taylor

Lee Perkins writes:

Mayor bud norris: 'highly probable' glenn beck will be honored by mount vernon

Mayor Bud Norris of Mt. Vernon says it's "highly probable," that Glenn Beck, (KTTH m-f, 6-9a) the controversial Fox news commentator will come to his Skagit County town to receive the keys to the city and an evening in September will be proclaimed, Glenn Beck Night!

Nancy reagan tells of friendship with senator kennedy

(Nancy and Ron Reagan, Time magazine photo)

Ron Reagan (KPTK m-f, 3-6p) did a brave thing: he brought his uncontrollable, unrehearseable, unpredictable, 88-year-old Republican mother on his show Wednesday.

It probably could have gone either way, but it turned out OK.

President and Nancy Reagan had a civil, if not downright affectionate relationship with Sen. Ted Kennedy, and it was sweet to hear about it from her on the radio.

(We have an uncontrollable, unrehearseable, unpredictable, 90-year-old Republican mother, so we know how that might have turned out. We remember hearing Michael Medved's late mother unscripted on his show once; her conversation turned into a sharp on-air rebuke of Medved's father's philandering. It was a little hilarious, though we sympathized with Michael -- god knows such embarrassments can and do happen to all of us children of the smart, yet repressed women of the so-called Greatest Generation).

Have a listen:

Billy Bob: HAMMERS, CLUNKERS, NICKELS & DIMES

(Editor's note : Billy Bob is a Blatherwatch commenter who used to work in Seattle radio. He doesn't always make perfect sense, but we like him because he's half Billy, half Bob, and tries to pawn himself off as Larry King. He watches radio and listens to teevee).

by Larry King

~~ Soon-to-be-Ex-Mayor Greg Nickels says his only regret is not being able to be the one to actually tear down one of the most used, oldest, heritage & tradition roadways in the state, the  Alaskan Way Viaduct. Sez Hizzoner, "If I had it to do over again, I'd have consulted Bonneville."

(Also-rans Nickels and Drago: voters don't always fall for a pretty face, photo: Sue Frause)

Billo says health care mandate is 'unconstitutional'

Billo Reilly has joined the "tenthers." They believe in fringe legal theory that the individual mandate for health insurance is unconstitutional because "the federal government cannot force you to do or buy anything."

Ted Kennedy: 1932-2009 R.I.P.

The first of the Kennedy brothers to die in his own bed. So ironic he passed on the eve of the passage of his career-long dream of health care reform. He will be missed.