BlatherWatch

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, 2006-2007 R.I.P. (again!)

Looks like Rabbi Daniel Lapin will be back to wandering in the desert: he's been booted from another radio gig.

He's been removed from San Francisco talk shop KSFO's website and there's no sign of his erstwhile Sunday night show on his own. It's been replaced on the schedule by reruns of SF local talker David Gold.

Lapin's 2006 move from a Sunday evening show on Seattle's KTTH to the San Francisco radio market (he still lives on Mercer Island) was after years of scuttling around KVI, KKOL, and KGNW; not to speak of a failed attempt at syndication in the '90's.

Rev. Hutcherson to Rush: blame yourself for Obama's success

Is Rush Limbaugh to blame for Obama's success?

"Yes," is what mega-preaching, Seattle homeboy-homophobe Rev. Ken Hutcherson told Limbaugh on his show, Friday. "If it wasn't for you, Obama wouldn't have been in the race and the United States wouldn't want a black president."

What's more, he said, Hillary Clinton will fail for the same reason.

WTF, you say?

Hutch says it's Big Pants' enthusiasm of the Fox Network's 24, the long-running torture-friendly TV show so popular with militarists, post adolescent men, and as a topic when a right-wing talk radio producer is short on show-prep. 

We're not devotees, but it seems that a 24 character, President David Palmer (played by Dennis Haysbert) is the first African-American with a chance at the White House. He's a sympathetic character, but his ex-wife Sherry Palmer (Penny Johnson Jerald) is a conniving bitch who's involved in Palmer's administration is widely considered a Hillary doppelgänger by the largely conservative audience.

Hutcherson believes that Rush promoting the show has gotten America used to the idea of a black President, and has helped Obama.

In other words: Bad Rush! for enurring us to the unthinkable! If we achieve another chunk of racial equality in this country -- it's your fault! And it took a black man to point out your error.

This is the kind of concisely irrelevant political analysis we've come to expect from the black, ex-NFL linebacker who has made a name for himself by the race-carding of fag-baiting.

Hutcherson on the commentators: when the fox preaches, look to the geese!

Ken Schram: Your plan is like trying to urinate up a rope, if you catch my drift...

Rev. Ken "Hutch" Hutcherson: You know how many people have told me this won't work? But everything I've ever tried people have told me won't work-- the only difference is... I have an awfully big God, Ken.

Schram: I have the same God.

Hutch: You ought to trust Him sometime.

Schram: I do... implicitly--  and he tells me you're just a pain in the butt.

Despite suffering from an apparent bout of the Ebonic plague, fag-baiter Rev. Ken Hutch Hutcherson appeared Tuesday on the The Commentators KVI m-f, 3-6p) perpetuating his latest Christianist scam.

This time it's just comical, craven and way less scary than usual.

Tuesday oddems: naked walmart girls; the liar in winter, stalinist styblefodder; evangelical race horses; all the snooze that fits, we print

~what a lame talk topic- 24, the TV show! Last week, shows who oughta know better, discussed the thing as a political topic- Dave Ross, The Tators, Dori, and many, many more. Conservatives pining: If only we were in such world where all our fears could be realized! With the failures of those in the real world they once held high, and the crumbling of the conservative Utopia they've been predicting since 1994, many are roving with Jack Bauer in a hopeful land where killing a vicious Moslem to save America is always a good idea and nobody whines about it. 24 is all they've got right now- there's such reality in their voices when they talk about it! Like children talking about their imaginary friends. (Meanwhile, Senate Republican hawk John Warner, threw the The Liar In Winter and his surge under the underarmored Humvee today).

The FCC and ritual warfare with the skin of a pig

Today’s blatherMission is to go to the FCC hearing in Seattle.  The hearing is on proposed rules that would allow more media consolidation.  This is a ruling that will affect, for many years to come, everyone who snatches their media from the air waves. 

The meeting will be held today, November 30th, at the Seattle Public Library from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Why bother?  Here are a couple of reasons.

Seattle Babble-on: bitchy, bitchy parentheticals about Republican "celebrities"

We really tried to wake up and listen to Sytman & Boze's (KTTH m-f, 5-9a) Big Week. Dave Boze has been off getting married or divorced or liposuctioned or bearing his love child or something equally sneaky and repressed.

The show, on the nearly moribund KTTH, had a well-publicized (well, BlatherWatch covered it) 2 weeks of "celebrity" co-hosts with Dan Sytman, the oldest Young Republican since Ralph Munro. (We kid Dan Sytman).

Truth is, BlatherWatch burns the midnight oil pretty much every night, and could (would) only wake sort-of-up to listen at the desperately early hour this show comes on. We haven't been up that early since we milked cows in the Nooksack Valley back in the day or greeted grubby college dawns bright-eyed, and bushy tailed with a hot steaming cuppa crack.

In otherwords, we missed most of the good stuff, so you wouldn't have to.

The first week's co-host was political entrepreneur and renowned horse's ass, Tim Eyman. Despite some good laughs we've had over his latest bout of colorful woppers and assorted recent embarrassments, we have to admit, he proved the best talk host with his steady flow of bullshit. The essentially caller-free KTTH morning show really needs that steady verbal effluence; and Eyman, inspired by the very idea of himself, lept into the breech. That, we guess, is no surprise; and that he never succeeded in failing to not guide the conversation back to his own self, fulfilled another of our insightful predictions. (The preceding sentence is an example of why we blog- no editor with a watt in her pretty little head woulda let that one go by; but we found it a pristine yet obliquely brilliant communication- the kind of pretentious clarity only a triple negative can bring to the page).

The second week, which we dubbed The Wing Nut Bowl, was a slumgullion of local Republican "celebrities," who broke through our defensive quilting of slumber only fitfully.

("Local Republican celebrity" is a meaningless phrase and we use it ironically. The title of The Washington State Republican Who's Who was changed a few years ago simply to Who?)

Monday's appetizer was "Stefan Sharkansky," the pseudonym of Sound Politics' Eric Earling, who self-describes as an "outside-the-box conservative" (which simply means he's another right-winger who's not getting laid). We were roused up into REM layers only once during Earling/Sharkansky's endless time on the Snide Hour. It was when he admitted that after 3 (three!) years living in Seattle- HE'S NEVER BEEN TO THE PIKE PLACE MARKET! Which leads us to conclude that, not only is Earling not getting laid, he's not getting any decent cheese, either.

Boze gone missing, week II: wing nut bowl

Tim Eyman isn't working out so well replacing the vacationing Dave Boze on the morning drive, Sytman & Boze (KTTH m-f, 5-9a). It was a little embarrassing, maybe, for such a starchy conservative as Dan Sytman when Eyman said Wed., he wished the City of Seattle would just leave the poor strippers- and the men who love them- alone.

We're not used to hearing that kind of licentiousness, or defense of the sporting life on KTTH, and neither is Sytman. For us, it was welcome yet off-putting. We were reminded that despite Eyman's recent opportunistic forays onto the stark landscape of the Christian right (as in the anti-gay rights referendum he recently blew up), at heart, he's really a fraternity brother whose development was arrested somewhere between here and WASU, 1985 and he still hasn't made bail.

Another time he opined that "The sad reality is that most people are fat and ugly." That, we're sure, endeared him to many, but he went on that he just wished those people could all be more like Christie Brinkley.

He also made Dan nervous running in and out of the studio during the show like Mike Webb in a Twinky fugue.

So KTTH Programming Director Tom Clendening decided on a "mixed nuts" approach for next week's fill-ins.

Here's the skedge as announced by Entercom Wednesday:

Monday: Stefan "The Shark" Sharkansky of SoundPolitics.com is a GOP activist and rumored to be on the party payroll. We kid Stefan, but his on-air countenance crackles with a vibrant energy that's conducted obviously from his day job in finance- it has the sizzle of fresh office supplies. His humor-free cooperative site is the state GOP's only real stake in the blogosphere (OK Jim, OrbusMax is important, but it isn't a blog). Stefan got tons of media attention and Party accolades after he tried to obstruct the victory of Governor Gregoire. Stefan is a moderate urban Republican, whose nastiness counters delightfully his alleged moderation. Remember the shark Gilligan had to jump to save the plot? For the R's, Stefan is that shark. He does a admirable job of acting as if everything he says is true.

Tuesday: Rabbi Daniel Lapin is by far the most famous on the list. He's gotten national renown with his impressive Rolodex which has been made very public of late by such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Seattle Weekly, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the Justice Dep't. We're hoping Dan and the listening audience will get rebbe to share the rich and famous experiences he's had with his rich and famous friends. What's it really like plotting with Jack Abramoff? What does Tom Delay take in his coffee? When you hang with Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, do you ever just talk about chicks? How does it make you feel being questioned by Federal investigators?

Wednesday: Rev. Ken Hutcherson, we hope, can be stopped from talking about Jesus- a topic well-known in talk radio as a real cume killer. Better to get the anti-gay, anti-sex, mega-churched, mega-mouthed evangelical to talk about the things he knows about- like raising Rottweilers, breeding thoroughbred quarter horses; or pushing fags out the door of the Kingdom of Heaven. Or national issues like 'Who would Jesus torture?' Or 'During The Rapture, will Dick Cheney be ready to take the wheel, or will he need to?' or 'Can Rush Limbaugh win redemption?' or 'Have you ever killed anybody?'

Thursday: Republican Party Chair Diane Tebelius, known on the blogs as "Diane Tubeless," is as stiff as concrete meringue, and in way over her head. She has deep roots and some support from the theocratic wing of the Party (she worked for born-again loser and failed Senate candidate, Linda Smith) but they don't trust her much since she became Chairman and had to attempt some consensus building. She can be mean and relentless, a side she's shown only in her various unsuccessful runs at office, but unfortunately for KIRO, you won't hear it on the radio. You will hear platitudes; lip service paid to compassion; but not much about George Bush and few of what the rest of us would call jokes.
She did not, by the way, need a sex change to become Chairman.

Friday: Attorney General Rob McKenna is a wonk, a lawyer and a technocrat, dry as dust on the radio, but he's one of the very few Republican statewide officeholders which makes him a member of a tiny, elite corps. Mainstreamers and moderates such as Sec. of State Sam Reed, Lands Commish Doug Sutherlund, and McKenna, are pretty drab; but they're the only Republicans that can get elected state wide because the short hairs are still held by rural social conservatives and evangelicals who can't come up with candidates who don't scare the horses. No coincidence, Sam Reed won't be on the show- he's still on the shit-list of many party hardies who haven't forgiven him for bravely doing his legal job counting the legal votes during the frivolous Republican 2004 post-election.

Frankly, this line-up won't start any fires, nor scare-up any more callers of listeners than Boze or Eyman usually do.   

Rush Limbaugh detained in viagra bust

Conservative talk host Rush Limpbaugh, 55, was detained at the Palm Beach Airport Monday after authorities said they found a bottle of the prescription drug Viagra in his possession.

(The widely abused drug is for erectile dysfunction, which means that Limpbaugh has to take pills to arouse his diminutive penis enough for normal sexual activity).

Smuggling and snuggling has been ruled out since Big Pants was alone on his private plane when it landed at the airport around 2p from the Dominican Republic.

He reportedly broke up with CNN anchor Daryn Kagan months ago.

Limbaugh's attorney Roy Black said the trip was a much needed vacation, "He just wanted to get a hold of himself."

"You may not want to shake his hand, but a man has the right to relax," said Black.

Erectile dysfunction is not untypical of drug users, the obese, men over the 50, the flatulant, and even the youngest of conservatives, according to Dr. Edgar "Choch" Manaña of Stanford Medical Center.

"Mr. Limpbaugh," he says, "is in all the risk groups. It has to do with repressed desires, tight sphinctering, narrow world views, or the simple curiosity to see an organ not seen in years or sometimes even decades."

Many in the blogosphere are wondering aloud, "Why the Dominican Republic with drugs that enhances sexual performance?" The extremely poor, mostly black Third World country is a popular stop for sex tourists.

But Black tried to quash those suspicions, saying said Limbaugh went to the Caribbean for "prayer, meditation and self-help."

Tim eyman: what's a ho' to do after she's given all the johns the clap?

Is brand eyman: the new brand enron?

We were proud of John Carlson (KVI m-f, 3-5p KOMO m-f, 10a-12p) Wednesday, the only talk radio host asking Tim Eyman tough questions after the utter failure of the Mukilteo initiative noodge to get the anti-gay rights referendum on the November ballot.

(KIRO's John Procaccino, in for Dave Ross on the 9-ta-noon, pelted him with marshmallows, and no follow-up questions to challenge Eyman's well-worn, but capable abilities to spin).

"You got only 2 out of 6 of your proposals on the ballot, lately- is the credibility of Tim Eyman finished for voters?" Carlson  asked.

Eyman, who is craven and wouldn't hang his head in abject shame even for one day after his day of defeat, was making the rounds of whom he hoped would be friendly media (as in his old friend John Carlson's case) or inexperienced media (as in Procaccino's).

He answered all the questions with a "That's a good question," (so popular these days with public liars) then launched into his strict talking-pointed preachments studded with his trademark "clearlies" and larded with multiple "at the end of the days." He goes on and on in these responses, but they rarely contain more substantive facts than the numbers and ballot titles of his upcoming initiatives.

He always speaks in the "royal we," so it sounds as if there's a great movement behind him or at least a great staff. He has neither, of course.

(It could be said, and it is said, that BlatherWatch also writes in the "royal we." Our we's, however, are "editorial," which says more about our age and elitist, over-intellectualized world view, than folies de grandeur. As our many self-appointed grammar and spelling monitors never hesitate to point out, we've pushed it to the grammatically criminal, as when we wrote, recently: "We, for one, cannot abide by the...).

Carlson asked more questions: Like: If you hadn't been associated with this campaign would this have passed? Or: Why couldn't you raise more than $4000?"

Tim answered those with, "I'm glad you asked that question- clearly, at the end of the day..."

Carlson fried Eyman, but this signals, more than likely, a shift in the state party-line. Others party-hardies, like former GOP State Chairman Chris Vance had been denouncing Eyman for two days. He, apparently, was tapped to do the wet work on Eyman for Diane Tubeless, the new State Chair whose roots are deep in the religious right.

It appears that Eyman's long romance with the Republicans has ended. It's not exactly coitus interruptus- his obfuscations about the money he was taking out of the campaigns soured many against him; made him distrusted by citizens and party stalwarts alike.

There were a few favorable calls on the Carlson show, but there were many like, "If Tim says he got 105,000 signatures, why should we believe him this time?"

Or: "I will not sign anything of Tim Eyman's because I don't want to put money into his pocket. He's ruined this state, and gotten rich doing it."

It's hard to imagine, but Eyman's ego was mentioned. One former supporter said, "His ego is too much, it's all about Tim. Now I feel if I write him a check, I'm supporting Tim the person, not the issue. I will not give any more."

Tim answered those charges by saying, "I'm glad you asked that question- clearly, at the end of the day..."

He's run out of credibility finally, even with the tax grouches and the blue collar exurban nail-spitters.

Rush Limbaugh: more libertine than libertarian, more washed-up than "washed in the blood."

Yes, Rush Limbaugh was arrested Friday afternoon. Readers are complaining that saying that's inaccurate because the partisan pill-popper turned himself in after his attorney made him the deal of a lifetime.

But there was an arrest warrant issued for the wealthy blabber magnate by the state's attorney. It was served, he was taken into custody, and held while he was booked,which included a happy-face mugshot á la Tom Delay. He was then released after bailing himself out with $3000.

He was allowed to do this at 4p Friday afternoon when the media ebb is at its lowest and least-read- in the Saturday papers.

(In 2000, when KVI talker John Carlson (m-f, 3-5p; KOMO m-f 10a-12p) was running for governor, he brought Limbaugh in to kick off the campaign at a rally. It seemed like a coup to have gotten Limbaugh for this, and the KVI choir was thrilled. It backfired with voters in the most populous counties, after Democrats pointed to this union as proof that Carlson was indeed an extreme right-winger cut from the same bolt as previous GOP candidates Ellen Craswell and Linda Smith. Carlson aides, good and loyal Republican quick studies and Limbaugh fans, told of dealing with an odd and distant Limbaugh and of being sent to his limo to fetch a briefcase. They were astounded find it open in the car with bundles of paper money, 100's and 20's nearly falling out of it).

This case has been stymied very effectively by Limbaugh's Miami celebrity lawyer, Roy Black, the guy who got William Kennedy Smith off on a rape charge in Palm Beach back in the 90's. The time elapsed since the original charges helped the prosecutors to come around to the great deal Black was able to cut.

The Flatulent Fulminator is facing one charge of doctor shopping and has entered a plea of not guilty in court. After the agreement with prosecutors, the charge is being held in abeyance while they work out a formal agreement set to be officially filed Monday.

He will continue going to treatment until he has completed another 18 months of counseling--and if doesn't violate the law during that time--they'll drop the latest charge against him. He'll pay $30 a month for the court's "supervision," and $30,000 to the state to defray the public cost of the investigation.

This is chump change to Big Pants, who lives in a mansion with 15 bathrooms, and reportedly eats 10 dollar bills. The big money was spent on Black, and they were bucks well-spent. The legals were done, apparently, with the finesse you'd expect from an attorney who defends Kennedys.

Roy Black is one of those defense attorneys Rush is always complaining about who collude with Democrats, permissive judges and enable liberal elitists to avoid being held accountable. (And being held accountable is the ham & eggs of the conservative right-to bite crowd).

Of course, we progressives love to see such as Rush Limbaugh mired in these grimy peccadilloes. He, the haughty but harsh family values advocate and alleged Bible-believing Christian has always held himself so high above those of us on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

It's not enough for Lush and his many clones and fans to merely disagree with us- he, they, must scorn us as inherently evil, fatally flawed, felonious, selfish, immoral elitists, spoiled and terminally deluded. Liberals' very souls are corrupt, we're beneath redemption- just because we're at the opposite end of the right-left political spectrum.

He's a crossing attendant in the busy intersection of church and state; a hawk in the war on drugs who screeds interminably against drugs and advocating harsh punishments for drug users as well as dealers.

So why isn't it delicious when this fatuous, scornful harridan- who's made a fortune from popularizing vicious bile against our very beings- reveals such weakness, self-indulgence and fails so publicly?