BO CHANGE = BUSH STYLE FEAR

Amid all the sturm and drang of the Primary battle of the century, there is an uncomfortable deja vous clawing at the raw nerve ends of memory. It has to do with the blogs, the pundits, the meanstream media mavins and especially with Air America Radio.

What a joy it was for many of us when AAR first came on the air. After months and years of little or no Liberal Talk, either on radio or TV, finally there were voices that echoed our own thoughts and even expanded them.

Along with this delight came hosts that were exciting and erudite. They informed and incited us to action. They united us as one voice against the Bush administration, gave us an outlet for our feelings and reported the other side of the news that had been missing for years.

Finally we had a voice after so many mute years and just in time to change things in Washington, DC. Then, even though no one appeared to set out a chair, reality sat in.

It began slowly with the start of the Primary. At first it posited each campaign in a fair manner, giving equal consideration to the large slate of candidates.

Then gradually it all changed as host after host made their choice and slanted the information. This gave rise to callers choosing the host that favored their own candidate. These shows were then reduced to love-ins and very little else in the way of discussion of candidate merits.

From simple preference came the beginning of what would quickly become full-blown prejudice against another candidate, culminating in the absolutely inexcusable rantings of Randi Rhodes.

Once Edwards bowed out and left Hillary and Barack as the sole contenders, outright nastiness inflamed the blogs with AAR hosts not too far behind as they encouraged callers to go to and beyond the limit with their comments. Thus HRC was excoriated while BO was canonized as a saint that could do no wrong. AAR became AOR- Air Obama Radio – and it still is.

MSNBC, led by Russert, Olbermann and Matthews, had long been spewing hatred toward women in general and Hillary in particular. It kept kicking it up a notch by bringing in AOR hosts, such as Rachel Maddow, who barely pretends to be without bias, and the most vicious voice against Hillary, a real crap-act – Ed Shultz.

Blitzer of CNN and his pit bull, Cafferty vied with MSNBC for the title of who could slap Hillary down the hardest. This rather backfired as it stirred up many still apathetic women and men voters. And surprisingly, Lou Dobbs became one CNN host who showed great fairness toward Hillary and even criticized BO at times – something unheard of by the majority of pundicrats.

Strange to say, FOX News became the station of choice for Hillary supporters simply because it was FAIR AND BALANCED TOWARD HER AND THE OTHERS.

Still, AORadio continues to do yeoman work for the BO campaign using the very tactics it once called despicable when the Repugs radio/TV did it; the hosts embraced the hallmark of George Bush et al and made it their own – INDUCE FEAR.

Here’s host Lionel exhorting listeners about how to whip those women supporting Hillary into line and onto the Obama-train: “Be nice and reasonable,” he cautions. “The key is to scare the hell out of them.

“Remind them of how old the Supremes are getting and how McCain would pick someone who would make abortion illegal. Women want the war to end and MacC will make war last 100 years. Women are suckers for kids, universal health care and schools so remind them of how these programs will not happen and what we now have will be under funded. Tell them Mc’ll privatize SS, etc.”

In short, Lionel and others are advocating exactly what they screamed about when they first broadcasted as Air Americans. See what a difference an -O- can make? Politics as usual – Obama style, is patterned after Bush’s success with fear mongering. Oh, brave new obamaworld.
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