Hannity and Limbaugh: The Worst of America?

The Conservative radio pundit industrial-complex is led by the most successful radio talk host of all time, Rush Limbaugh, currently riding out a quarter-billion dollar contract. His successor-apparent is Sean Hannity, followed by the likes of Laura Ingraham, Neal Boortz, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Mark Levin and dozens more who are proven successes in selling advertising and generating profits, both nationally and in many local markets.

These broadcasters are careful not to call themselves newspersons or journalists, preferring the "disclaimer" that they are merely "entertainers". Because this blending of personality, passion and salesmanship intentionally and repetitively massages current events and historical fact to promote a singular political viewpoint, it plainly meets any historical definition of propaganda.

Hannity and Limbaugh omit basic and essential counterpoints to their arguments, carefully prune callers and routinely ignore many important national stories critical of NeoCon politicians and their cronies in business. The most listened-to broadcasters on the air today by far, should they have any responsibility to meet "traditional" broadcasting ethics when discussing politics on public airwaves? If so, what should be the criteria and who would be the enforcer/arbiter for this?

This thread invites discussion on what broadcasting in America should be, in light of what it's come to. America abandoned government-imposed regulation on journalistic balance in 1987 and today the biggest player in radio boldly ignores any appearance of self-regulation in the representation of our society's actual sociopolitical balance.

Creating a Warm and Fuzzy NeoCon Habitat
Imagine a radio safe haven where you can come to hear the latest political developments and discussion, but where, like the Harlem Globetrotters, the same side always wins. First, Rush and Hannity will offer pure right wing solace, insulating you from the complexities of counterpoints. Then, you can even join in and blow off some steam in bashing the opposition.

Hannity greets pals saying "you're a great American" while labeling his foes "un-American" with a hair trigger, making clear the sides and boundaries on his air, in spite of the famous American creed "Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism" (Thomas Paine). Hannity's invective pits Americans against Americans deliberately and publicly, a line not crossed by former generations of American broadcasters. Should those of us who hide relevant items and incite hateful rhetoric be allowed to continue without as much as public censure?

Though presently legal, the problem with Rush, Sean and the others lay in their professional and personal ethics, withholding balance as a choice to increase persuasiveness over a public they deem incapable of processing information (and coming to the same conclusions).

This is particularly shifty when they speak of morality, "character" or "values" because, unlike schools and most parents, they condone the smear job, impugning the dignity of their ideological opponents with a menu of "dirty trick" tactics: guilt-by-association, overgeneralization, exaggeration, name-calling and fear mongering using nebulous, unspecified predictions of chaos and calamity. At the same time they claim to be presenting "the truth" in a "fair and balanced" way, they shuffle off the most basic responsibilities of public reporting - presenting the whole story.

When public radio was first introduced after World War I, the government knew well how the new medium might be abused. It was therefore regulated to promote responsible, socially uplifting programming only, including news, weather, entertainment and public service messages. To prevent the "noise pollution" advertising represented, spots were limited during family listening hours. During the Great Depression however, station owners succumbed to  round-the-clock advertising as the only way to stay afloat. Once given this toe-hold, advertising stayed put, and sponsors began to leverage their financial clout to influence programming.

This leads us to questions of responsibility on public airwaves. For decades, the FCC has sought to impose fines on broadcasters like Howard Stern for scatological content, purportedly policing radio for social appropriateness, but have not considered the civic impact of lopsided political speech - not only on our young, but anyone underinformed on a given issue.

Leaving America in The Dark
Limbaugh and Hannity know there is more then one side to a story, but choose to present only the news and opinions they select. This intellectual dishonesty keeps things cut and dry, unlike real life. Personally, I hope my daughters can learn to understand the many complex sides of an issue, discerning as Oscar Wilde said, "The truth is rarely pure and never simple". If Sean Hannity hopes the same for his children, he certainly does not for his listeners, those who patronize his sponsors, vote and contribute as he indicates, and evangelize his causes against his opponents.

As parents, journalistic integrity should be an important moral issue. It is the responsibility of any ethical person, including commentator-entertainers to refrain from knowingly presenting relevant facts in an incomplete manner. For example, Hannity was recently surveying young voters, asking them to name a single accomplishment of Barack Obama's. No respondent listed a single accomplishment. Sean intimated that Obama's success stems solely from his charm and that his presidential qualifications should be questioned. Yet Hannity failed to ask the same voters to list a single accomplishment of John McCain, Hillary Clinton or any other politician, conflating general political ignorance with ominous misgivings over Obama. Each and every day, he presents discussions in this same logical vacuum.

Basic fourth grade essay writing teaches children to consider all available information, weighing multiple sides with logic and intelligence. Ninth grade debating teaches kids to challenge assumptions, scrutinize information carefully and construct reasoned conclusions only after arguments have been vetted in open discussion. Journalism 101 instructs us to gather information objectively, reporting multiple perspectives responsibly so as to allow listeners to formulate their own opinions.

These disciplines also teach the history of "yellow journalism", a blight on American society in which competing newspaper publishers slanted the news to increase profits, prestige or readership, intertwining commerce and politics in dereliction of journalistic ethics. Worse still was the growing scourge of propaganda -- state-sponsored stories planted in media to persuade or mislead, intentionally fomenting fear or hate.

The original 1928 book Propaganda was first published by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud who made considerable use of his uncle's revolutionary psychological insights. Considered "the father of public relations", Bernays fabricated news and hatched publicity stunts for decades, aiding the U.S. government and largest corporations, including the staging of fake rallies of support, and fake riots in third world countries to justify military thuggery. Cited by Hitler and Goebbels as a major influence, Bernays showed how to crystallize public opinion by simultaneously cross-applying fear and intimidation with promises of security, familial warmth and inclusion - the classic good guy/bad guy manipulation. Essential to this is the flow of information - who gets heard and what is said.

After World War II, a growing anti-propaganda tradition in the U.S. culminated in the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, outlawing domestic dissemination of deceptive materials. Then, the Fairness Doctrine of 1949 would designate radio stations with FCC licenses as "public trustees", required to make "every reasonable attempt to cover contrasting points of view". This mandated equal time for subjects of personal attacks and balanced access for political candidates, among other provisions.

Enforcement of these laws would be lax, however, demonstrated by the "red scare" era, the U.S. government and surrogate forces sought to galvanize public sentiment against the threat of communism. The growth of the polling industry helped ease America's collective paranoia, reassuring us that not as many people actually shared the gripping fear of danger the government told us was imminent.

But when Rush Limbaugh went on the air, it was a new day in media. The Fairness Doctrine was struck down, and a for-profit political spin machine revved up, preaching a subset of Conservative values at variance with Goldwater or Eisenhower, but which coincided well with arms build-ups, aggressive foreign policy stances including covert operations, anti-environmental causes, Ayn Rand-style defenses of wealth accumulation - and of course, selling consumer goods and services.

Taking Root in Hometown, USA
Through the late 80s, the top rated morning drive-time shock jock Howard Stern, had already pioneered the art of on-air "legalized" slander in the post-Fairness Doctine era, viciously excoriating public figures he found vapid or who he felt had copied his shtick. Indeed, Stern claimed that Limbaugh's show took off only after Rush learned from him "how to grow balls".

Stern's wild and wooly comedy show, which mixed comedy or satire with pure venom at times, became a litmus test for FCC standards, but most denunciation focused on sexuality or at times racial humor. Far less attention was paid to Limbaugh, who added quips, song parodies and impressions to his political talk show so as to also squeeze under the "just entertainment" umbrella. America didn't notice much as Rush's intimate little AM show permeated small-town markets, attacking and ridiculing the liberal left relentlessly without representation.

In becoming the largest syndicated radio show of all time, Rush touted the moral superiority of the right, exploding in popularity when the rascally Clinton-Lewinsky scandal rocked the nation. But in my years of calling 800-282-2882 to take issue with Rush, I've never gotten on the air, nor have I personally ever heard a well-spoken defender of the left on his airwaves. Competent pro pundits are summarily ignored as Limbaugh carefully shapes the world-minds of his devotees, offering calm, conflict-free discourse in all phone-ins. Also unheeded and unexplored are news events which might tilt Rush's boat, such as the Alberto Gonzales hearings (covered live on many other stations). Dismissed as a witch hunt, the actual testimony was ignored as if it simply didn't matter.

Hannity followed in Rush's footsteps starting in 1998, promoted to wider syndication as a back-up strategy while Limbaugh was famously scandalized as an admitted drug addict and charged with illegal prescription use. Though he does not have the hypocritical personal baggage of Limbaugh who has gone through three divorces, Hannity too broadcasts in a well-buttressed right wing utopia, taking ample time to repeat and reiterate the day's talking points. Though controversial topics are discussed, nary is an articulate defender of the left allowed daylight, and the most damning stories or exposés critical of the right are simply left out.

Hannitizing (Sanitizing) the News
Hannity does make more of an attempt to appear as if he entertains opposing viewpoints, taking the occasional riled-up "lib" caller, and foraying a bit more adventurously to the left with some guests then does Rush, but nowhere to be found on his radio show are the real left wing policy experts, the scholars, the authors, pundits, politicians, whistleblowers, eyewitnesses, or military who are drooling to take issue with Sean's positions and add the missing facts for listeners. He does, however let the occasional hippie-chick or bongwater burnout on for ridicule, summarizing their appearances with sweeping generalities about the left.

On the Hannity & Colmes TV show where Sean is partnered with liberal co-host Alan Colmes, Sean has to work harder to make points amid panels that include left wing personalities, but as is often seen on Fox-TV, Sean spends time shouting them down, cutting them off or employing the common deflection strategies used when sidled with a meritless argument - the "straw man", distraction, the tit-for-tat, or "kill the messenger".

On his presumptuously-named solo TV program Hannity's America however, Hannity uses a barrage of bias tricks designed to vilify lefty targets like MoveOn.org or Michael Moore. Hannity peppers his script with needless derogatory adjectives, no rebuttals are invited, accusations are made without evidence and subjects are wrongly cross-associated. For example, Hannity baldly asserts in one show that liberal billionaire George Soros sponsors terrorists. The proof? He points out that Soros contributed to lawyers defending Guantanamo detainees who had been held for years without evidence or trials. In "Hannity's America", these are "terrorists".

Hate: the Newest American Family Value
In addition to whipping up fear of an ever-indeterminate enemy, Hannity loves to fan the flames of hate, reframing anti-war activists as "hating our troops". By painting the peace movement as evil, cowardly or unpatriotic, he himself shows where the deviousness and contempt originates.

I assert any professional political commentator should be able to make a convincing argument without denigrating others, even if "the other guys do it too". If not, perhaps the show may not be suitable for all ages. If our consumer laws protect us from advertising that does not disclose all facts relevant to claims, why do our broadcast laws allow the show content to do so?

Pharmaceutical ads today are required to list all major potential side-effects, protecting buyers from exaggerated promises. This is government regulation, enforcing the requirement that consumers should be educated as to "the rest of the story". So why doesn't this concept extend to the programming? One need only look at the recent developments in media consolidation, where, despite significant public outcry, more deregulation was rammed through last December, ending the 1975 ban on radio and newspaper cross-ownership.

This trend began in 1981, increasing the number of TV stations a single entity could own. In 1985, the FCC eliminated limits on how much advertising stations could run each hour. In 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was eradicated, and in 1996, the Telecommunications Act, signed by President Clinton, lifted the 40-station ownership cap so Clearchannel could gobble up 1,200 stations, allowing Limbaugh's show to spread like wild fire. This new megaconglomerate came to dominate key markets with low-cost robotized programming and exert crushing leverage against small independent stations with diverse political perspectives.

If I was a radio commentator, I would not only invite dissent, I would insist on it, to show my audience as transparently as possible that I felt my arguments are able to withstand criticism. The main purpose for public discussion is to practice precisely the democracy and free speech that are cornerstone ideas of our nation. As an educator, I firmly believe that our people, young and old, deserve the honesty and respect to know whatever age-appropriate information is available so they can become independent free thinkers, not automatons, or worse still, customers groomed for gullibility.

Money eats Morality in Media
I don't single out Rush or Hannity for distorting the balance in news and events of the day, as it's clear from the whitewash of network TV news that many important allegations and stories on unethical politicians are being withheld from the public. From the day-to-day death counts of US combat troops and news from the front lines, to the never-denied Downing Street memo, the vote caging scandals, the DOJ firings, the Niger Document controversy, CBS' Abu Ghraib cover up, Rumsfeld's secretive Operation Copper Green, the Scott McClellan allegations, the Jeff Gannon ruse, the Sibel Edmonds bombshells and so much more, receiving little attention or none at all, despite serious ethical or criminal allegations at the highest levels of our government.

As the TV networks must protect the corporations who provide their profits, news coverage is carefully designed to make viewers receptive to advertising regardless of what's actually transpiring in the world. But Rush and Hannity go out of their way to make social and moral proselytizations while muckraking, sliming people personally instead of debating their arguments, and furthermore regarding them as enemies of America. These tactics run afoul of reasonable civil discourse, like the propaganda of old. I've explicitly heard on the air that Hannity supports the right to intentional distortion on public airwaves. We should all be able to agree that intentional deceit is elitist and immoral - I invite readers to weigh in.

It's ironic to hear Hannity pointing out media manipulation on the left as he does exactly the same thing under his listeners' noses. For example, he travelled to Iraq to speak to soldiers, but 100% of the video he came back with was pro-war despite polls at the time showing the military was about 50% in favor of redeployment. In 2006, Hannity told us to "stay the course" and elect pro-war candidates because the "winds of freedom" will be blowing through Iraq, delicately sidestepping the awkward fact that a majority of Americans already opposed the war. Continuing even after the elections, Hannity retooled his message continually as if he was paid by the war machine to sell listeners on this product.

Hannity is blatant in his support for pro-war candidates, extending them abundant air time - for example, George Allen and Rick Santorum, both of whom went down to defeat in 2006. With his poll numbers slipping, Santorum actually asserted that WMD had finally been found in Iraq. For this Hannity pounded his fist on the desk, blurting "You see? I knew it all along, I never doubted for a minute!" But Santorum's claim turned out to be based on shipping records for unspecified materials trucked out of Iraq and proved nothing. On Fox TV that night, when Santorum referred to WMD, Alan Colmes interrupted to alert viewers that the weapons in question were documented as pre-1991, blowing the air out of Santorum's appearance and landing him in a number of embarrassing online videos the following day. Despite all Santorum's air-time which continues today, I've never heard the K Street scandal mentioned on Hannity's show.

Hannity's other guests include Karl Rove, who has taken to the airwaves, feeling the need to speak to the people despite his reluctance to answer Congressional subpoenas on a host of matters ranging from Plame-gate to the DOJ firings. Ann Coulter is another "friend of the show", who at least has the intellectual honesty to admit that she wants to bomb Iran because it's good for Wall Street. Hannity's show is the chosen venue for President Bush or Clarence Thomas to do safe, pre-taped interviews, knowing his is the most sympathetic audience, primed and ready for the soft-pedal, while career journalists look on.

The Public Airwaves For Private Profit
As the generation responsible for handing this nation down to the next, I encourage discussion of media bias from all sides. It is increasingly difficult to get reliable information today when for-profit media outlets are so heavy on ad reps and short on investigative reporting staff. No station looking primarily to sell products is looking to foster a discriminating, skeptical viewership - thus the rationale for listener-supported radio channels and not surprisingly, the continual financial struggle of liberal commercial radio, whose hosts are more likely to report corporate wrongdoing.

This said, left-wing hosts should be subject to the same professional expectations, despite the fact that they pull down a fraction of Rush/Hannity's ratings. For example, Air America's Randi Rhodes chortling "she's rotten from the inside" at a mention of Condoleeza Rice's uterine surgery was deplorable, but Rhodes herself underwent a hysterectomy shortly after, perhaps learning the error of her ways.

Air America hosts book guests differently, relishing any chance to debate right wingers on the air, particularly Rachel Maddow and Thom Hartmann who makes this a regular feature. Since the channel was 'rescued' by former NYC Consumer Advocate Mark Green, Air America has noticeably reduced a pejorative tone, ditching a former host who regularly called Bush and company "lying bastards" and relegated the fiery Sam Seder to the weekend-only penalty booth.

Though Randi Rhodes vs. Oliver North and Bill O'Reilly vs. NPR's Terry Gross represent mesmerizing trainwreck-radio spectacles, it's every media outlet down to the individual employee that must police it's own sensationalism and bias to conform to the traditions of their profession, and the "truth and justice" our founding fathers (and Superman), would expect of us. Despite the satisfaction of a good zinger, we may forget how refreshing it is to hear intelligent, cordial debate, because in real life, off the media Matrix, conflicts are not resolved in 10-minute segments. Many Americans need to be reminded that we are a nation of many stripes and opinions, and the tenuous balance between the responsibility to interact with one another as a people united by respect and tolerance and the individual liberty to "talk out of one's ass" has been tipped in the scramble for profit and power.

Using the cult recruitment trick of demonizing them and self-aggrandizing the morality of us, Conservative talk keeps it neat and simple, selling national and local products and services, which have included investments in for-profit health-care marketing futures closely tying into right wing policy advocacy. As in any business, sales largely depend on buyer impulse and gullibility, but here is programming that for "three hours a day" molds and grooms listeners, asking for blind loyalty while the government they apologize for continues to funnel our national treasure into fewer and fewer hands.

NeoConservative must mean anti-Conservative
Even more disconcerting is how effective Rush/Sean have been in claiming Conservatism for themselves. In becoming juggernaut "poobahs" who have positioned themselves as the right's official mouthpieces, many traditional Conservatives take exception, preferring onto Rush and Sean the term "NeoConservative".

The most fundamental tenets of Conservatism as I understand them are: small, non-intrusive government, fiscal responsibility and strong morality. But widely and roundly considered "shills" for the NeoCon GOP, Rush and Sean have rallied listeners to support exactly the opposite in our government for the better part of a decade.

During this period, the government has begun collecting information of private citizens, data mining, surveilling calls, wiretapping phones, searching homes and property, gathering private information on financial transactions and websites visited or even books read. Also intimidating reporters, trumping up cases and abandoning habeas corpus, this KGB-style state intrusion is all excused under the "threat of terror" - though there have been few actual terrorists caught with these tools, they have been found to have botched hundreds of National Security Letters requests and clearly violated privacy statutes. For any actual terrorists nabbed, convictions would become difficult because the letter of the law wasn't followed in compiling evidence, so the entire enterprise becomes ponderous, especially in light of the origin of FISA, designed to prevent Presidents from eavesdropping on citizens after Nixon did so to gather dirt on his political detractors.

In terms of fiscal responsibility, the NeoCon ethos promulgated onto America by the Bush Administration via radio flacks has plunged America into disastrous territory, ballooning the national deficit to almost double the amount Bush inherited. Bush has run record annual budget deficits as well, outspending the worst Democratic presidents in arms build-ups and licensing giveaways that have rained prosperity onto crony contractors.

The divide between rich and poor has increased, shooting upwards of a trillion dollars up the "stovepipe" towards the top 1/10th of 1% of earners through generous tax cuts in the fancy zip codes while wages stagnate for the rest of us. We will also see our grandchildren saddled with runaway debt held in large part by our greatest economic rivals: China, Japan and the Saudis.

Most lately, the $200 billion dollar bail out of Bear Stearns combines two anti-Conservative notions together: government interference in a freemarket economy with 'socialism for the wealthy' - not the first time a Bush has written checks to reward corporate malfeasance, late in the day on a Friday without much media notice.

Regardless of your religious denomination or spirituality, the ethics of the government under the NeoCons has been appalling. The Abramoff and Enron networks have disintegrated public trust, spreading wide this "culture of corruption". Beginning within mere weeks of inauguration in 2001, the Bush administration offered policy for sale at Cheney's Energy meetings, for which investigators still haven't seen the logs, in violation of disclosure statutes. But the public has been shielded from much of the actual news of this.

Any broadcaster with basic Judeo-Christian morals should hold "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness" to include deceiving audiences by withholding important information. Examples include the blockbuster revelations that Colin Powell privately doubted the Iraq intel prior to his UN speech, suspicious of Curveball, the White House's "false witness". Also, the corroborating George Tenet allegations, the Condoleeza-Chevron bribery scandal, the vice-president's DC Madam patronage and books filled with documented electoral shenanigans.

War Profiteering Finds It's Voice
As the staunchly Conservative Republican Dwight Eisenhower divulged in 1961, U.S. citizens need to keep a growing internal cancer from spreading through the halls of power, infecting our leadership with sin and greed - the wealth offered via military contractors prodding lawmakers for war. This industry would persist however, buying influence in every Congressional district in the country. They funded lobbies and "policy institutes" to advocate for war through all channels, including hand-picking candidates to run on the "military-industrial stooge" ticket. With everyone in place, the falsified report of attack in the Gulf of Tonkin gave us a harried, hurried Senate vote for military action and a generation of young Americans all the war we could ask for, via an involuntary draft.

Gradually, the military-industrial complex grew Congressional-media-lobbying tentacles, and could not have produced a better daily infomercial then Rush Limbaugh's show. Representing the precise aims of the ultra-wealthy, Rush projected a personality with a freakish ability to convince vast armies of middle class Republicans to vote against the interests of their progeny, ignoring the fact that GOP economic policies were enormously increasing the national debt the U.S. will have to repay with interest. Rush himself became vastly wealthy while convincing large swaths of the US to abandon President Eisenhower's warning that money was clouding the judgment of our strong, moral military and their civilian leaders.

Hannity picked up the ratings torch in recent years, imploring his vast audience to fear the terror "right around the corner". His defense of Bush since the invasion of Iraq has strictly followed the official story that radical mid-East terrorists are the number one threat to Americans, also ignoring Ike's dead-on prophesies. Hannity has backed away from Bush on issues like selling US port security contracts and amnesty-tinged immigration policy, but is clearly following the money in defending the preemptive invasion of Iraq as the center of the "war on terror", even as Halliburton, the largest privatized defense contractor quietly exported all it's "cost-plus" profits out of our economy to their new Dubai digs.

Sean sticks with Bush in the debate over whether Alberto Gonzales' enemy combatant classification creates a loophole in the U.S. Constitution allowing torture, rendition, suspension of habeas corpus and makeshift military tribunals. Sean also claims eavesdropping on private citizens is necessary but has never explained why it has to be warrantless eavesdropping without records or corporate accountability. Perhaps Hannity would support oversight and paper trails if a Democrat assumed control of the NSA.

Sean's value to the ultra-elite soars as he defends tax cuts designed for them, explaining to listeners that tax breaks allow rich people and corporations to graciously create jobs for poor people, leaving out the opposing viewpoint that the same cuts would go much farther spread out over the breadth of the American middle class, just as the Earned Income Credit did in the 90s. Sean crows about the U.S. having the best health care in the world, calling suggestions to offer universal coverage or lower costs part of a larger "socialist agenda". But the U.S. doesn't have the best health care in the world, unless you are extremely rich, like Sean Hannity. For most of us, the U.S. is 37th behind Costa Rica.

I understand Rush, Hannity and the others have legions of supporters. I invite their comments and arguments. Should we teach our children to be aware of all sides of an issue when they make decisions? What do you feel are the most and least biased media outlets available in the U.S. today and why? These are important discussions. I think Americans can handle the whole truth and need to know everything to sort out for themselves.

Even if it gets messy, public discourse is preferable to the un-American practice of propaganda. But it's obvious any government regulation today attempting to restore balance to political talk radio would fail as it's current priorities lie in cooperating with the "big six" media oligarchies. Do we need to censor Hannity and Limbaugh? Absolutely not - censorship is the last thing we need now, we instead need a public proclamation of shame from the broadcasting trade, the religious sector, parent groups, journalists, educators, watchdog and consumer groups decrying intentional distortion.

We need to decide what public media in America should look like. I for one will teach my children not to name-call, hide facts, overgeneralize, or "practice to deceive". I will also teach them American history, our origins, how and why our Constitution was crafted, and how people lose sight of brotherhood in the pursuit of wealth. This because America is a once-great story I still believe in. If you believe Americans need more intrusion, mounting international debt, underhanded business practices and endless asymmetrical war, enjoy, because the propaganda is catapulted weekdays from noon to six, check your local listings.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future