{"id":8800,"date":"2006-10-19T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2006-10-19T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8800.html"},"modified":"2006-10-19T09:00:57","modified_gmt":"2006-10-19T13:00:57","slug":"the-company-they-keep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-company-they-keep\/","title":{"rendered":"The company they keep"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m a little behind on this one, but the New York Times ran an item<\/a> the other day that deserves a closer look. The Times notes that the Bush White House held a quiet meeting with five right-wing talk-radio hosts — an event that was not announced on the president\u2019s public schedule — as part of “an intensive Republican Party campaign to reclaim and re-energize a crucial army of supporters that is not as likely to walk in lockstep with the White House as it has in the past.”<\/p>\n

Bush gave these five — Mike Gallagher, Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Michael Medved — a private audience for an hour and a half, apparently because the right’s noise machine seems to be breaking down a bit. As the NYT put it, “Conservative radio hosts are breaking with the Republican leadership in ways not seen in at least a decade…. Disgruntlement can now be found not only among the more flamboyant radio voices, like Michael Savage, who raged against Mr. Bush’s proposals on immigration and other issues, but also among more mainstream hosts, like Laura Ingraham.”<\/p>\n

“Mainstream”? Nico did a nice job<\/a> yesterday reminding us exactly how “mainstream” the president’s friends are.<\/p>\n

* Sean Hannity<\/b> (“[M]aking sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the [House] speaker” is “worth \u2026 dying for<\/a>“)<\/p>\n

* Neal Boortz<\/b> (Islam is a “deadly virus<\/a>“)<\/p>\n

* Laura Ingraham<\/b> (Sens. Biden and Boxer are “on the side of<\/a>” Kim Jong-Il)<\/p>\n

* Mike Gallagher<\/b> (Gore and Hitler “brilliantly put together side by side<\/a>” in campaign video)<\/p>\n

* Michael Medved<\/b> (“[T]he subject of my conversation with the president of the United States” was that Islam has “a special violence problem<\/a>.”)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ll never quite understand how GOP leaders are able to get away with hanging out casually with extremists, with no fear of consequence.
\n
\nWhen radicals like Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter get together for a right-wing event in Washington, Republican presidential aspirants and White House officials think nothing of<\/a> standing by them, side by side. Indeed, John McCain has cozied up to Falwell, even after Falwell said Americans “deserved” 9\/11.<\/p>\n

A couple of months prior, a fringe theocratic group held an event at which the event’s sponsor unveiled his new book, “Liberalism Kills Kids.” Clearly, the Republican establishment would want to keep their distance from such radical activists, right? Wrong<\/a>. The GOP sent three leading House Republicans (Tom DeLay, Todd Akin, and Louis Gohmert) and two leading Senate Republicans (John Cornyn and Sam Brownback).<\/p>\n

And now the White House has no qualms with offering a private audience to right-wing radio personalities who say pretty embarrassing right-wing things on a daily basis. (Limbaugh was invited but didn’t go.) What’s more, this barely raises an eyebrow from the political establishment. For Republican leaders in Congress or the White House to hang out with obvious extremists is simply considered routine and acceptable.<\/p>\n

There appear to be two sets of rules. If Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) benefits from an email solicitation sent by MoveOn.org, the right goes berserk. If Jim Webb (D-Va.) takes out an ad on Daily Kos, the Republican machine is all over it, accusing Webb of catering to “extremists.” And yet, no one<\/i> is too extreme on the right for GOP leaders.<\/p>\n

Does it occur to the Dem establishment to engage in a little guilt-by-association once in a while? Conservatives and the GOP establishment seem to use it to great effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m a little behind on this one, but the New York Times ran an item the other day that deserves a closer look. The Times notes that the Bush White House held a quiet meeting with five right-wing talk-radio hosts — an event that was not announced on the president\u2019s public schedule — as part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}