from e-mail --

Rhetoric of the Rant

I can't believe how vicious right-wing talk radio has gotten ever since Obama was elected.

...The stuff is more fitting for a red-neck pool hall, not public airwaves....

...I thought maybe it was just me, but then I read the attached article in a major U.S. newspaper.

...the pity, personal, scatological attack has become a minor art form, rather like sculpting in excrement... The practitioners of the rant have their own television shows, radio programs, and websites.

The advocates of this approach often describe it (and themselves) as courageous. But it is a strange moral inversion to talk of the 'courage' of the middle finger.

...Every excess provides the excuse for greater and opposite excess -- a search for more vicious put-downs and more startling obscenities.

Michael Gerson, The Washington Post

-DW, Denver, CO

I used to tell my students to be open-minded and listen to both sides of the issues.

However, given the vulgarisms coming from some of these right-wing groups, I've decided I don't want to subject them to this, regardless of their political views.

I think "Fog" saw this coming a long time ago when the Fairness Doctrine was dissolved.

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