Whilst riding home from work today, I caught a great mini-interview on NPR. Robert Siegel was speaking with Bill Cunningham, host of the Cincinnati radio program The Big Show with Bill Cunningham on WLW. They were of course discussing Cunningham’s recent flap with John McCain, and some of the things Cunningham said regarding Barack Obama. When warming up a crowd for McCain, the radio host repeatedly referred to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as Barack HUSSEIN Obama (emphasis his).Robert Siegel asked why the emphasis on the middle name. Bill Cunningham rattled off a number of famous presidents that used their middle names and said he merely did it to present Obama is a more respectful light.
Siegel, rather incredulously, asked if, as widely reported, Cunningham was trying to link Obama via his last name to Muslimism and he noted that Cunningham had incorrectly added other, false middle names to Obama’s on his radio show. Cunningham stated that 98% of the time he was right, but on his radio show he had been wrong (he blamed it on Internet sources that misstated Obama’s full name), but anyway, he was just using Barack’s full name as a sign of respect and not to stir up trouble.
Listen here.
Or read here.
Riiiight.
Cunningham also said he had been invited to “throw red meat to the crowd” and that now, given McCain’s apology for his commentary, he would “sleep easier” seeing Hillary in the White House. Obviously a loyal guy. And a popular show host for the Radical Right. Let’s see: you distort and fear-monger onstage, then lie about it, then smear your host. I can see why the Republican crowd loves him.
His commentary, what little I’ve heard, was typical rants about how—woe is us!—the press gives Obama and company a pass but picks on Bush and Cheney, and how they should criticize everyone. Well, Mr. Cunningham, perhaps if Obama cherry-picks intelligence to engineer an expensive war that costs us nearly 4,000 lives (and counting), lies about secret CIA prisons and torture, or jerry-rigs an election, perhaps I’ll agree it’s time The New York Times got on his case too.
Until then, you and your adoring crowd can just hold your breath.
Thus ends today’s sermon. Thanks for your indulgence.
1 comment:
I can't bring myself to listen to the clips of Robt. Siegel's interview (and BTW, the man has Herculean reserve in dealing with self-deluded specimens like this goon) because hearing Cunningham makes me want to run people over with my car. However, one good follow-up on the middle-name-use issue would've been to determine if he's been referring to McCain as "John Sidney McCain III" when doing these mini-Nuremberg introductions.
McCain is a petty, self-entitled hack, and that apology ought to have been delivered to Obama personally, not in front of the Brownshirts who'd just lapped up Cunningham's rants.
Although the media does seem to be printing more favorable news about Obama, I would like to think that it's because his current (Clinton) and possible future (McCain) opponents are making themselves look bad by comparison. Obama is a politician, whatever else he is, and as such, deserves as much reserved skepticism as anyone who's made it as far along the primary rat race as he has. The press is going to sensationalize things even when there's nothing over which to get genuinely concerned. If his main nemeses want to dim the perceived nimbus about the Senator from Illinois's head, they should stop feeding the press's lust for empty calories and debate on current issues rather than speculative failure once in office.
That Clinton ad with the ringing phone sure isn't a big step in that direction.
I'll shut up now.
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