How to Lose Your Job in Talk Radio: Clear Channel gags an antiwar conservative Charles Goyette

amconmag.com ^ | February 2, 2004 issue | Charles Goyette

[Swordmaker]

These anti-war conservatives are not the "same "anti-war" idiots" you describe. Shame on you for thinking that.

IF they believe that the United States of America is on an "Empire Building" crusade, then they are idiots. It is contrary to modern history and contrary to the ideals of this nation.

Believing something to be true despite overwhelming evidence it is false is also a form of insanity.

[prion]

The examples proved your ignorance on the subject-examples that perfectly provedmy point that democracy building in Japan and Germany worked becuase democracy once flourished in those nations just a generation before the rise of Hitler or Tojo.

On the contrary, your assertions prove your ignorance, unless "flourished" means "taking some tentative steps" on your planet.

A culture where leader worship causes men to smash themselves suicidally upside warships isn't what I would call ripe for democracy.

[Nanodik]

I am the same way. I like Jacobs because he is kind of a goofball. I used to like Barry Young a lot but he is kind of like Rush. I find that after someone has been doing talk radio for too many years, they start to loose their patience with callers too easily and I find them kind of like stickly old farts. I actually enjoy Goyette because he does do some investigative stuff and actually tries to be thoughtful. He can get repetitive, but for the most part he puts on a decent show. Rush has turned into a Republican mouthpiece and in the last few years his show is just an audio edition of the Drudge Report that I read the night before. Hannity is a nice enough guy, but again a little too much of a bushbot. Liddy and Hill are an affront to the airwaves - lord knows how their show has lasted this long.

[Nanodik]

I really can't see how Goyette even considers himself a conservative... I think he's more Libertarian...

He is definitely more libertarian leaning that most talk show hosts.

[Az Joe]

He most certainly does compare the two. Otherwise, why did he bring up Pearl Harbor in an article about his views on the Iraq War getting him fired? Why even mention Pearl Harbor?

Was he comparing Pearl Harbor to Clear Channel? Hmmmm...?

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

...Wolfowitz: Mistakes Were Made.”
...Poland, Admits President; Rumsfeld: ‘Oops!’, Powell Silent; ‘Bring ’Em On,’ Says Defiant FDR.”

I would be really be startled considering most the people mentioned here weren't even born or were really young at the time.

[CFC__VRWC]

To me, he comes off as pompous, arrogant and condescending. Everyone around him is a mental midget in comparison, unworthy to even share the air he breathes. He doesn't bother to extend President Bush the accepted courtesy of calling him President Bush at first mention, and then in subsequent mentions referring to him as simply Bush - even the New York Times extends the man that much consideration. And there's no way that's accidental.

Reading this, I can just picture his show as three hours of screaming at and belittling the callers, telling them they're nothing more than stupid pom-pom wavers and George Bush kneepadders, broken up every now and then with updated Iraqi casualty counts, delivered with a barely concealed "I told you so" attitude, just as they are at CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS. If anyone who's listened to him has a different take, please share it - this is my impression based on nothing more than having read this piece.

[Destro]

and what is your defenition of Empire? Empires come in all forms. This Empire can be argued to resemble the Athenian Empire. Athens allowed home rule, but overthrew hostile regimes, went on preemptive stikes (Syracuse), controled the foreign policy direction of other city states.

Or is your version of empire the Hollywood one where you need occupations and rule by legions and proconsuls and the like? With the banners of the Emperor over the temple, etc.

[Central Scrutiniser]

Sink, I've been listen to Charles since his first day in Phoenix, he is a solid conservative and, unlike most talkshow hosts, an educated guy who believes what he says and doesn't just spout whatever gets him ratings. Now, the two guys that replaced him, Liddy and Hill are absolute jokes, the most brainless twaddle on local radio. I disagree with Goyette's stance on the war, but he is a compelling speaker. I enjoy hearing different opinions on talk radio, its a healthy thing.

All the freepers can blindly trash this guy, but none actually listen to him. Clear Channel is a joke, they have done more to ruin great radio stations than to help them. Goyette is the only show I still listen to on KFYI anymore, thankfully we have 2 or 3 other stations that have a wide range of good programming.

As for the New Times, yeah, its fairly liberal, but they have named many other conservatives as best talkshow host in the past, and they are the only print media in AZ that has the balls to take on the stories that the other newspapers shy away from.

[McGavin999]

Maybe because people like me just love them. I think Liddy and Hill are the perfect show for drive time. Especially after a hard day, the last thing you want on that half hour drive is someone who kicks your bloodpressure right off the charts.

[Destro]

But democracy already existed. Men remembered and were probably members of Japanese political parties and movements before the Generals took power in Japan. The great depression almost cost the USA her democracy. Huey Long anyone? When Americans said we will hold free elections and that mionority views can be expressed Germans and Japanese knew exactly what that meant even though they spent a generation under totalitarian rule.

The USA did not teach any of that-it just reinserteted those already understood and accepted concepts into those nations.

Nice attempt to over up your ignorance.

Once again, democracy can not be imposed from outside. In all cases where democracy flourishes a pre-existing condition for its truimph existed (as in the case of Japan and Germany). The USA has never been able to impose a democracy on a nation that did not have the foundations for a democracy and the USA has never been able to create anywhere-anytime the foundations that would allow for a democracy to evolve. - Name me one nation where the foundations for democracy did not exist (never held elections on their own) that the USA has been able to transform it to a democracy via nation building or any such method? Dare ya. Double dare ya.

[Central Scrutiniser]

There is a rumor about Mohan possibly coming back. 1100 KFNX just was bought and they are gonna become a real talk station. They are bringing in a "20 year veteran" to do their morning shift in about 2 weeks, no word on who it is yet. I loved Mohan's show, best show on the radio. He got screwed over by KFYI, they cut him back, relegated him and changed his time slot all the time. The final insult was replacing him with a sports jock who confessed that he doesn't even read the paper and had no opinion other than what would make the audience hate him less.

[Destro]

PS: Japan and Germany did not take tentative steps towards democracy pre Hitler-Tojo. They were FULL BLOWN functioning democracies. Gemrany was in fact more democratic and gave more rights to its people under the Kaisers than the British did their own people.

[sinkspur]

Well, I don't know the guy and have never heard him.

Sounds like sour grapes, to me, from somebody who's likely been canned before.

Clear Channel cares about ratings; obviously his ratings were tanking, or advertisers were griping about him.

Hey, he wants to go against the grain, he needs to suck it up and suffer the consequences.

[Polybius]

That's funny. Everything I have ever read shows that democracy can not be imposed from outside. In all cases where democracy flourishes a pre-existing condition for its truimph existed. The USA has never been able to impose a democracy on a nation that did not have the foundations for a democracy......

Except for feudalism until the mid 19th Century, Imperial despotism until the early 20th Century and military despotism until August, 1945, what foundation did the Empire of Japan have for a democracy in August 1945?

Except for the disaster of the Weimar Republic, what foundation did the Third Reich have for a democracy in April 1945?

Winning a war and then immediately going home allows the defeated enemy to simply re-group and re-arm so that you can have the fun of fighting the sequel to the same war all over again 10 or 20 years down the road.

The fact that, after millenia of warfare and bloodshed, both Japan and Western Europe are currently holier-than-thou pacifists is due to the fact that the U.S. stayed around after 1945 to establish the Pax Americana.

Such was not the case after 1918.

As a result, 40 million Europeans and over 400,000 Americans died between 1939 and 1945.

Even in cases where the population of the defeated country is as unsuited to democracy as gasoline is to an open flame, it behooves you to stay until the autocratic regime that emerges is in your camp and not in the camp of your mortal enemies.

Unless a nation is fighting wars merely for practice or for martial glory, it unwise to "bug out" and immediately abadon the fruits of your victory to the very enemy you have just defeated.

[tomakaze]

re:I am sympathic to some antiwar conservatives becuase I feel they are anti-war because the war implies an occupation and nation building world empire agenda.
 
Cool. I'm glad at least someone gets it.

[perez24]

Amen. I noticed he did not mention his ratings at any point in the article posted. Radio folks, particularly in those rated more than once a year, live and die by this stuff...and it looks like he died by them.

[Central Scrutiniser]

I used to love to listen to Bill Strauss, and he is as liberal as can be. He had a good show though, and while I never agreed with him, I liked him, a good intelligent guy. There is no one on local radio I agree with 100%, in any day though I listen to Liebowitz, Ernie Hancock, Ted whatshisname, Sydney Hay, the ultra liberal Dr. Mike Newcomb as well as all the syndicated guys. Choice is good, the only one I can't stand is Michael Savage and Mike Gallagher, those guys would say or believe anything for ratings, they are cartoons.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Once he referred to David Dinkins as looking like a men's room attendant, I could never look at Dinkins again without thinking about that! But I think he did go a *little* too far with the Ron Brown thing...