Posted on 04/10/2012 9:44:21 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Mike Huckabee took his first phone call of his new talk radio call-in show 4/9, but The American Spectator says that call was staged. The call, 50 minutes into the show, was from “Mike in San Francisco.” That Mike, says the story, was none other than Mike McVay, Cumulus Media Networks SVP/Programming.
Said The American Spectator’s Jeffrey Lord: “To anyone with an ear for talk radio it had a startling quality. Why? No one seemed to remember to give the call-in number to the audience until the very last few seconds of those first fifty minutes. But yet… presto!… within seconds, Mike Huckabee did in fact have a caller on the line! Without ever questioning how that caller could have gotten on that line in less time than it takes Obama to blame Bush for anything!
The caller…”Mike from San Francisco”… was in fact not just your average Mike.
Huckabee began this way:
“Alright, we’re going to go to the phone lines and we’ve got a call from Mike in San Francisco. Welcome to the Mike Huckabee Show, Mike.”
What did “Mike” have on his mind? He started this way:
“Well Governor, let me start by saying it’s great to have a different opinion and a different person on the radio and I’m very, very happy that you’re doing this radio show. One of the reasons why I want to listen to your program every day is because you ran for office and you’ve been a politician, you have a different perspective I think.”
Catch that? “Mike from San Francisco” begins by saying in supposedly unprompted fashion that (bold emphasis mine) “… it’s great to have a different opinion and a different person on the radio…”
Different opinion? Different person? Different from whom? Why, Rush Limbaugh, of course.
In fact, “Mike from San Francisco” turned out after some digging to be one Mike McVay, the senior vice president of programming for… wait for it… the Cumulus Media Network. None of which was acknowledged on the air by either “Mike from San Francisco” or, more to the point, Mike Huckabee.
After receiving several tips on this I contacted Mr. McVay himself, asking the following:
Hi Mike….
This is Jeff Lord from The American Spectator.
I have been told that in the debut of Governor Huckabee’s show today the first caller was “Mike from San Francisco.” The caller thanked Huckabee for his new format etc.
I have information that you were that caller…and failed to identify yourself to the audience as a Cumulus executive, nor did Governor Huckabee identify you.
In other words, Mike, you were a “plant”….not a real caller who really wanted to call in and talk to Governor Huckabee.”
Read the American Spectator story here.
Link to Amer Spec: here
And from a post on the News-Talk board at radio-info: >>Just listened to Huckabee's first show via KSFO's stream. I can go on and on about how boring the show was, and how in his entire first half hour he was clearly reading a script, and how he went from softball interview to softball interview as a crutch, but what I found most embarassing was the fact that his first call, "Mike from San Francisco" was clearly staged.
The call was a planted Mike McVay, Cumulus' own programming guy...ridiculously posing as a real caller as he fawned all over Huckabee at the same time thinly-veiling bashing Rush ("Gee, it's just so great to finally have an alternative voice!").
This is pretty dishonest, especially for a guy to be claiming the "Aww shucks, I'm so much more honorable than Rush" title.
Lame.
“Hello Mike? This is Mark over here in Free Republicville, and as a former radio broadcaster myself, I just want to say that you’re a fake, a fraud, a phony and a stinkin’ RINO too.”
Huckabee is working for the wrong media. He needs to move over to NBC where staging the news is accepted behavior.
What a doofus!!!!
He’s just following in the mainstream media’s modern ethos, “fake but accurate”...
Ole Dan was on CBS... This is more inline with his methods...
Well, thinking that convicted murderers should be allowed to walk free to kill again because Jesus would want us to forgive certainly is a different opinion.
Hi Mike, this is alfranken calling from airamerica........
wow.
Not surprised.
Looks like they plan to lead conservatives astray
I’ll be glad when the big fat phony goes away for good.
Huckabee devoted an inordinate amount of time on his TV show last Saturday to an interview with liberal airhead Meryl Streep. The interview went on and on, so I finally changed the channel to Book TV.
And what a waste... KSFO back in the day of Eason and Rogers and Savage was a flag ship bastion in a wilderness of progressive crapola. Now it is a wimpy little station that keeps losing share and market.
rush has gone to KNEW and the lead guys of Armstrong and Getty are superb.
I guess I am down to listening to the Babe in the Bunker only
FOX has moved way to the left. Of course, Huckabee always has been a rino but having Streep on shows just how left FOX now is.
I’ve watched Megyn Kelley go from intelligent conservative to dumb ass liberal.
But, but, but........Hecklebeer has been chosen to get Rush off the air don’t ya know? Give him a chance for goodness sake. I think he can do it.......just give him a hundred or so years. (sarc).....:)
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