FAR LEFT
The Double Standard [Greg Pollowitz]
What would the reaction be if Republican senators hosted a fundraiser for a start-up conservative radio network in one of their Capitol Hill townhouses? I only ask because that's what happened four years ago...except it was the Democrats. The following excerpt is from a 2004 New Republic cover piece titled, "The Coming Rise of Liberal Talk Radio." (Subscription required)
Which is why, last November, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu hosted a fund-raising lunch for Democracy Radio at her Capitol Hill home. Together with about 20 other Democratic senators—including Stabenow, Daschle, and Hillary Clinton—Landrieu fêted Rhodes and a North Dakota liberal talker named Ed Schultz, both of whom Democracy Radio hopes to syndicate nationally. Though the fund-raiser was closed to the press, Rhodes later recounted for me what transpired. After lunch, Florida Senator Bob Graham introduced Rhodes to those assembled. According to the talk-show host, Graham told the crowd about the many Democrats who had replaced Republicans in elected office in South Florida since Rhodes went on the air there; Graham went so far as to proclaim that no Republican could win wherever Rhodes was heard. It wasn't long before the money was rolling in. "I heard people yelling out dollar amounts," Rhodes remembered. "I thought it was two hundred and fifty dollars, but it wasn't. ... They were pledging two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
(Democracy Radio folded their operations into Air America before Air America went bankrupt.)
Not that this behvaior has ended. Bill Clinton was the guest of honor at Air America's re-launch party.
06/29 10:02 AM
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