ThinkProgress has the story about the right-wing radio oligarchy beginning to self-flagellate in a their post:
Conservative Talker Michael Medved: Hate Radio Is The ‘Big Loser’
Last June, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) noted “hate radio” had hijacked the political discourse on immigration with “xenophobic, anti-immigrant” rhetoric. That same month, then-Sen. Trent Lott said, “Talk radio is ruining America.” An advisor to Mike Huckabee piled on late last year, stating “Rush [Limbaugh] doesn’t think for himself. That’s not necessarily a slap because he’s not paid to be a thinker–he’s an entertainer.”
While right-wing talkers like Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Melanie Morgan continue to spew inflammatory rhetoric to incite their base, there are increasing signs that their influence in the conservative movement is temporarily evaporating. Conservative radio host Michael Medved — who got his start guest-hosting Limbaugh’s show — wrote this recently:
The big loser in South Carolina was, in fact, talk radio: a medium that has unmistakably collapsed in terms of impact, influence and credibility because of its hysterical and one-dimensional involvement in the GOP nomination fight.
Right wing talk radio has become the last bastion for the eternally self-deluded in the face of overwhelming evidence that the Modern Bush Republican ideology has been a colossal disaster. In the familiar world of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh’s radio-reality, down is still up and that is just the salve for the sucking chest wound that is Iraq and the US Economy.
