Talk about timing -- a liberal radio host arguably best known for once labeling Hillary Clinton "a big f***ing whore" relaunches her show on the same day Clinton dodges prosecution after putting national security at risk through the use of private, vulnerable email servers while secretary of state.
If you remember Randi Rhodes, most likely it's for vilifying Clinton (and Geraldine Ferraro, the Dems' VP candidate in 1984), during the '08 campaign. The resulting uproar got Rhodes in hot water with the now-defunct Air America Radio, the same network that spawned Rachel Maddow and Al Franken, followed by Rhodes getting fired or moving on of her own accord, depending on who can be believed.
Rhodes was a frequent presence at NewsBusters over the years, smearing former House Speaker John Boehner as a weepy, unstable drunk, laughably claiming that Rush Limbaugh is known to "very few people" (while she now boasts of once hosting "the 11th most-listened to talk show in America"), smearing George W. Bush as "the man who destroyed the world", insisting that the South would secede over guns, comparing Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas to the Scalia family dog, and claiming the GOP wanted no emergency response after Hurricane Sandy.
By the spring of 2014, Rhodes decided she'd had her fill of radio and put it behind her, though not before taking jabs at former comrades Maddow and Franken. She moved to Costa Rica, spent a year writing her memoirs (titled "Damn Near Famous"), and realized she was too young to retire in her mid-50s, even for a liberal.
Back in February, Rhodes began a Kickstarter campaign to get back on the air, or more specifically online, to be heard through streaming services and podcasts. She raised $152,000 within a month -- at the same time Rhodes was diagnosed with breast cancer, a disease that killed her sister in 1998. She underwent a lumpectomy and has been cancer-free ever since.
Rhodes spent the last few months getting ready for yesterday's launch from new studios she shares in Delray Beach, Fla., with left-wing radio host Nicole Sandler, another Air America refugee.
After a few glitches with Rhodes' website, the launch proceeded smoothly enough. Rhodes spent most of the two-hour show focusing on Trump, Clinton's email debacle, her bout with cancer, and the logistics of returning to the fray. She's brought back her old slogan -- "Turn Up Your Mind" -- and trademark shtick, a combination of Stephanie Miller's clown-act theatrics and the unhinged politics of Ed Schultz.
At one point during her show, Rhodes played clips of FBI Director James Comey's devastating verbal indictment of Clinton's email recklessness while she ad-libbed over the audio. Even though Rhodes feigned mock horror throughout, she also sounded genuinely distressed --
RHODES: So I believed him. I believed that he had dignity. I believed that he had integrity. (Rhodes alluding to the so-called "hospital showdown" involving Comey, then-attorney general John Ashcroft, and the Stellar Wind surveillance program). And today, although he said he wasn't going to press any charges, he did explain that any reasonable person would have reason to believe that what she did was completely irresponsible, was out of convenience, and not with the interest of the national security of this country in her mind, that she did not do her sworn duty, she showed very poor judgment ... let me see if this plays ...
COMEY: From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department in 2014, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was top-secret at the time they were sent. Thirty-six of those chains ...
RHODES: Oh my God ...
COMEY: ... contained secret information at the time ...
RHODES: At the time ...
COMEY: ... and eight contained confidential information at the time.
RHODES: At the time ...
COMEY: That's the lowest level of classification. Separate from those ...
RHODES: Separate!
COMEY: ... about 2,000 additional emails ...
RHODES: Oh no ...
COMEY: ... were up-classified to make them confidential. Those emails had not been classified at the time that they were sent or received.
RHODES: Oy! So all this that she told us about never sending classified, secret, you know, confidential, which is the lowest, but the secret is, you know -- she wasn't telling the truth. Oy! It takes my breath away. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked. The little woman that would not sit home and bake tea and cookies did something that jeopardized national security -- I'm shocked, I tell you!But this was the part of it that really got me ... listen and learn --
COMEY: Although we did not find clear evidence (glitch here in Rhodes' recording -- transcript follows as stated at the FBI website) that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. For example, seven email chains concerned matters that were classified at the top-secret, special-access program at the time they were sent and received. Those chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails about those same matters.
RHODES: Oy!
COMEY: There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about those matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as secret by the U.S. intelligence community ...
RHODES: Oh my God ...
COMEY: ... at the time it was discussed on email. That is excluding any later up-classified emails. None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system. But their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers, not even supported by full-time security staff like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government or even with a commercial email service like Gmail.
RHODES: She would have been safer on the Gmail!
Give the woman credit -- Rhodes has jumped back in the game, beaten back cancer, and provided the most candid take you're likely to hear from the left on Clinton's criminal indifference to national security.
