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| And the Best of Randi Rhodes |
To reassign the estimable Bill Cosby's Fat Albert assessment, Air America's Randi Rhodes is reminiscent of school on Saturday -- no class.
Captured is a five-plus minute video (here below the fold) in which Rhodes -- utilizing language and manner more sailor than lady-like -- excoriates both the junior Senator from New York and former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro at length as the "W" word (not "Woman"). She also touches on the Governor Eliot Spitzer story, commenting a bit on his "W" and her over-pricedness, and finds a little time to slam "Dina McGreevey", wife of disgraced former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey.
Rhodes was so gracefully serving as an emissary for the liberal radio network for the alleged benefit of one of its affiliates. So appreciative and proud was Air America that they suspended her - an apparently rare (in fact unprecedented -- big time h/t to The Radio Equalizer) disciplinary move by the network.
What is decidedly less exceptional are similar invective-laden screeds from the hack broadcaster whose show and network have fewer listeners than the number of people who read their VCR operator's manuals.
There was the time she aired a fake commercial which stated that Mitt Romney supporters were going to go on a mass-murdererous rampage were John McCain to win the nomination (no signs yet of Mormons taking to the streets).
Or how about when she declared that the Katrina-induced evacuation of New Orleans was "so much like the Holocaust", accusing the Bush Administration of Nazi-like handling of the people of the Big Easy. "People were taken one place. Their children were taken another place. ... And here you have people being loaded onto transportation vehicles, not being told where they're going, and their children are being taken someplace else...."
Or perhaps litigation is more your speed. In which case, we have the Randi Rhodes defamation lawsuit, filed by government contractor CACI International Inc. who was somehow and inexplicably offended to hear the elegant Ms. Rhodes accuse their employees of raping and murdering Iraqi civilians at Abu Ghraib prison.
There are many more than merely these.
You will note that none of these tirades netted her a suspension, while yesterday's did. The subterranean level of discourse remains the same throughout - the only difference is the target of the vitriol. Air America will stand by their Randi through all of the tort claims, the fascism-invokings and her general banality, so long as they are aimed at Conservatives and Republicans.
But they will not let stand an elementary-school naughty let fly against one of their own. For that, she must sit in the corner - in Time-Out - and await permission to rejoin the rest of her un-listened to class.
Please remember all of this the next time Rush Limbaugh accurately describes phony soldiers as phony soldiers and the Jurassic Press - and Congress - have one giant collective conniption fit.
