"Time to Talk" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Time to Talk

The other day, on the way to a radio business meeting outta town, I listened in to Al Franken on AirAmerica. I don’t listen to talk radio as a rule; this was homework. Franken is a comic, known to many for his work as a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live. He is also a very well read and thoughtful man; clearly up on current affairs. For three hours every morning on AirAmerica, he attempts to provide a liberal counterpoint to Rush Limbaugh.

Many of the millions who listen to Limbaugh in an embarrassingly fawning manner call themselves ditto-heads, meaning that they agree with everything the host says. An image comes to mind of the plastic dogs that sit in the back window ledge of a car with their heads bouncing up and down. What’s curious about the human version is that they seem proud to abdicate thought, to simply agree with someone who is notoriously fickle in his relationship with the truth.

This particular morning, Franken was speaking with a childhood friend who is apparently a regular guest of Franken’s. The man is also a Limbaugh adherent. Franken played a sound cut of Limbaugh butchering facts and reason for the purpose of entertaining his mindless mass, and then asked his friend to justify what Limbaugh had done. It was a ridiculous invitation since Limbaugh had gone particularly beyond the pale, attempting to skewer people who hadn’t done what he said they had done; in fact, they’d gone in the opposite direction and done a decent thing, even by Limbaugh’s standards, such as they are.

The details don’t matter, and they didn’t to Franken’s friend who spoke from the cavernous depths of his colon, confidently insisting that there were clearly different perspectives possible. Yeah, and Custer saw his last stand as a victory.

But more to the point was the very notion that Franken should have some shamelessly predictable cuspidor defending an indefensible Limbaugh. It wasn’t that Limbaugh was attacking liberals -- goodness knows, liberals deserve to be chastened, especially when their excess exceeds the bounds of sanity, as so frequently has been the case these days -- but he was malevolently slandering people who were doing the decent thing. And this friend of Franken’s was saying it was the right thing to do. Why on god’s green earth does someone who values the truth and decency give air time to this verbal detritus?

Yes, I know he’s trying to get listeners riled up -- the notion is that they come back again and again for more, building ratings -- though in such circumstances, it’s like shooting fish in a dry barrel. But don’t we want to be a little more discerning in our debate of vital national issues than compete on levels of outrage? Righteous anger is still anger. Fury doesn’t begin to approach complex issues let alone solve them.

The clueless futility of such palaver is heartbreaking and is made all the worse because our nation is in such dire straights. We are in desperate need of solutions and most of the national conversation, from both right and left, is squandered on cosmetic irrelevancies. It’s the old emperor’s new clothes. Instead of expressing outrage and disgust with the naked emperor foaming at the mouth chasing children over a cliff, they discuss the trajectory of his spittle.

The fact that talk radio has become such a significant forum is evidence of the failure of the mainstream media to do their job. For a quarter century, since Cronkite left the anchor seat, the major news types and the cable wannabes have kowtowed to the political establishment and refused to challenge the talking-points that have now become a torrent of deceit. Instead of calling someone on the facts -- and we’re talking Democrats and Republicans alike -- they simply air both "sides" and neglect the essential need of the American people to have facts laid out, clear, straight and unvarnished.

There may be two sides to every story, but they aren’t both right. However, the way the evening news and other corporate news sources report, you’d think we were in a constant state of he-says-she-says gridlock. Yes, it’s gridlock, but it’s not the facts that are stuck. It is the media toadying to the pols who are supplicants to special interests who don’t want us to know the truth and move off of the dime.

Sadly, it’s no longer even about a conservative versus a liberal agenda. It’s about failed reporting and greedy, evil people who will do anything and everything -- even start wars -- to feather their own nests.

I don’t fault Franken so much, since he was drawn into a fight that he couldn’t possibly win. He’s bright and showed himself to be quite clever on occasion on television. Those are certainly good qualities, but being funny is something of a shackle when you’re trying to make a political case. (Unless you’re Jon Stewart, but he represents a public scornful of the lies; he’s not trying to prosecute a political line.)

Franken is said to be considering a run for the Senate. That would probably be a better venue for him. The upper house could use someone bright and concerned. Especially now, with so many in the Republican party reeking of corruption. Most Americans seem to believe that if the Democrats are stupid and incompetent, they’re not nearly as venal as the Republicans.

Of course "most" is relative. There are plenty of people who still think that Bush didn’t deliberately lie about Saddam having WMDs. Many also think that DeLay is a victim of some sort of conspiracy. At least DeLay thinks they’s dumber than yesterday’s toast since he wrote to them, "I have always acted in an ethical manner within the rules of our body and the laws of our land. I am fully confident time will bear this out."

DeLay was giving his colleagues permission to find a permanent replacement for him since he is still mired in legal troubles. Said Roy Blunt, who is temporarily subbing for DeLay, "Tom's legacy as one of the most effective Republican leaders in history is assured." It’s hard to believe that Blunt truly believes that, or that he thought anyone should believe him.

Another possible would-be DeLay successor, John Boehner, offered, "My belief is that Tom will eventually be cleared and exonerated, and my hope is that our conference will one day again benefit from Tom's rare commitment to the principles of smaller government and freedom for which all Republicans fight."

Loyalty is a fine quality, but only when it is exercised in the direction of someone worthy. DeLay has done more to undermine the principles on which our country was founded than almost any other person in our history. He isn’t deserving of respect, let alone loyalty, and unless something goes tragically wrong, he will be soon imprisoned for the rest of his life.

There are myriad others -- politicians of both parties and lobbyists -- whom DeLay and his associates corrupted who should but won’t likely join him behind bars. They invested and received huge sums and scandalous favors to undermine our electoral process, especially in Texas but across the country as well. Two dozen or more members of Congress or their staff are likely to be indicted for selling influence, but scores more on The Hill are guilty of similar behavior and they will merely be re-elected.

We have serious problems to solve. Our health care system is in shambles, with 47 difference Medicare drug programs, GM spending $1500 per car on worker insurance, and the U.S. ranks 36^th in infant mortality. We regime-changed Iraq from a client dictatorship to a training ground for terrorists, transforming it into a misogynist theocracy that is likely to wind up as a close ally of neighboring Iran, whose president claims the Holocaust was a myth and cheered the stroke that has felled Ariel Sharon. Which has left Israel, a nuclear power, suddenly leaderless. Oil is back over $63 a barrel. Employment numbers are ashen. New home construction is anemic. The national debt is over $8 trillion, or about $70,000 per taxpayer. American citizens are being wiretapped without warrants. American forces are committing torture. The CIA and FBI have frittered away any pretense of competence.

There’s a lot that needs attention and mostly we need a new government. No, the form is fine; we just need to put better people in it. Those supping at the special interests’ troughs are selling our children’s future for blood money. They need to be replaced by honest, competent managers who will put the nation’s interest first. And the only way that dream can be realized is if we demand the truth from those who would purport to inform us. The whole truth. We will lose our great nation if the liars and whiners continue to dominate the discussion.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.