As If Limbaugh and Beck Weren't Bad Enough, the Granddaddy of Hate Radio Is Back on the Air

[marmar]

As If Limbaugh and Beck Weren't Bad Enough, the Granddaddy of Hate Radio Is Back on the Air

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted August 24, 2009.

Bob Grant taught a generation of conservative talkers how to channel white rage, until a listener boycott helped push him off the air. Now he's back.



Here's a talk radio riddle: What do Glenn Beck's recent radio meltdown and the ongoing boycott against his television show have in common?

Answer: Both find echo and inspiration in the career of Bob Grant, the granddaddy of conservative hate radio who this week announced his return to New York's 77 WABC for one last go-around. Starting September 13, the frail octogenarian will host a Sunday show between noon and 2 p.m.

It's hard not to wonder if Grant is returning to terrestrial radio in an effort to reclaim his identity. Not only has Glenn Beck borrowed Grant's two trademark catch phrases—"Get off my phone!" and "Sick, twisted freak"—this month Beck even reprised Grant's former role as the tallest whipping post for organized liberal outrage.

When colorofchange.org launched a write-in campaign on August 4 targeting Beck's sponsors after he called the president a "racist" who hates "the white culture," the organization followed a path first blazed by Bob Grant's opponents during the mid-90s. It was then, on the cusp of the Internet age, that Grant became the first conservative broadcaster to trigger a sustained campaign with incendiary racial rhetoric. That campaign contributed to the eventual firing of Grant from WABC in 1996. It also made him a martyr among an entire generation of conservative talkers. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/media/142149/as_if_limbaugh_and_beck_weren%27t_bad_enough%2C_the_granddaddy_of_hate_radio_is_back_on_the_air/

[tabasco]

1. They have to dig up corpses to find support these days.

We are watching the long overdue death of the corrupt republican party.

[99 Percent Sure]

9. LOL. Well, they can go dig up that great compassionate conservative, blast from the past, the late

Rev Jerry Falwell too, even if there's no way he'll be making a comeback in our lifetime, having keeled over facedown on his desk as he gave up the ghost.

GLWT, Bob Grant.

The majority of the moral majority are either definitely deceased or disgraced by that body organ that no man can tame -- the tongue. Like Grant and Charles Colson, none of them, whether living or dead, will be mounting a successful comeback in their lifetime. The best they can hope for is doing cheesy-looking, scam-sounding gold commercials a la G. Gordon, or appearing on obscure farming cable channels a la Donny Boy Imus who, IIRC, also officially entered into obscurity on WABC.

The repugs iz doomed to ignominy and it's their own contemptible behavior -- racism intolerance and delusions of superiority -- that got them here.

Bless their little flea infested hearts.

[yurbud]

10. like the soviets before their collapse: all their leaders are octogenarians on their last leg

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Is Grant syndicated? I don't recall that he is.

Doesn't that say something about his lack of marketability?

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Maybe he'll croak on-air.

That'd be worth listening to.

[irislake]

4. Thank God Canada doesn't tolerate

hate radio and TV or have so many religious fundamentalists. Is there something in your water that produces fanatics?

[Mr. Sparkle]

5. New York's 77 WABC was the first station that took Limbaugh national. iirc

They are the flagship station of Hate.

[Hannah Bell]

6. i thought the granddaddy would be father coughlin or someone like that.

a dead person.

[Judi Lynn]

7. His image may make you feel like gagging, but is he ever WHITE!

Can you imagine how pathetic a person is when he wants to trade on his skin color to feel important?

http://i7.photobucket.com.nyud.net:8090/albums/y274/countertop/2108211.gif
His next move is to feel superior because he looks more like a corpse than other people.

[Jim Sagle]

8. Your headlilne had me worried. For a moment there I thought Father Coughlin was back from the dead.

:scared: