Today’s Talkers’ Scandals Are Reminiscent of the 1980’s Televangelist Sleazefest
Oh, the mendacity: Another day, another new controversy about a rightwing talk show host. This time it’s Jay Severin III, a former GOP operative who worked on the presidential campaigns of George I and Pat Buchanan, among others, and who hosts a radio show in Boston that is (was?) set to go national.
Severin has been exposed for lying about his achievements, including claiming several times on the record that he had won a Pulitzer Prize. He has also been the target recently of allegations of behavior unbecoming of a married man and father that cast a new light on statements he made in the 1990’s about the moral fitness of others.
The revelations of extreme resume padding came on the same day that Infinity Broadcasting announced they had signed a deal with Severin to host a nationally syndicated talk show. Oops!
Severin’s Troubles
According to Media Matters, Severin – whose real name is Jimmy Severino – operated a political consulting firm, Severin Aviles Associates, whose clients included George H.W. Bush’s 1980 presidential campaign and his political action committee (Fund for America’s Future); Pat Buchanan’s 1996 presidential campaign; the Republican National Committee; and the Reagan White House.
He caused a stir in April 2004, when, on the air, he said about Moslems: “You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them.” (He later said he meant that only extremists should be killed.) He also had a brief, ill-fated run sitting in as the conservative pundit who provided balance on conservative Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC show, “The Situation.”
(And it may come as a surprise to his fans in Boston that Severin doesn’t broadcast from Boston, but rather from a studio close to his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y.)
Severin brought his current woes onto himself last Friday, Sept. 16, 2005, when he claimed to have won the Pulitzer Prize. That claim brought scrutiny from a reporter, Scot Lehigh at the Boston Globe.
First, here’s what Severin said on the air:
”But since journalism began, and up until the time at least that I took my master’s degree at Boston University — and may I add without being obnoxious, up till and including the time that I received a Pulitzer Prize for my columns for excellence in online journalism from the Columbia School of Journalism, the highest possible award for writing on the Web — right up to and including that in 1998, you still had to practice journalism to be a journalist.”
So Scot Lehigh called the Pulitzer’s world headquarters, and guess what?
”We looked at the records and there is no record of him winning a Pulitzer Prize,” says Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzers. Nor is there a Pulitzer for excellence in online journalism.
Wait! There’s more:
Interesting, a Google search turns up two mentions of Severin winning a Pulitzer for online journalism. They come in student newspaper articles covering a November 2003 appearance at Boston College. ”Currently, Severin is a featured columnist on MSNBC.com, for which he has won the Pulitzer Prize for online journalism,” The Heights reported. Severin ”was the first recipient of Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prize for online journalism,” the Observer wrote. Both accounts also call him a graduate of Harvard Law School. He is not, Harvard says.
There’s also a hint of seamier goings-on in Severin’s past. Although he was reportedly fired from the Tucker Carlson show on MSNBC earlier this year, he told a New York newspaper that he quit because he didn’t like the commute from Sag Harbor to the channel’s studios in Secaucus, N.J. However, an insider at MSNBC said that the suggestion that Severin left voluntarily is a “complete absolute lie”:
In fact, he’s been banned from the network: “You won’t see him on MSNBC again,” the source says. (And based on Severin’s actions in Secaucus, “we were shocked to read in Page Six that he has a wife and daughter,” the insider adds…)
This from the man who famously said:
On whether a woman in a sexual harassment test case video had said “no”: “That’s not the big ‘no.’ And our job as guys is to convert a succession of ‘nos’ into one ‘yes.’ And to try and be as persuasive as possible in making that happen. The fact is my job, my right, my duty as a guy is to persuade girls to say yes.” [NBC’s Dateline, 10/24/97]
Which brings us to our first introduction to Jay Severin. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he was one of a horde of rightwing pundits who appeared daily on MSNBC to excoriate President Clinton’s morality.
Oh, the hypocrisy!
Sorry I didn’t see your post earlier WT. I’ve been so involved with this whole AAR, litterally, begging for money thing.
I made my statement to prove a point. That point is Party Trumps Person. And of course you, like most other Libs, have taken the “you’re not worth my time” exit out of a potentialy engaging conversation.
I’ll say it again. I could school you on your party’s policies and ideas, imagine what I could do arguing for my own party.
You have yet to prove that I lack any sort of understanding of politics. You have resorted to name-calling and verbal diarrhea in what would seem to be an attempt to prevent yourself from having to actually debate anything of importance.
Unless you are actually able to engage in some intellectual debate with me, then I will walk away today knowing in my heart of hearts that I have won again. While the only thing you’ll be able to do is somehow justify your so-called “victory” over our entire exchange by calling me an “asshole neo-con.” Who’s the winner?
BTW. I make enough money to buy my own computer in my own house next to the golf course country club, of which I’m a member and plan to take YOUR mom out to for dinner tomorrow night. I also have the intelligence to have invented the internet in which you and I use to “communicate.” The only problem is that Al Gore beat me to it. (Yet another crock of sh*t from the Democratic Party)
right nick…you’re a paradigm of virtue and success. (yawn)
you keep running your mouth about schooling me about my party (yawn). you don’t KNOW what “my party” is, jerk. you assume way too much, and prove absolutely nothing w/ your boorish boasting. you don’t know who i am, what i do, or a damned thing about me. you just don’t get it. i wouldn’t engage ANY idiot who made the bald-faced assertion you did about your stepford “party loyalty” to murdering drunks. jesus you’re pathetic. and the best part? you can’t let it go. you’ll keep checking to see how i respond to your superior rhetoric, and you’ll always have to get the last word, won’t you? winning at all costs, right?
BTW, nice touch mentioning my mom, scumbag. i wondered how long it would take for you to play that card. what’s next? my race, religion, or sexual orientation?…now i realize how desperate for attention you really are.
like the knight in Holy Grail, who has lost his arms and legs but still insists on fighting w/ Arthur, you really should just let it go. the more you say, the more foolish you appear.
yep, you’re a “winner”….and whether you like it or not, “you’re not worth the time ” it would take to rip you yet again a new asshole.
Listen… All I’ve ever wanted from this three day bitch fest is to debate you. You have called me:
liar
loser
stepford idiot
socially retarded
stepford whore
moron
etc.
And you have refused to answer even one of my direct questions.
If you don’t want to debate me then fine. But you’re only making yourself look dumb by pulling out all the stops to avoid doing so.
I mentioned your mom only because you mentioned mine. If you’ll go through all of the posts, you’ll notice that I’M not the one with the degradation issue.
You claim I’m the idiot for saying what I did about party loyalty. Then prove it! Let’s hear your argument against “party trumps person.” Then (since I don’t know anything about you) state your party. I am left to assume a lot about you because the vast majority of your posts have been about me and what a terrible “ass hole” I am. Judging by when you entered this post (immediately after my “Liberal Talking Points” post) it’s pretty safe to assume you’re left of center. Am I wrong?
We could go back and forth until our fingers fall off. But I’d like to get down to the issues. And it’s clear that we will go back and forth until one of us picks an issue. So here’s an issue:
ABORTION
Here’s my stance:
It’s wrong. It’s murder. It’s being used as birth control. It has absolutely nothing to do with “Women’s Rights.” And pro-“choice” activists are really just pro abortion zealots.
wow nick…you oppose abortion. i’m shocked. you say abortion is murder, but you WOULD support “a drunken murdering GOP candidate over a pristine Dem”, right? you oppose murder, but would support one for your political agenda to advance? stepford idiot fits you…why not embrace it?
i’m an independent…a social liberal and a VERY fiscal conservative…an Air Force veteran, married w/ grown children who chose careers helping others. i’m a Deist, very spriritual, but not religious. i was raised as a devout baptist. it’s interesting that you chose abortion to challenge me. my take? i oppose abortion, but i’m pro-choice. it’s none of your fucking business what happens between a woman, her doctor, and yes, who or whatever she prays to. abortion shouldn’t even be in the political arena, period. the crass usage of it as a wedge issue to shore up the religious right base of our current crop of supposed “conservatives” has gone on long enough. their “culture of life” BS has jumped the shark, as it were. that moment passed when bill frist MIS-diagnosed schaivo via vidotape, bush flew back to washigton cutting his vacation short (gasp), and the delay wingnuts went into overdrive to save an already dead woman from evil liberals. her autopsy proved what intelligent people already knew…she was braindead and blind. did you know that not one fucking repug that jumped on the save terri bandwagon attended her funeral? did you agree w/ that whole fiasco? i suspect you did.
nick, i’ve had hundreds of students just like you. spoiled, boorish WASP jerks w/ a chip on their shoulder and a ridiculous sense of entitlement. how old are you? if you’re under 30 (which i suspect), why haven’t you volunteered to fight our “nobel war” on terrorism. i smell a chickhawk…
if you want to be treated like an adult, try acting like one. if i was a gambler, which i’m not–i oppose legalized gambling–i’d be willing to bet the farm that you regret making that idiotic chest-thumping remark about “supporting a drunk murderer because of party”. but alas, just like our dry-drunk POTUS, you lack the ability to admit mistakes. me…naaah, not so much….
i supported Nixon as a youth, voted for reagan in 80′, and bought the “thriller” album for my wife. see, i can admit mistakes. can you?
boy howdy…i can’t wait to be “schooled”
next topic? why do republicans hate the military? they’re looking to CUT medial benefits for our troops to fund the massive cost of Katrina. but hey, huge pork laden transportation bills and tax cuts for paris hilton are off the table…go figure…
and jay severin is STILL a LYING, resume padding asshole…
First… I do not withdraw my statement about party loyalty. I stand by it 100%. Feel free to prove me wrong on any of it. I used the words “drunken” and “murdering” because they are favorite epithets of the left when describing George Bush. So I’m used to using that exact same line when debating Libs. I stand by my statement’s context and withdraw nothing.
Tisk tisk tisk. Your next line kills me. How in the hell can you be a social democrat and a fiscal conservative. Unless you are aware of some new form of governing that I’m not… what you said is impossible. To stand to the left socially means that you support (to whatever extent) things like welfare, unemployment pay, disability, socialized health care, etc. All of those things require an immense amount of taxpayer dollars. A fiscal conservative does not support high taxes. So tell me then…As a social Lib and fiscal Con… how the hell do you make any decisions come voting day? Do you waste your vote on a third party candidate?
I chose abortion because it’s a topic I’ve, unfortunately, had a lot of personal experience with. I hear your argument a lot when debating abortion. There are lots of people out there that feel it’s morally wrong but should remain legal. To them, and to you, I ask… why do you vote against your morals. I agree that it’s none of anybody’s business what happens between a woman, her doctor, or her god (a whole other subject). My concern is not with the rights of the woman… it’s with the rights of the unborn child. There are plenty of doctor/patient privilege restrictions that are in place that nobody opposes. So I don’t feel that that’s a valid argument.
Whenever I debate anybody on abortion, the same thought keeps circling the back of my mind. That thought is “how ironic is it that this persons mother chose life so that they could stand here and try to convince me that it would have been ok if she didn’t?”
As far as the Shiavo thing goes, I agree with all of the judges rulings in the matter. Legally her husband had the right to pull the tube. The thing that bothered me about it was that she had a family that was willing and able to care for her if her husband wanted to move on with his life. He claimed it was not her wish to be kept alive by artificial means (a story that changed a couple of times). But then why did he wait 9 years to pull the plug?
You were wrong about me regretting my statement, and you were wrong about my age. The fact that I’m a 17 year Field Artillery (active U.S. Army 13B) vet, should be sufficient enough to debunk your entire “entitlement” paragraph.
I, also, was raised Baptist. But southern Baptist. I left the church many years ago, and do not currently practice any religion. It’s safe to say that I’m an athiest. I’m certainly not part of the religious right.
I’m not sure why Republicans hate the military. I’m not sure I agree with that either. If they really are cutting military benefits (and I haven’t heard anything on that yet), it’s because the money for rebuilding after these two, truly devastating, hurricanes has to come from somewhere. Can you imagine the outrage from the left if congress were to get the money by cutting down on medicare or welfare benefits? The military is an easy target right now.
I’m not going to pick another topic yet. There’s plenty of room to continue discussing current topics. I have to step out shortly. I’ll be back in 30 mins. So forgive the slow response to your next post.
oops…how silly of me to have a moral compass. sorry about that nick…
you chose abortion because it’s devisive and oblique. you absolutely desembled on schaivo…congrats. you could write talking points for rove. ignore the grandstanding by your party (loyalty issues?) and their attempt to co-opt a grevious family situation. that’s another winning formula…
as for your smug parsing of your “murdering drunken” bullshit remark, stick it up your ass. what is it w/ your ilk? you get caught making a sociopathic remark, and you dismiss it as the fault of liberals? take credit for your shit. oops, we’ve already addressed that bit of arrested adolescence….the inability to admit a mistake.
but my favorite part of this is your abysmal lack of information. yes, the bushies and GOP congress idiots are looking to cut funding for military bennies. it’s not hard to know this. try reading more than your own rhetoric. i’m betting you STILL haven’t read the PNAC info. yet you’re a self professed “neo-con”??? idiot. i say that because only an ill informed idiot would allign themself w/ a political agenda they haven’t even investigated.
you really are clueless. the idea that social liberalism and fiscal conservatism are incongruous is specious at best. it just depends on priorities. you oppose welfare, unless it rebuilds some asshole’s mcmansion that’s destroyed by a hurricane. you oppose welfare, unless it’s an open ended contract given to haliburton. you oppose welfare, unless it’s couched in tax breaks for oil companies that already have record profits. you oppose welfare, unless it builds a bridge to nowhere for constituents of a powerful repug alaskan legislator. you oppose welfare, unless it flows to “faith-based” assholes like pat robertson who had his “charity” placed at the top of the white house linked effort to raise money for katrina victims.
you see nick, much of what you support is little more than welfare for the wealthy. bush’s illegal, unprovoked, insidious “war” in iraq is to me, “welfare” for the military industrial complex…the pentagon, and specifically the civilian NEO-CON fuckwads running it (rummy/feith/wolfie, etc, ad nauseum), have spent enough money in iraq to give every poor little child you despise a college education, and a major leg up so they wouldn’t have to be the target of military recruiting. it’s a snake eating it’s tail. circular logic…
BTW, hawkeye once said, “i don’t believe in atheism”. me either. it’s another of your efforts to employ situational ethics.
when i make a mistake i’ll admit to it. And not before.
I have been pretty good about trying to stick to debating subject matter, while you have done your best to to degrade me at some point in every post. Why is that? If you are the adult you claim to be, then you are truly the most immature adult I’ve ever encountered. Your anger in all of this is truly laughable. Would it make you feel better if I stooped to your level in my responses? Ok then… here we go.
Man you’re an idiot. You have attempted to redefine the word welfare as to avoid answering up to being an independent. How nice it must be to be a spineless independent prick and to be able to take whatever side you want in an argument. Fucking grow up! W.C. Fields said “you can’t be a good egg your whole life. You either need to hatch or rot.” Now, let’s see if you can answer two simple questions:
1) Do you support welfare? (The use of federal funds to support the “less fortunate”)
2) If you answered yes to question 1, then do you support higher taxation to fund welfare?
You never answered my question about who you vote for come election time. Is that because you don’t vote? Do you know how to vote? You obviously don’t know who to vote for. What a fucking joke!
I wasn’t aware that my remark was “sociopathic.” And of corse, in your usual childish manner, you have resorted to name calling and avoiding the context of the statement. Predictable.
Actually i have read the PNAC statement. When you want to discuss foreign policy we will. Have you read the TSPSICI statement? (Too Spineless to Pick a Side so I Claim to be an Independent). Do you ask liberals if they’ve read moveon.org or A.N.S.W.E.R.’S statements? What is the “Independent’s” statement. Is there one? Or do you just “call it like you see it?”
And you’re absolutely right… i do despise every poor child out there. Kill them all I say! Who needs them? Seriously though…grow the fuck up! You have a serious inability to stay on any topic. More proof that you probaly aren’t the adult you say you are.
And how the fuck is me being an athiest at all related to situational ethics. You’re one to talk about situational ethics. You can’t even choose a political party.
Now you see how much of a pain in the ass reading your posts is. You go off on these curse word laden rants instead of sticking to the subject. Would you like to just keep insulting each other?
My e-mail addy is nm_ucr_services@comcast.net. Use it for your next response.
right…got it. you’ve been pretty good at sticking to subject matter, and i just moved the goalposts, over, and over. like lucy and charlie brown, a football metaphor i’m sure you can grasp.
funny…why are you obsessed w/ my voting record? oops…you’re a stepford idiot with a desire to marginalize anyone who votes against your PARTY, right? party trumps the person, right, asshole? david duke ran as a republican, so i’m sure you lined up to support him, right?
jesus you make me tired. try to focus. my original reason to even engage you was your absurd assertion that you would “support a drunken murdering GOP candidate over a pristine Dem”. i realize you are a little challenged when forced to deal w/ your own remarks. that’s understandable when we consider your political stripe. truth, honesty, fair play…hell…those are just abstract concepts…a collective hunch when we factor in your obtuse atheism. it’s ironic that someone with strong beliefs about “party loyalty” and “welfare” has no beliefs about our ultimate destiny.
that’s a real stretch….
BTW, i am having a LARGE time pushing your buttons….go ahead. i told you you’d have to get the last word in.
who’s the winner, dickhead?
I’m interested in your voting record because you’re an “independent.” You keep avoiding the subject and I think we all know why.
The party trumps person argument is simple (for most people anyway). If a man supports welfare, believes affirmative action is just, and promotes socialized health care, but then votes for a Republican candidate based on that candidates looks or personality… then that man is an idiot. In essence, a voter should not care about a candidate’s addiction problems (Ted Kennedy) or criminal history (Ted Kennedy), so long as that candidates beliefs are in line with the voter’s beliefs. Get it? Oh how nice it would be if we never had to hear about insulting stump speaches or Swift Boat Vets. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Unfortunately the majority of America buys into those stump speaches and negative campaign ads. How nice would it be if all a candidate had to say was “I’m a Republican,” or “I’m a Democrat?” But no… we have to go through 10 months of BS every four years because of the “moderates” and “swing voters.” In this country, the people who know and care the least… matter the most.
And no i did not vote for David Duke. That’s what the primaries are for. Everybody in the primaries belongs to the same party. That’s where voters are supposed to weed out the addicts and criminals. But, for reasons i explained before, that doesn’t always happen (Ted Kennedy). And when a criminal (John Kerry) does squeeze by the primaries, then I vote for my party’s candidate. A DUI getting, lying, “murdering,” Republican (George Bush) is still going to enact policy and appoint SCOTUS justices more in line with my beliefs than would even the “most pristine Dem.” There have I explained that well enough for you to understand?
Now if you have an argument that disproves anything I just said (and you probably don’t), then I’d like to hear it. I did not invent the party trumps person debate, but I HAVE mastered it. I have never been proven wrong on it.
Once again you have refused to answer any of my questions. Do you support welfare? How do you decide on a candidate come Super Tuesday?
” it’s ironic that someone with strong beliefs about “party loyalty” and “welfare” has no beliefs about our ultimate destiny.”
So I have to have strong beliefs on the afterlife in order to have strong beliefs on political statements? Which is more ironic… that fact that I have taken a non-stance on religion? Or the fact that a spiritual man who was raised a devout Baptist has a hardcore stance in favor of abortion? Hmmm….
Oh and don’t flatter yourself. You have yet to push a single button of mine.
last time nick…
your party trumps candidate BS is absurd, period. groupspeak and thought, lockstep support, blind loyalty…how Orwellian. sounds like fascism/communism/totalitarianism to me. sorry dude, but your utter lack of morality (you still cling to the drunken murderer) combined w/ your obvious obsession w/ kennedy (yawn) and seeming inability to name even one repug you would shitcan shows your “agenda”. you don’t actually think i believe your 2 party crap do you? you want ONE party, and we both know who that would be.
you keep pressing me for “answers”, yet refuse to accept the answers because you don’t like them, so you accusde me of not answering…how rovian of you. i answered your welfare question. all “entitlements” are a form of welfare. throwing wads of tax money to cronies is welfare writ large. you only have a problem with it when the face of the person cashing the check is either black, or god help us all, black and a voting democrat. forget playing the race card…it’s boorish. you’ve been dancing around the issue since your first post, so just say it. tell us why you oppose “welfare”. you really wouldn’t like my take on it…it’s way too draconian. a thumbnail view would be the end of public housing as we know it, and replace w/ a dorm approach. single parents would NOT get foodstamps….they would get 3 squares downstairs in the dorm cafeteria. there should also be an on premise child care facility, and mandatory attendance in educatrion classes and job training. sound familiar? it works for the military…
on last shot. i never said anything about a “hardcore stance” about abortion, dumbass. i said i support a woman’s right to choose. my stance is EXACTLY because i AM a spiritual person…it’s an issue for God to sort out. you state abortion is murder, period, and that’s why you oppose it…but you would support a murdering politician?? i guess as long as the child is birthed, it’s okay to kill them then, right? or do we have wait a few years before it’s okay to kill them and still be a good partisan “party man”?
dude, you are too fucked up to live. you have a magnet strapped to the seemy underside of your moral compass, and it is spinning wildly out of controll. i’m done with you. do take the opportunity to post back and prove my assertion that you are incapable of just walking away.
Jay is being totally slimed and railroaded. He is the best out there, and the man is trying to keep him down. I am totally unbiased in this regard,
In addition to lying about his Pulitzer Prize – and his “award winning MSNBC” work – Mr. Severin falsely claimed to have a Masters Degree from Boston University. When confronted with the truth – Mr. Severin at first adamantly insisted that he had earned his degree – but eventually acknowledged that he has been making the claim in error for the past thirty years. Mr. Severin’s lawyer said that Mr. Severin told him he “thought he remembered doing his thesis”. Quite a feat of imagination there. Infinity Radio has since removed the claim of a Masters from their press release concerning Mr. Severin.
Jay Severin is the only person on the radio that makes any sense. He doesn’t get caught up in the right-wing hypocrisy. I find it hard to believe he would make such false claims, but maybe. That doesn’t change the fact that he is an intelligent human being (not perfect) who makes us all think and discuss politics amongst one another.
WT and Nick thanks for the entertainement….I have to say Nick pretty much explained himself clearly. But I have to commend both of you to the service of oour Country. (hopefully both of you were beng honest…….
If you don’t like what you hear on the radio or TV, there is a button called the on/off switch. WAKE UP AMERICA !!!!! I THINK we are still a free society, able to make our own choises. Bring back Jay —- We should have gone Harry Truman on there asses, it would have saved us alot of lives and money.
One of many of Boston’s best and brightest.
I think Jay’s smart and entertaining. I have enjoyed listening to him for years. The discourse encouraged me to learn more about politics and be more informed.
I also happen to think Jay’s a bit full of himself, and could easily believe that he embellished his accomplishments. No one can be as full of shit or full of himslelf as Bill O’Reilly, though. Damn, it’s painful to listen to even 5 minutes of that guy.
So, maybe Jay fibbed about his background. And, if he has a thing for hot 20yo girls, so what? It’s still good radio.
Rachel
Wow,how “liberalism” has changed in the past twenty years. I was a liberal once during my college days and for a few years after. It lasted until I couldn’t stand big government taking most of my pay and wasting it in ways I could never imagine.
Liberals used to have solutions (my first presidential election had me casting a vote for Jerry Brown all for that 15% flat tax); now they sadly monger around for power and lust after their lost glory days, engaging in juvenile name calling on air and off, in publications and presumably even in their dreams.
I don’t know what I am any more, I’m not a republican and not a liberal. I find myself voting for the lesser of two or three evils lately. Idealism and party alignments belong to the young I suppose.
I listened to Jay regularly. I found him amusing, thought provoking and perturbing, usally in the same show! One thing is for sure, if you listened regularly, you can attest that he has been very vocal in his many criticisms of the Bush administration; to equate him with a mindless republican lacky is ignorant. He is anti-Iraq-occupation, a position you would figure a few democrats would jump on in their only focus: regaining the whitehouse, but sadly they persist in name calling, happily living in denial that their lack of agenda has become tiresome and most of Americans work a 40 hour week and don’t have personal trainers, personal assistants and don’t wish they lived in Europe!
The last fifteen years of politics has been quite entertaining actually. We had a president of the United States, highly skilled in charisma and eloquent speech treat us like kindergartners and give the excuse of “it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is”. Now we have a president not so eloquent tell us the battle against terrorism will be a long one, and our ADD mentality can’t cope with three years of combat.
I personally don’t really care if Jay Severin won a pulitzer prize, graduated from Harvard is married, is a ‘dirty old man’or anything else. He entertained me. He put people on the air (callers) in very liberal Massachusetts (where I reside) that had different opinions than our stereotype. You don’t learn from people you agree with, you learn from people whom you do not.
I know how to turn off the radio, and I get regular practice during Mike Barnacle or Eoghan and Brodies’ show on WTKK in Boston.
Sounds like a few of you here need more practice on that button.
Last I heard, Jay Severin, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly were not elected to be on the air.
They are on the air becuase they make money for their companies by getting sponsors to pay for advertising. If you hate Jay but still buy from his sponsors then you are a hypocrite. If you are for free speech but want him off the air because you don’t like what he says, then again, you are a hypocrite.
Everybody has flaws (even me). If all you can do is harp on someone’s flaws to discredit their arguements, you probably don’t have any ideas of your own. Which brings me to my point…
Stop shooting the messagengers and try shooting the messages.
I was googling to find out what happened to Jay Sevrin who mysteriously disappeared from the airwaves of WTKK in Boston.
This article (I think) explains the what has happened and, though left leaning, was readable…UNTIL it went off the lefty ledge begining with:
“…corrupt conservatives who have seized control of the country and ruined the economy, led us into a war for no other reason than to satisfy the whim of their aristocratic leader, and left our homeland security to be administered by cronies and flacks.”
Do leftists, liberals, communists,- whatever you want to be considered – practice this stuff to make it all sound like you’ve been implanted with the script-chip? In my quest for the truth, nothing ends the discussion faster than this stuff. They are nice theories…but do you have any evidence? …and don’t hand me the Downing St memos or whtever they are called. The only proof I’ve ever heard that “Bush Lied” or “War for Oil” or any of the standard pap has been speculation derived from hand picking some facts and filtering tham through the ideology filter of people who, to the rest of us, are the party of ‘abortion on demand right up to the moment of birth” and ‘two guys in chaps spanking eachother in a parade’.
As far as political talk radio goes, I think it’s a bit early to predict that Rush and O’Reily are thru. Air America is unlistenable and apparently so even for liberals since even they aren’t listening.
Please, Please, Please!!! Find some evidence for your wacked out theories. Only people who have stopped being objective or people who do not think for themselves are buying the baseless claims of the ‘America is Bad’ crowd.
…either that or just move to France!
Mike –
First of all, we’re liberals and damn proud of it. Liberals built this nation while conservatives sat on the sidelines and kvetched.
Proof that Republicans in Congress are corrupt:
– Cunningham: $2.5 mil in bribes
– DeLay: breaking Texas election laws
– Frist: insider trading, lying about it, plus allowing government malfeasance and malfunction go un-investigated and thereby putting democracy at risk
– Bob Ney: took pay for play$$ from Abramoff
– Hastert: subverting government and democracy by allowing these and other scandals go un-investigated
More to come as the Abramoff and MZM scandals unfold. (If you only listen to rightwing radio, you may not know about these scandals since they only broadcast the White House spin on everything.)
Proof that we went to Iraq because of oil:
– Answer this question honestly: If Iraq’s number one source of revenue was olive oil, instead of fuel oil, would we be there? The answer is no. If you said “yes” then why aren’t we aren’t invading and occupying the Sudan/Darfur/Myanamar/North Korea and other places where brutal dictators are commiting genocide? The terrorists were in some of these places until George Bush turned Iraq into a spawning ground for hatred of the US.
And don’t hand me that “morals” crap. The Republican Party is led by closeted gay men, including the RNC Chair Ken Mehlman. George and Laura Bush have gay friends, so do Rick Santorum and his wife. They just spout their anti-gay rhetoric to get the votes of haters who aren’t smart enough to smell bullshit when it’s right under their nose.
Two thirds of Americans believe that women have the inate right to determine what happens to their own bodies. Conservatives are demanding that pregnancy become a government program. When Roe is abolished in a year or two, in states where abortion is illegal the government will be charged with ensuring that each and every pregnancy comes to term. Conservatives want government-enforced pregnancies. Orwell couldn’t have dreamed this up. Abortion is wrong. We need less reproducing, not more. But the government should stay out of it. It’s a personal and/or family matter.
At this point, I say bring it on. Get rid of Roe and let’s take the battle over abortion to the ballot box, which is what the psued0-moralists on the right say they want it. With two thirds of the electorate against them, candidates who support government-enforced pregnancy are going to get fewer votes than candidates who do. Count me as a lilberal who supports making candidates state their positions on whether the government should force women to procreate.
The rightwing of this country is morally bankrupt. Here’s the proof: Conservatives get outraged over Clinton’s blow job but they think nothing of wasting the lives of thousands of brave American service personnel by sending them to war for no reason. They put their bizarre cult-like devotion to Dear Leader above what is morally right. That is moral bankruptcy.
Even Bush and Cheney have admitted that the reasons they took the country to war were bogus. Therefor one of two things happened: Either Bush/Cheney et al lied about their reasons took the country to war, or we can believe them now that they just, you know, screwed up. Shit happens. If the latter is true, George W. Bush will have a place in history for committing the worst case of official negligence in the history of warfare. Personally, I’d prefer to think he lied. The idea that anybody could screw up so badly that thousands of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis were killed and over $250 BILLION was wasted. (So far.)
What conservatives are starting to understand is that George W. Bush is the worst president in the U.S. history. For some reason, though, the dawning realization that Bush is incompetent at just about everything but lying (which is no mean feat for a man who can barely speak in complete sentences) makes rightwingers lash out at liberals.
He’s taking the GOP down. Enjoy the ride!
My biggest problem with Jay Sevrin wasn’t that he was a pompous, self-aggrandizing ass; nor that he was right wing; nor even that he was bigoted and close-minded. To his credit, he was the closest of the RNC propagandists on 96.9 FM to actually being conservative.
My problem with Jay Sevrin was that he was fundamentally un-American. He did not understand what a true American conservative was. He repeatedly said on his program that a conservative believed in “conserving the Constitution.” I have no idea what that meant, but I do know that a true American conservative adheres to the ideology of America as set forth in our Declaration of Independence and the preamble of our Constitution. This was an ideology that was drawn from the philosophies of Locke, Hobbs, Rousseau, and especially John Stuart Mill. A true American conservative believes that people do and should have the right to do what they wish provided the free exercise of that right does not infringe on the rights of others. They believe the primary role of government is to adjudicate when conflicts over the exercise of individual rights occurs. They believe that the Constitution is the social contract between governed and government and that we, the people, must hold our government to its obligations under that contract. They do not believe in dynasties: Political or economic. They do not believe that dissent is un-patriotic or un-American but rather that dissent can be most patriotic and most American. They do not believe in institutionalized activities that violate the Constitution. True conservatives believe in a representative government that represents the will and needs of the citizenry as a whole and not the will and desires of corporate interests. While a true conservative may be disturbed by ill-administered welfare programs for the benefit of the poor, that bothers them far less than the myriad welfare programs our federal and state governments run for the benefit of private corporations and foreign potentates.
Jay Severin, like so many of the right wing propagandists, was wont to go into tirades against welfare programs for the poor that cost the taxpayers of this nation a bit of money, but I never once heard him rip into the government for the massive welfare programs it runs for the timber industry, oil industry, sugar refineries, drug companies, etc., that cost our nation’s taxpayers a great deal of money.
It somewhat saddens me that Jay Sevrin caused his downfall by misrepresenting his C.V.. What should have sunk his career was publically advocating the institutionalized use of torture by the government of the United States of America. That was both utterly un-American, and unforgiveable.
Seriously, the worst article I ever read. Can it be more one-sided? You are terrible.
I’m unfamiliar with the subject but in my view, Chris’ posting said it all (and if this was “the worst article ever read” by ‘terrible article’ I’d love to see his/her reading list). I’m here because I can’t figure how Jay Severn justifies his claim that Al Gore is “the biggest loser on the planet” (as I brlieve he said on a recent IMUS show) when more Americans voted for Gore than for Bush. I don’t know how many presidents were elected after losing the popular vote, but I’m guessing it’s not many. So what makes him “the biggest loser?” His best-selling book on global warming? Perhaps his comedic talent evidenced recently on SNL? Please enlighten me, Jay Severin fans.
Your comment: “Recent ratings show declines for Rush and O’Reilly in key markets” is a joke. You know very well that any decline in any market is due to competing CONSERVATIVE hosts. Why not do your readers an actual service and speak to why liberal talk shows do so poorly….?
Severin is a liar…He lied about his education, he lied about his real name, he lied about family situation….Wake up people….He is a dirty , old fart who happened to have some coin in the bank…He also stabbed Michael Graham in the back before returning to 96.9 for a second time
jay is gay
Do not forget, he is gay. He tries really hard to hide it, like listening rock, pretending he know a lot about women, but he is a lonely loser living alone with a dog or cat and doing a lock himself.
What’s up with those teeth? He looks stupid and he is a fag that needs bodyguards. Definetely not a mans’ man and women who supposedely go with him. Ecch!!!! Very articulate, lonely and couldn’t make it on the Bill Maher show. I think Imus is about to throw him off as well. He actually started on WRKO at night when Mike Katz was on in the morning. Katz had to be let go since he wanted to use an 11 cent bullet to cure immigration and drug crime. I would love to hear Ted Kennedy on Severins’ show as a guest. As much as I don’t like Ted, I think Severin would be destroyed by him. At least Howie confronts some of the peeps he hates on his show. Severin, no guts, no military, although an expert on the subject. Two years, maybe.
In Mass we now have the right to watch women whip out her boob and feed her brat. The right to watch the teeny bopper roll a joint and then smoke it. And the two gay guys to hold hands coo at each other and suck face. Yet…This is what everyone is worried about? Whether Jay Severin lied on his resume…Wow…no wonder why Obama duped so many people!