A Shrill New Voice Demands More Flogging Of 9/11

by Steve Young

It seems a shame to give any space at all to a Saturday afternoon talk-radio show, especially when the host is somewhat below the radar, except when the Right wants to roll out their feminist/lesbian democrat. Kind of like a female Zell Miller.

But listening to her show this past Saturday, offering up her theory that there was an under-reporting by television of the three-year anniversary of our 9/11 tragedy, and that it was a purposeful effort to unseat George Bush, Tammy Bruce was just too juicy to pass up.

For those who are not familiar with Tammy Bruce...good. For those who are, I remind you that she is the former head of the California chapter of National Organization of Women who now presents herself as a Democrat, lesbian, feminist who has become a Fox News and Newmax.com contributor. A real break from the glut of "blond-bimbo" conservatives, Tammy is a brunette.

The newest addition to the Laura Ingram, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, AM radio Ladies of Loud, Tammy Bruce is fighting fang and nail to garner the How Shrill Can I Annoy and Distort The Truth While Spewing Hate trophy, which I actually believe Coulter has retired. Tammy's comment alluding to the Democrat effort to defeat Bush by not airing more 9/11 memorial and reflection would be jokable if it didn't fly in the face of the flip-flopping Republican attack machine. You know, the one that says we shouldn't use the war as a campaign issue even though Karl Rove told Republican governors that they should use the war as a campaign issue.

Who's kidding who? The ugliness of using the Twin Towers and 9/11 as a political device has long been incorporated into a Republican battle yell.

To somehow connect what Tammy feels is inadequate attention by "television" as an indication of a anti-Bush sentiment would be using the war as political tool, is as absurd as, say, Donald Rumsfeld standing in front of the Pentagon on 9/11/04 and telling us that the terrorists had underestimated our Commander-in-Chief. Wait a minute. He did say that.

Okay. How about Tammy's comment being as absurd as if, say, Vice-President Cheney said that John Kerry winning the election would make it more likely that America would be attacked. What? He did say that? Damn I have gotta start researching this stuff before I waste all this cyber-ink.

But isn't that the point. Talk radio is all about throwing out any anti-liberal, anti-Democratic, anti-Kerry...um, stuff, against the wall to see how much...stuff, sticks. No matter how flimsy the basis for the crap (oops, sorry), they throw.

This week Sean Hannity and the rest of the Republican Broadcast team, all but said the documents supporting the CBS report that President Bush's National Guard service wasn't exactly a full-scale commitment of the part of our under-estimated Commander-in-Chief; that they had been forgeries. After CBS provided verifiable proof that these documents were not forged, the Lords of Loud immediately went on the air to apologize and set the record straight. Hey, I said the same talk show hosts who blasted CBS for sending out fallacious information came on to correct their earlier reporting. Hello, is anybody there? Is this thing on?

Well, they didn't. In fact they repeated their original "throw against the wall" scenario, as if it still remained an issue.

That would be like saying most Fox News viewers believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 attack or that Rep. Henry Hyde continues to say that there was a direct connection between Iraq and 9/11 or that Bush cheerleaders like Sean Hannity continue to say that WMD were in Iraq just before we attacked but were probably scurried off to Syria, without one iota of fact to back it up. I mean, none of that could possibly be true.

D'oh!

I think I'd be better off to put a halt to the rest of this column and do a bit more fact-checking before I get another thing wrong. Perhaps Tammy Bruce and the rest of talk radio should do the same.