A Listen Back At The Lords Of Loud

by Steve Young

The Lords of Loud have been very kind to me this past year. They've provided enough B.U.L.L. (Bush's Über League of Liars) shit to fertilize a thousand acres of columns. But enough of metaphor. Let's get down to the real crap (not a metaphor).

Looking back at the past year, Talk Radio gave us so much to be thankful for. Attacks. Personal attacks. Denial of personal attacks. Spin. Denial of spin. Premium websites. And what about those intellectual-stimulating books? The Lords discovered that if they could sell bull on the radio, bull in written word was a natural extension. It was as if they could talk to you without having to talk. And could these boys sell? Amazon should be sending them open-ended gift cards. Not only selling books, but while the Talkers pitched, they kept us up to date on how poorly Hillary's book would do compared to theirs.

But the Lords of Loud couldn't do it alone. Thank God the for the Fox Contributor wing of the Republican Party. The Dick Morris's, the Newt Gingrich's, the Ann Coulter's. There were more than one of each, right? I mean, they seemed to turn up on every talk show at the exact same time. And can we ever forget The Swifties? I hope not. We thank them for their service to this country thirty-five years ago and today. Without them we would have had to rely on personal stories of actual eyewitnesses on John Kerry's boat to learn what kind of man Kerry was. Without any of the above we would have had to depend on only a Democrat, Zell Miller, to 'splain why imaginary WMD, post-war mismanagement, thousands of dead in Iraq, and a deficit larger than Godzilla and Karl Rove's brain combined, demanded President Bush's reelection.

2004 was a year that Talk Radio (almost, kind of, not really) ignored Bill Clinton and went after Howard Dean...that is, until John Kerry became the Dems' obvious choice. Every misstep, actually every step, was blared over (and over and over) the airwaves. To tell you the truth, I could not get enough of "flip-flopper." And then there was the "I voted for the 87 billion right after I voted against it." Or was it the other way around? I think it got funnier the more they played it. And when any of multi-talented Lords did their impression of Kerry, I was on the floor. Where do these guys get the time to hone their mimicry? Rich Little would be spinning in his grave...if he were dead.

The year's attacks were political, but not necessarily aimed at politicians. Joe Wilson, Michael Moore, Bill Moyers, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Michael Moore, Hollywood, George Soros, MoveOn, Michael Moore, the liberal media and the ACLU. The ACLU: Where would the Lords of Loud been in 2004 without the ACLU? Those Jew bastards try to take away every single one of our rights and Christian holidays to boot, just as sure as I'm a Jew...bastard. Anti-Semitism was rolled out in all it's buzzword glory with "They're ripping Christ and Christmas away from us." Even the Jewish talkers, Prager and Medved, jumped on that blame "political correctness" and whomever feels any sensitivity to having their kid sing "O Holy Jesus Is Lord," etc. in school or ye mall.

And when the liberal whores questioned their "news-worthiness," the Talkers stood on their well-deserved rationale. They were not news reporters. They were news-analyzers. Infotainers. L.A.'s KABC even took to running commercials saying that when you were hearing the top of the hour reports you were hearing "news." When you heard their talk shows, you were hearing "opinions." Is this infotainment or deception? At least Jon Stewart calls his infortainment, "fake news." But then again, he's a liberal whore.

Who is really responsible for the success of talk radio? Look no further than Hannity's response to anyone calling him a "great American:" He echoes, "You're a great American." While it reeks of an elementary, as in elementary school, "No, you are," it also says much of why the B.U.L.L. excrementing works so well. The "great American" audience loves it! And why not? There's always someone else to blame. You're right all the time. You don't have to listen to differing opinions without being cut off or belittled in mid-differing. And they say that Talk Radio has a proclivity toward fascism. Damn you, you elite they!

Talk Radio spent the past year, turning every event, including the election, into a sporting event. Perhaps even a war. Your evil country against ours. And if you are a real fan, your side always wins. Man, that feels good. Those who say that you need to lose every so often to truly appreciate winning, don't know what it feels like to win. Those who say you have to learn from your mistakes, don't have an inkling of how the Bush administration works.

Alas, as I write this homage to Talk, the glory that was 2004 is nearly over. With the year winding down and the election all but a glorious memory, the big money Lords of Loud took a well-deserved jaw break with mini- mouth wannabes filling-in. But with a week left, the lake ran dry. It looked bad. The young-'uns would have to spend the week railing on Bill Clinton. And then...

The great news came rolling in with the tide. Tsunami! More than 100,000 casualties in one of the most deadliest events in world history. And bless our lil' talkers at the mike, they were more than ready to latch on to the what would become their biggest story of the week. Perhaps the biggest story of the year. The really, really important story. The United Nations calls America stingy! The talk subs approached it in the same balanced style we've come to know and love. And why not? Those third world thieves living rent free in New York were calling you out America.

One hundred thousand dead is horrible, but let me spend the next three hours (two with Bill), droning on about that UN guy who said we're stingy. I guess they forgot that we saved France's ass in World War II. Oops. Sorry -- wrong righteous indignation. President Bush needn't break from his vacation to address the world's great sorrow and America's sorrow. That's what that bad, bad man, Clinton, would have done. Doesn't the world understand that we give more money and humanitarian aid than any of those hate America crowd? And, by the way. Michael Moore hates America. You connect the dots.

Filling O'Reilly's shoes was the really, really annoyed John Gibson of Fox News who began his hour showing just how fair and balanced he was by saying, "I was going to have someone from the UN come on..." That was it. Gibson didn't even have the guts to provide a "but." At least Bill brings on opposing points of view before he degrades them. Curtis Sliwa, Guardian Angel founder and New York talk show host, sitting in for Hannity, called UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and resident blasphemer, Jan Egeland, "Egghead" or "Blockhead" (or something like that) for calling rich western countries "stingy." I was really laughing too hard to remember the actual clever turn. But taking Egeland and making it into a derogatory term? Absolutely precious. And they say intelligent political discourse is dead?

I'm sure Savage and Rush couldn't wait to jump on the fact that way more were killed by our so-called friend, Mother Nature, in fifteen minutes than all the U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. And what about those traffic accidents? Did one member of any of those killed in a homeland car accident complain about the lack of body armor? Pussies.

Damn you, Mother Nature. Damn you, UN Damn you, elite media. Did I forget to damn Michael Moore? Damn you all to hell.