We’ve talked often about what I call the talk radio political culture which not just frames things in outrageous, push-the-envelope, demonizing sound bites but rewards, winks or enables it. Here (h/T Americablog) is former NY Republican Senator Al D’Amato drawing a very firm, assertive line on a comment Jack Burkman makes that he calls “racist.” It’s at the end of the segment. The moral? There are limits. And if a Republican reacts angrily to this kind of polemical demonization, just think about how some independent voters may react — if not in 2010 then most assuredly 2012, when there will be bigger voter turnout.
THIS IS MUST VIEWING.
Watch this in its entirety and see D’Amato cut out any nicities when he has enough of Burkman’s rhetoric (it comes at about 4:56):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kHntD9ehbM&feature=player_embedded
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.