It seems to compare John Ziegler to other talk radio hosts, it make sense to compare him to other political, conservative hosts. To compare him to the Car Talk hosts or Jim Rome would be silly.
From the descriptions in the story Host by David Foster Wallace, he sounds more sensible and polite than many of his contemporaries.Granted, that's not high praise, give how far off the deep end Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and others are. To be sure, I think his brand of spreading hate is lowering the debate in this country at the best, at the worst encouraging racism. To say that "...we are better as a people, as a culture, and as a society than.." the (undefined) "Arab world" is, based on the actions of the most extreme members of the Muslim faith is the same as defining "we" by the actions of Timothy McVeigh.
Some of this might actually be an indication of the how political dialog has gotten more polarized and meaner since 2005, when Host was written, particularly since the election of President Obama. To be sure, there was inflammatory talk radio before 2005. Rush and G Gordon Liddy were making careers out of saying outrageous things. Liddy famously gave advice on how to kill federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents in 1994, in reaction to the ATF's raid on the Branch Davidian cult's compound.
But the level of ugliness has really taken off since the Obama election, with Beck, Limbaugh, Savage and many, many others comparing the president to Adolph Hitler, for one example. This is not to mention the regular, everyday racism common among these programs.
From the descriptions in the story Host by David Foster Wallace, he sounds more sensible and polite than many of his contemporaries.Granted, that's not high praise, give how far off the deep end Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and others are. To be sure, I think his brand of spreading hate is lowering the debate in this country at the best, at the worst encouraging racism. To say that "...we are better as a people, as a culture, and as a society than.." the (undefined) "Arab world" is, based on the actions of the most extreme members of the Muslim faith is the same as defining "we" by the actions of Timothy McVeigh.
Some of this might actually be an indication of the how political dialog has gotten more polarized and meaner since 2005, when Host was written, particularly since the election of President Obama. To be sure, there was inflammatory talk radio before 2005. Rush and G Gordon Liddy were making careers out of saying outrageous things. Liddy famously gave advice on how to kill federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents in 1994, in reaction to the ATF's raid on the Branch Davidian cult's compound.
But the level of ugliness has really taken off since the Obama election, with Beck, Limbaugh, Savage and many, many others comparing the president to Adolph Hitler, for one example. This is not to mention the regular, everyday racism common among these programs.
No comments:
Post a Comment