Huffington & Ham discuss blog hate speech

I've got so much to try to get to tonight, but I had to quickly share this piece of footage. I love Arianna Huffington, and I even liked her when she was a conservative. Her sketches with Al Franken on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect during the 1996 election were very funny and cool.

Her Website, The Huffington Post, (or HuffPo, as I refer to it) is a click I make every day when catching up on the latest political news.

Huffington recently appeared on Howard Kutz's CNN show Reliable Sources to talk about free speech and hate speech in the blogosphere, and conservative Mary Katherine Ham was also on the show.

It's amazing to me how Ham tries to politicize hate speech on blogs. Her Ham-handed attempt to paint Huffington with the well-worn brush from the conservative arsenal - being a purveyor of hate speech against this administration - falls flat. I guess when it comes to hate speech, familiarity breeds contempt, especially considering Ham's history with Michelle Malkin. Anyone doubting Malkin's intolerance credentials, click Here.

Ham tried to call out Arianna for some comments that were left on her site following Vice President Cheney's close call over in Afghanistan, when the front gate of a Marine compound he was staying at was attacked by a suicide bomber. A few morons on Huffington's site posted some ridiculous comments, expressing regret that Cheney was unharmed in the incident.

Of course, right-wingers went nuts, claiming that Huffington waited too long to take the comments down, etc. In the video above, Ham tries to make hay of it again.

Arianna was right to come right back over the top of Ham, who insinuates here that Huffington supported such speech, or the idea behind it. Lots of morons leave absurd messages on both sides of the political spectrum - no ideology or political viewpoint is exempt. Ham's whining about Malkin is also a kick - maybe if Malkin weren't so insanely intolerant, she wouldn't be such a lightning rod for nasty comments. I'm not defending people who call her the "C-word," but she brings a lot of detractors on herself. If you don't believe me, cruise on over to her Website and see for yourself. I think Malkin and Ann Coulter were separated at birth.

Where Huffington really makes sense here is when she refers to Websites' content; it IS absurd for people like Ham to try and paint liberals or people who read liberal blogs as "monkeys hanging from the rafters" when she's in the corner of the likes of Malkin and Coulter.

If you go by content, people like Malkin and Coulter lead the way in hate speech. When Huffington mentions this, Ham predictably swallows her tongue.

Air America crash lands? Not quite

Say it ain't so, Air America Radio. The fledgling left-wing liberal radio network has declared bankruptcy. It really comes as no surprise, since there have been rumors of financial trouble since before it even went on the air in March 2004.

It's too bad, because if the company was run right, I'm sure it could be a success, and it may end up being one after it emerges from bankruptcy proceedings.

One could easily argue that there certainly is a market for a liberal slate of radio programs. After all, over 50 million people voted for John Kerry (or should I say against President Bush) in the last presidential election, so one would think that a majority of those people would be interested in that political point of view.

I hope the network gets its act together. I'm a paid subscriber for its podcasts. Of course, I'd enjoy listening to the show live on satellite radio, but Air America opted to go with the inferior company, XM Radio. If memory serves me correctly, Air America was initially on XM and Sirius. Going to Sirius would be a good start, since that company is on its way up, and XM is going in the other direction.

I'm not exactly fretting over this news, or fearing that AAR will go out of business. After all, Fox News Channel lost an average of $90 million a year for about five years before it became profitable. It's just that Rupert Murdoch has pockets that are, ahem, just a bit deeper than AAR.

Liberal Stephanie Miller appeared on Howard Kurtz's CNN show Reliable Sources recently to discuss AAR's fate. Take a listen...



Get it together, Air America. We need liberal voices in the media like never before, with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Lielly, Ann Coulter and the rest of the lying, distorting, radical religious right conservative scum distorting, lying and bullying their way to power. With a little luck, in about two weeks, part of the GOP power will be eroded.