Here I thought Rush O'Hannity all resembled each other because they were picked by program directors hired to find cookie cutter people.

They PLAN to be redundant? Don't the Rush clones worry they'll get the axe the moment the "durable majority" comes to a close?

Let's hope not. They should stand in teh bread line with some of the people they've held in contempt for so long.

Well, duh.

I guess it's interesting to have some actual details about how the party line got distributed. And it sort-of explains the winger pro-active sensitivity about the Fairness Doctrine & all that... The disclaimer at the end from WTMJ, on the other hand, is just wonderful. Who is this "Journal Broadcast Group", anyhow?

And here I was thinking that the Republicants were all like the Borg. My bad.

Where was this story a year or three or five ago?

This became obvious to me many years ago at a time I was a registered Republican and avid Rush listener (3 hours every day). Rush is entertaining and can be very funny. And, if you don't know all of a story, he can be very compelling.

I had listened to a speech Clinton gave about education. About 20 minutes of "Teachers are the backbone of the nation" and "We need to do more to support teachers nationwide". An absolutely vanilla white speech that filled time before whatever game I wanted to see.

The next day, listening to Rush, I noticed something. Rush was claiming (with an audio of Clinton) that Clinton had proposed some sweeping liberal policy that had to be stopped. I had heard the speech, and the audio was obviously faked, cropped, edited, and blatantly out of context - that would be - a LIE.

That was my Katrina moment. Once I saw it clearly, the sunshine was blinding. I'm now registered Independent and will probably never again consider myself to be a Republican.

I have to wonder how Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would react if they started receiving talking points emails from the Obama White House.

Reenact the fairness doctrine!

Re-enact the fairness dctrine.

"I have to wonder how Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would react if they started receiving talking points emails from the Obama White House."

Well I think the obvious lesson to be learned is to take with a grain of salt any obviously biased source for what it is. I said in a post from earlier in the week that I don't listen to talk radio and I don't look for "news" from cable stations with an agenda either way.

Everyone has an agenda, Zak.

Re-enact the fairness dctrine.

Several years ago, I would have agreed, but it seems to me that by giving the Right Wing enough rope they have effectively hung themselves. Sure some of the room temperature IQ listeners - the ones who are 'bitter' and 'cling' to their guns - will take a little longer, but the writing is on the wall.

I wouldn't want to see the Fairness Doctrine used by the Republicans (social conservatives, fundamentalists, etc...) to demand equal time for their 'intelligent design' theories, or having to listen to the 'climate change deniers' just to be fair.

In my opinion, the fairness doctrine would invite a false equivalency - just what we do not need more of.

As the internet and blogs become more prevalent in disseminating information, the Right wing will use it as well, but they will be less influential. The world is growing smaller, and you can chose the hide in the backwoods of a Red State, while listening to Rush and his cohorts, or you can realize that young people are moving out of the depressed areas you're living, and become part of the 'real' world, instead of the imagined conservative one.

As I (basically) said over at Kevin's blog, I'm shocked, shocked that right-wing talk radio listeners are a bunch of completely gullible idiots. Who would have guessed?

I mean, besides everyone except them?

The listeners should somehow be clued into the fact that the hosts are nothing but entertainers. They are not political analysts or pundits or whatever title that would lend them an air of credibility.

Jon Stewart was on this four years ago:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=115760&title=talking-points

Hey, I recognize many of those from this year! Huh, who'da thunk it?

Being from Wisconsin I know the situation Mr. Shelly describes. They are basically three radio talk show hosts that dominate the market there, the two Shelly spoke of and a third at a rival station. Their market is not Milwaukee at all and I doubt if they have a lot of listeners within in the city. It's the areas outside of it, particularly Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee, and Dodge counties. These are the most Republican and conservative areas of the state and virtually the only counties McCain carried. It also where the money is in terms of advertising dollars. Basically programmers like Mr. Shelly hijacked venerable AM news stations like WTMJ and WISN and tuned them into "WGOP" because they knew where the money was and how to get the listeners in order to get the advertisers.

And the interesting thing, outside of these areas, the state GOP has basically imploded because most state residents aren't going to have their choices dictated to by three radio talk show hosts in Milwaukee who they don't see and hear while they lead the state GOP by the nose.

Entertainers yes, but political power brokers? Forget about it.

And ironically enough, one of those talking points is to pretend the lefty blogosphere is an "echo chamber." Right, Red State Mike?

@Ed
Holycrap, thanks for sharing that clip

It would be extremely difficult to distinguish the Republican bullshit machine from 04 and 08. Many of the same people, almost all the same talking points.