I’m not a big fan of ESPN (something I’ll probably write more about in a future post) but I sort of like listening to the station’s Colin Cowherd on his morning show ‘The Herd’. Cowherd’s strength is that he’s great at articulating ‘big picture’ concepts that you’re not going to hear about from your typical sports show host. However, this morning he took a rather narrow-picture cheap shot at conservative talk radio and so naturally I had to post about it.
Colin knows sports but does he understand conservative radio?
Cowherd was talking about the NFL scandal involving the New Orleans Saints paying bounties to players as incentive to injure opponents. Like usual, Cowherd took a fairly sophisticated approach, delving into the difference between private authoritative bodies (such as the NFL) and governmental ones. He also touched on the concepts of morality (in terms of the level of violence we’re willing to accept for our viewing pleasure). So far so good. Unfortunately, Cowherd suddenly took a sharp left turn and attacked conservative radio, saying that the reason his show does better out West (not just California but in Phoenix, Colorado…etc) than the Midwest is that when you listen to conservative talk radio the hosts are always “pounding the desk” screaming about morality. Cowherd goes on to declare that he’s not a “moralist” and then the wheels spun off when he started rambling about conservatives ‘not liking laws they don’t like’ (or something like that), and well, he pretty much lost me after that.
So…
Without getting into Cowherd’s strange views on the nation’s directional regions, you always know when someone who takes a shot at conservative talk radio never actually listens to conservative talk radio because he or she always makes the same silly charges against it. Of the big three that I listen to: Andrew Wilcow, Hannity, and Mark Levin-I never hear any sort of religious table pounding morality speeches. 90% of the content on their shows revolve around Obama wrecking the economy, Obama wrecking our military, and the nefarious tactics of the liberal media. And yet, if you listen to liberals or independents like Cowherd, you’d think that conservative radio shows were nothing but venom spewing, fire and brimstone morality sermons.
Liberals see conservative talk show hosts as this...
This gets back to an overall theme of this site; people on the Left either have no clue as to what political conservatism is, or are so lacking in any type of intellectual arguments, that they repeatedly run and hide under the dark covers of bogus accusations. Political conservatism is essentially about the freedom and liberty of the individual. Freedom to create wealth for yourself, freedom to defend yourself, and the liberty to keep other people’s stupid life decisions from dragging you down. That’s pretty much it. Liberals are continuously trying to invade our lives through increasingly wide-spreading institutions, but when they do it, the media portrays it as selfless public service. On the other hand, if a conservative talk host mentions that the government shouldn’t be encouraging public schools to pass out contraception to fifteen year olds, he or she is labeled as a bible thumping zealot.
...while liberals see themselves like this.
The monster challenge between now and the November election will be to shake up as many Democrats and “Independents” as possible. We need to get them to realize that it is the conservative philosophy which bends over backwards to defend the freedoms they take for granted every day. And as for Cowherd, somebody should tell him that it’s the Left which tries to shut down opinionated radio talk shows, not the conservatives he’s making fun of.
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Keep up the fight.
-Spencer
What’s really weird about Colin is that he is a pretty patriotic guy; he’s a very pro-Capitalism guy. He’s not a big “99%” guy. He’s anti-meritless lawsuits. If his understanding of Obama’s politics were at the same level of his understanding as sports, he’d probably knock Rush Limbaugh off the air for having an even BETTER, more intellectually sound program than even Rush’s (which is really saying something because guys like Rush, Levin and especially Wilkow are intellectually untouchable by anything anyone else has). But you’re right, Colin routinely shows his ignorance on the content of these programs. He just listens to what other guys tell him about the show… That we want more laws that tell other people what to do, and how to do it. But we don’t… We’re constantly saying that Roe v Wade is wrong–because it disrespects the 10th Amendment. We agree with guys like Dick Cheney, who think that the DOMA is wrong–because it disrespects the 10th amendment.
The 10th amendment, along with the 9th, is so damn important to us Exactly because those are the specific freedoms that basically says that unless the constitution gives a right or power to the federal government, it belongs to the states–and then, ultimately, Us (the people). How is that wanting to tell you what to do? To have more government in your life to say what you can do? All we want in exchange for that is the right to say, no, please don’t use my tax dollars to pay for your mistakes. Whether they are personal mistakes (unwanted pregnancies, contracting STDs, being unhirable because of a life-long career in crime, etc.) or very public mistakes like deciding that we shall have NO jobs unless they are “green” jobs.
Great commentary, Dairenn.
I agree, Colin generally does come across as patriotic and is certainly far ahead of his ESPN cohorts in his grasp of these sort of societal issues. I think that’s what makes his liberal-generic, out-of-touch comments about conservative talk radio so frustrating. Simply put, he’s smarter than that but he either really doesn’t understand what he’s saying, or, is just playing it safe and trying very hard to stay in that mythical “moderate” category to appease his audience and his superiors at ESPN. I did hear him once say that he voted for both Bush and Obama which leads me to believe (unless he’s lying) that while he has an intellectual handle on certain topics he has a pretty weak understanding of who represents what-and I’d say knowing whose on whose side is pretty darn important.
One extremely good note concerning talk radio is the fact you get the “honest” news about what is really happening in our country. You cannot trust the corrupt liberal news media for a single bit of news. They report what the Democrats tell them to report and they hide what they do not want us to hear.
Absolutely, Rob. The liberal media is a colossal part of the problem. And you’re correct about conservative talk radio. That’s why Obama has been trying to shut it down since he got into office.