Limbaugh and Hannity - shut the %$!@#% up!

What? Has he completely lost his mind? Has passion and belief in Kirsten Gillibrand's congressional campaign overtaken Mr. True Heart Times? Hardly...

I spend quite a bit of time listening to political talk radio. I'm not a die-hard; it does get a little tiring after a while. But I'm thinking all of these guys have jumped the shark. They're becoming irrelevant. At least their constant badgering of the listener is growing tiresome.

Here's why I say this - All of these national guys (Rush, Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al) are listened to by countless millions of people every day. They are on the most listened to radio stations in the country. Their books go to #1 on the best sellers' list. They all are vitriolic - the nation skews conservative. They have been beating the Democrats up for months and years. I can't tell you how many times I heard Sean Hannity say, "The thought of Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House ought to scare you.". Well, it does scare me. But apparently, it doesn't scare enough people, since beginning Jan. 1, she will be. With all of the listeners they have, all of the power they supposedly possess, all of the campaigning they did for their "buddies", most every conservative that ran for office lost! But how can that be, guys? If so many of your listeners were motivated enough to go to the polls, wouldn't there be enough votes across the nation for the "good guys" to win? It just seems odd to me that despite all of the venom they shot at the Democrats, they still came out and won.

Of course, with the Senate apparently 51-49 and the House swinging just a couple of Reps to the Democrats, it's hardly a "national mandate". The left cannot claim some kind of completely victory. But Santorum, Allen (who I thought had a shot for President in '08), John Sweeney (more on him later), and so many others losing, we need to re-evaluate the effect talk radio has on the political process.

John Sweeney's seat was fought for by Kirsten Gillibrand, a political newcomer. They didn't debate, and the ads that were slung back and forth between them were disgusting on both ends. I still haven't heard Kirsten...

I'm sorry, let me give and aside here. I can't deal with
the fact that we have a local congress-ette named
"Kirsten". It's like my lawyer being named "Barbie".
Anyway...

I still haven't hear Kirsten (ick) talk for more than 30 seconds in an ad. I don't really even know if there IS a Kirsten Gillibrand. I contest she's just a New York City actress paid to stand in for Bill Clinton, who's really running the show. I know, lots of anger. But here's my point - and I do have one - Paul Vandenburgh is the #1 talk morning host in Albany. He's a conservative and, to be fair, a friend of John Sweeney. But on Election Day, Paul was on the air telling all his listeners to go and vote for Sweeney. He'd been doing that for weeks, months! And you know what? Even the #1 guy in the market couldn't get the people to re-elect a three term Congressman who's done great things. Evil commercials, nasty politics, a little Bill Clinton and WHAM! you can win the election. Congress-chick Kirsten (bleck) Gillibrand.

I am not saying we should give liberals the benefit of the doubt. They are going to raise my taxes, allow same-sex marriage, abortions all over the place, investigations and impeachement proceedings, and anti-Christian bigotry. That's not conjecture; that's from their own press conferences today.

But now the right-wing talk show hosts are spinning so fast they're going to toss their cookies. Rush says he feels liberated. At least Hannity was giving examples of how the right messed it up. But Sean kept saying, "Don't let your heart be troubled.". Kind of like Kevin Bacon in "Animal House" - he kept saying "All is Well!" as he gets trampled by the thundering horde. Clueless. We also have to thank the guy in Colorado who outed Ted Haggard last week. That didn't help either.

I think talk radio needs to re-evaluate its message. Yesterday proved most talk radio hosts are screaming and yelling and carrying on and many are listening, but it seems they're losing ground. More and more are drifting away from the party line. Has their brand of talk radio crossed too much into entertainment? With situations like the Michael J. Fox controversy, did Rush BECOME the news instead of commenting on it? Were people turned off by that? I think time will tell on many of these issues.

I know that as I grow in Christ, and get more involved in social action at my church, I'm finding myself not as right-wing as I thought I was. Jesus was not a Republican, remember! Christians can't just buy everything the Republicans feed them. As my pastor said on Sunday, "Don't vote as a Republican, Democrat, Green, Yellow, Purple, ETC., vote as a resident of the Kingdom of God." I did. ALL of those I voted for last night lost. But His Kingdom is not of this world. Should I expect any less than all of my preferences going down?

It will be an interesting two years. Kirsten...Ugh! I think I'm going to be sick...