Mike Stark and Dan Riehl joined Howard Kurtz on Reliable Sources this morning to talk about KSFO and Spockogate. Stark tried to stay on topic throughout, but, Dan had to attack him personally. (Check out John Cole's encounter with him.) It would have been nice if Kurtz gave Stark a chance to respond in kind, but I guess that was asking for a little too much.
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Download These right-wingers are so desperate to play the victim it's pathetic. Since they can't defend their eliminationist, hate-filled, irresponsible rhetoric, they obfuscate the issue with accusations of censorship. Spocko wasn't trying to silence anyone; he was simply informing the advertisers of what they're associating their products with. Melanie Morgan and the rest of the KSFO hacks have the right to say whatever they want. And we as bloggers have a right to point it out while their advertisers have the right to decide against sponsoring it. It's really not a difficult concept to understand.
In case you haven't seen it, here's the Daily Show's hilarious take on "Hannity sucks ass."
Update: Roger Ailes says that "Howard Kurtz has a problem with the First Amendment. He's never read it."
Yes, a media critic who doesn't understand the First Amendement. Of course, Stark, a citizen holding no political office, couldn't violate the First Amendment if he tried. And Stark didn't call upon the government to silence KKKSFO. But for Kurtz, the mere act of criticizing the haters who call for the murder of Nancy Pelosi, Bill Keller and millions of Muslims is not an act of free speech but a violation of the constitution.
To be fair, Howie did select Fred Flintstone to provide the counterpoint to Stark. But since Howie was making all the points Fred couldn't manage to spit out, Fred was superfluous.
Howard Kurtz did say:
KURTZ: I want to give you my take, which is, I don't like boycotts, but, you know, tough luck. It's fair game when you're in the media business for critics to talk about what's on your air.
And ABC Radio should not be saying no comment. ABC is in the communications business. They ought to have some kind of comment about what they did.
But you all are continuing this exercise in free speech. And it's an interesting one. It shows that bloggers have become a real force.
