John and Ken have a radio show in LA.
A couple of days ago they blasted Hugh Hewitt for supporting David Dreier in his re-election bid to the House of Representatives. Dreier is the target of John and Ken’s “political human sacrifice” in their anti-illegal alien campaign. Their point, true as far as it goes, is that Republicans don’t have a greatly better record on handling the illegals problem than Democrats, though they talk about it more.
The segment I heard blasting Hugh was followed by a segment on the initiative to weaken California’s “three strikes” law in various ways. They had an academic from a local university on the show, who pointed out the reduction in the crime rate that seems associated with the current three strikes law. One of their questions to the academic was, “Why does the public seem to support this weakening of the current sentencing laws, when they have clearly worked to reduce crime?”
The answer from the academic, and a telling one it is, was this: 90% of the media coverage of the current three strikes law is negative towards the law, full of unusual cases of people getting long sentences for stealing pizza, etc., even though there are few problems of this sort in the application of the law (what if the pizza thief had multiple prior major crimes?).
The radio boys failed to make the connection to the issue of Republican action regarding the problem of illegal aliens, namely that whenever a strong action is taken by any Republican, the media is full of mostly negative coverage. When elections hang by relatively slim margins, this makes it hard to convince Republicans to do what they’d like to do in their hearts, namely take strong action to police the borders and round up illegals for deportation, and punish employers who knowingly hire them.
So, hey, John and Ken: If you REALLY feel as strongly about the issue of illegal aliens as you say, then lay off the relatively easy target of politicians who don’t always walk their talk, just for awhile, and concentrate on who intimidates those politicians, namely the major media. Feeling your populist oats, boys? Impressed with the fervor you can whip up? Why not take on someone who has as much access to the public ear as you do (which almost no politician does, which is what makes them relatively easy targets for you), and go after every single article or news broadcast that unfairly slants the coverage in favor of illegals?
You’ve discovered by now that politicans you help elect, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, don’t always (or often?) do what you hoped. They same will be true of Dreier’s replacement, if you’re successful.
Political behavior of this sort is the symptom, not the root of the problem, as long as the main stream media get away with murdering the facts.
I’ll take you seriously when you spend as many on-air hours on poor news coverage of the illegals problem as you spend on your little political stunt… In the meantime, Hugh‘s show comes on at the same time as yours…
