In his Aug. 25 column, Brent Bozell takes Dr. Laura’s side on her N-word controversy, uncritically repeating her nonsensical claim that she was quitting her radio gig because “If she could not exercise her freedom of speech, she said, she was not interested in the job.”
But she did exercise her freedom of speech; she simply does not want anyone to hold her accountable for what she says.
Bozell goes on to distort the facts about the controversy:
Watchdogs on the left had pounced on a conversation she had with a black woman in which she proclaimed something that everyone with cable TV knows is true. The N-word is acceptable vernacular for black comedians on HBO, but it’s not something you can ever, ever say if you’re not black.
While making this point, Dr. Laura purposely said the N-word repeatedly during this proclamation, and that was all the Left needed to start contacting sponsors, suggesting they shouldn’t want their products associated with this viciously racist talk show. It didn’t matter that even liberal editorialists in The Washington Post declared that there was nothing at all racist in what the doctor said.
The Left had found their to chance to silence her, and they pounced. All they needed to do was distort the context completely, and they did so masterfully.
As others have pointed out, Dr. Laura’s use of the N-word may have actually been the least offensive part of her rant:
In actuality, it’s the rest of her rant that drips with racial animus. To recap: Dr. Laura immediately dismisses her caller’s problems, uses a racist joke to prove her non-racism, insists that black people voted for Obama over nothing but racial solidarity (as if pre-Obama, African Americans never voted for Democrats), strongly resents the fact that “black guys” can use the N-word but she can’t, and declares that “if you’re that hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor, don’t marry outside of your race.” Dr. Laura isn’t known for her sensitivity, but this is an impressive display of raw racial resentment.
Nevertheless, Bozell goes on, because he has something to promote:
The hypocrites. Leftists say outrageous things on the radio routinely, things they truly mean, too, and those remarks never see the light of day on ABC, CBS, and NBC. Talking about the N-word is wrong but wishing death on political enemies is okay when the rhetorical bombs are dropped on conservatives. The Media Research Center has a new report chronicling who the real radio hatemongers are.
In fact, neither Bozell nor anyone else at the MRC have any idea “who the real radio hatemongers are” because they have done no comparative analysis of liberal vs. conservative radio hosts, and thus has not established an emperical basis on which to decide which “hatemongers” are more “real.”
And as we’ve previously noted, the MRC report fails to account for the fact that the liberal radio hosts it criticizes have a much smaller audience than the top conservative radio hosts, who do — despite Bozell’s insistence that no conservative has “ever said anything remotely similar” — say offensive things on a regular basis.