Wacky Thom Hartmann: Networks Were Forbidden Since Reagan to Talk of Poverty, Inequality

By Tim Graham
November 11, 2011

Listening to liberal talk radio is sometimes like just listening to the world being turned upside down. Liberal hosts make claims that are demonstrably ridiculous, and expect listeners to lap it up.

Case in point: Thom Hartmann praised the Occupy Wall Street protesters for changing the media conversation. He claimed that ever since Reagan was elected, the media has forbidden any discussion of the maldistribution of wealth, as if the words "Decade of Greed" weren't a media favorite, as if the "three million homeless" weren't routinely on the lips of liberal media personalities:

All of a sudden, for the first time, frankly, in my recollection, since the Jimmy Carter presidency...there was a discussion on the television networks and the corporate media about inequality in the United States, about homelessness...about poverty increasing...about the ratio of wealth inequality... These are things that were verboten [in the media]...Now, because of the Occupy movement, they have become topics of discussion, and because [of that], politicians are starting to talk about them.

Rebuttal? Try network anchors with questions like this:

"Let me ask you to be an analyst for us. You've been working on behalf of children now for years and years. What happened in our country where we can watch children going hungry, pregnant women not getting the proper care. And we don't seem to care as a society. How did we get here?" -- CBS reporter Lesley Stahl interviewing Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund, September 30, 1990 Face the Nation.

Over on the Ed Schultz radio show, Big Ed was claiming (for the umpteenth time) that the Tea Party was a spent force in politics, that the latest elections meant you could stick a fork in the Tea Party and their garbage and lies:

SCHULTZ: Don't let anyone lie to you. America is not a center-right country. The Tea Party is not the driving force in American politics -- that was proven last night -- and the middle class is not the problem for our budgets in America. Last night, common-sense liberal ideas won out over right-wing lies and the garbage that has been shoved down America's throat....The Tea Party took a whippin' last night. Big time.

Schultz added "You can't trust these Republican governors...They may be talkin' the good game after the loss, but they're gonna get right back to work and they're gonna go right back after the middle class again."

And over on the Rachel Maddow show on TV, not only is an unborn baby not a human until feminists decide it's a wanted human, but abortions save lives. The loss of the Mississippi personhood initiative was a victory for "saving lives." Can you believe they keep that up? Talk about "lies and garbage."

MADDOW: Do you have an opinion about why Mitt Romney cannot make up his mind about personhood?

TERRY O`NEILL, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: You know, I don`t understand it. And I`m really disturbed by his suggestion that this should be thrown out to the states and allow the states to make a decision. The last time I checked, a woman`s life is a life worth saving. And you are just as much worth saving if you live in the state of Mississippi if you live in the state of New York or New Jersey. So, I don`t know where he`s coming from with let`s let the state decide when a woman can actually take steps to protect her own health and when she can`t.