The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney

14 December 2005

Liberal Cable News Channel's Worst-Ever Segment

RADIO HOST KILLS CNN

No Controls For Audience-Killing Christmas 'Debate'



When Air America's epitaph is finally chiselled into a cold granite headstone, which antics will be most remembered as standout, rock-bottom moments?

The Randi Rhodes Show's Bush execution skit?

Or Al Franken clearing the room with a long-winded radio convention speech?

The Radio Equalizer hereby nominates Air America host Sam Seder, who's managed not only to make the liberal radio network look less credible than ever before, but at the same time, taken CNN itself down for the count.

It was audience tune-out, defined.

During a segment intended to discuss recent efforts to cleanse Christmas from public life, Seder refused to honestly deal with the issue, instead substituting junior high-level rudeness and the very cheapest in debate tactics.

Coming across like a spoiled college brat taking a brief pause from a long day of cafe latte-sipping, Seder (seen on the left in the above image) repeatedly stepped all over the host and other guest, Bob Knight of the Culture and Family Institute. When Knight attempted to make a point, Seder would begin shouting, after just a few uttered words.

Instead of regaining control over the program, CNN's anchorwoman actually allowed this madness to continue unabated, for over ten minutes. Rather than participate in the interview's intended topical purpose, Seder appeared to be trying out material for his next C-grade stand-up comedy tour, coming soon to a Holiday Inn lounge near you.

In fact, she actually encouraged Seder to continue his boorish, childish bully routine, rather than stop it dead in its tracks. As a result, this 10 minute nightmare officially becomes the worst-ever moment in cable news history. Quite a feat, CNN!


As Janeane Garofalo's
"Majority Report" co-host, Seder epitomizes Air America's troubles: one half of a ratings-troubled talk show with an enormously bloated budget. Worse, some of the network's least known personalities, Seder included, appear to be developing its biggest egos.

Overpaying inexperienced talk show hosts has a way of doing that. More on that later.

What's his background? Try his Wikipedia page, at your own risk.

Al Franken appears downright modest on television next to Sam Seder. So does Janeane Garofalo. In fact, there are no words to describe just how damaging Sam's CNN antics were to Air America.

If it weren't ready to collapse, this might matter a great deal, rather than serving as merely symbolic of the network's sad decline.

In order to write this piece, I forced myself to watch the segment twice. It was pure, merciless torture.

If you dare, The Political Teen (at my request, don't blame Ian for this) has been kind enough to capture the video for your viewing displeasure.

Here's a brief transcript we've stolen from Think Progress, a lefty site, but reading it just won't do this televised trainwreck justice. You simply must watch the clip to believe it:


SEDER: Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it’s almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousands of American lives in pursuit of this war on Christmas. And hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

PHILLIPS: Is it a war on Christmas, a war on Christians, a war on over-political correctness or just a lot of people with way too much time on their hands?

SEDER: I would say probably, if I was to be serious about it, too much time on their hands, but I’d like to get back to the operational ties between Santa Claus and al Qaeda.

PHILLIPS: I don’t think that exists. Bob? Help me out here.

SEDER: We have intelligence, we have intelligence.

PHILLIPS: You have intel. Where exactly does your intel come from?

SEDER: Well, we have tortured an elf and it’s actually how we got the same information from Al Libbi. It’s exactly the same way the Bush administration got this info about the operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam.


How could CNN allow this to air?


For several months,
someone claiming to be Sam Seder has posted especially nasty messages at our comments section, for reasons unknown. While the Radio Equalizer never took that bait, this cable news interview simply couldn't be ignored.

Curiously, this recently appeared in the Air America Radio Wikipedia page, where critics are listed:


The Radio Equalizer- Brian Maloney First AAR scandal reporting in the blogosphere, with continued updates. Sam Seder of AAR has contributed comments to this blog, and then announced what he has written over the air.


Who wrote this? And is it true?

Watch for much more on the "Majority Report's" troubles, coming soon.


Welcome
Powerline and GOPinion readers! Please visit our main page for other updates.

Welcome Daily Kos readers:

The right, for its part, responded with horror. Powerline, that no-comments-allowed bastion of specious argumentation, linked to Brian Maloney's screaming about how horrible Sam Seder was and how he is taking CNN down with him. Wingnut Mike Bates decries the lack of seriousness taken to this phoney-baloney assault on Christmas. I could go on, and on and on.


Why not get Christmas and other shopping done now and support the Radio Equalizer at the same time? Your Amazon orders that originate with clicks here, regardless of your final selections, help to support this work. Thanks again for your vital assistance!

10 Comments:

  • The joke's on you Maloney. I loved it when Seder posted his comments on your blog, and then read the comments on the air a few minutes later.

    Everyone goes like, "imposter, humphh", while people in the know laugh hysterically. It's what keeps us coming back you know.

    You have quite a following thanks largely to Seder's antics.

    Shouldn't be too hard for you to confirm this as all of The Majority Report's shows are archived as MP3's at airamericaplace.com.

    By Blogger @whut, at 14 December, 2005 02:02  

  • When Air America's epitaph is finally chiselled into a cold granite headstone
    Hey Brian, still waiting for some AAR financial numbers to support your claim of impending AAR doom. You could put this all to rest by either providin some, or admiting that you don't have any.

    By Blogger Justin, at 14 December, 2005 07:10  

  • I read CNN's transcript, and was amazed by Mr. Seder's performance. There actually is someone with less comedic talent than Al Franken.

    By Blogger James Jones, at 14 December, 2005 09:11  

  • Well.... At least now I know who Sam Seder is.... I'd been wondering what those emails were all about.

    Guess if anybody listened to Air America they'd know... but that doesn't seem to happen very often.

    By Blogger Lokki, at 14 December, 2005 11:58  

  • What? have you people no sense of humor. That there is outrage over this "War on Xmas" is laughable. Conservatives, please go back to talking about flat taxes and railing against the materialism of the season. Stop supporting rabid religion baiters like Bob Knight. This site is just as sad as Air America. You all lose.

    By Blogger Matt, at 14 December, 2005 16:39  

  • Wow. I don't take the "war on Christmas" that seriously, but Seder's one of the biggest idiots I've ever seen. Ever heard of civility there Sam? How about open minded debate? And ya might want to consider adding a little humor to the 'ol bag o' tricks, because that opening joke was one of the lamest I've heard since, well, since I last watched a mainstream sitcom.

    By Blogger magnu231, at 14 December, 2005 18:10  

  • I'll concede that the notion of a 'War on Christmas' is overblown rhetoric... as soon as Michael Newdow and the ACLU stop suing to eliminate public expressions of faith and religious heritage.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 15 December, 2005 09:04  

  • And "state-supported" expressions of faith are nothing at all like the "establishment" of a state religion. The ACLU and Newdow are indulging in extreme over-reaction, exactly like Bill O'Reilly.

    And you condemn Bill O'Reilly for doing the same kind of thing you praise Newdow and the ACLU for. And at least Bill O'Reilly isn't tying up the courts for the sake of vanity, hatred, and bigotry.

    And, yes, there are plenty of atheists who oppose any kind of public expression of faith.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 15 December, 2005 10:37  

  • And personally, I think Bill O'Reilly is a pompous windbag, whose faux "Happy Holidays" v. "Merry Christmas" controversy only trivializes real anti-Christian bigotry in the culture.

    I also think Michael Newdow is an arrogant, bigoted, media-whore.

    I frankly, wish the two of them could be locked in a cage, Thunderdome-style, with a bunch of power tools, and let the rest of us learn to tolerate each other.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 15 December, 2005 11:39  

  • The latest 12 + ratings are out for Boston (RadioAndRecords.com). The two AAR stations, WKOX and WXKS, do a 0.5
    combined (by contrast, conservatalk
    WRKO is 4.7 and WTKK is 2.9).

    Low rated, 250-watt WJIB--adult
    standards--gets a 1.0 which is twice
    as much as the two AAR signals combined! During this time of
    long nights, WKOX and WXKS must be
    suffering more from signal problems.
    Listeners on their messageboard were
    wondering why they were hearing Fox
    Sports Radio and hockey games on "Boston's Progressive Talk". Actually it was stations from
    Ottawa and Binghamton, respectively.

    And for the record, Salem's conservatalk WTTT (Mike Gallagher,
    Michael Medved) does not even show up...again. Weak signal, and maybe just too much talk in town?

    By Blogger raccoonradio, at 16 December, 2005 03:57  

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