It was yesterday just after 6 AM, on the most popular conservative station in the city, that I tuned in to hear how the "personality" Mike Slater, would be responding our continuing dialog. Slater's programs are not yet on Podcasts, or I would reference it to get his exact words and to capture his tone-- more playfully Ron Paul libertarian than Glenn Beck crazy or Rush Limbaugh vicious....but definitely a Tea Party ideologue like these guys.
This is now a week long adventure, that I have laid out in this diary, Right wing media control in San Diego Slater did an exaggerated reading of this part from the diary:
Slater is an avowed "Extremist for Liberty" who's blog and radio show echoes other extremists such as Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Far from having any known expertise on issues of aging or of health care, the title of his presentation, "Liberty, Obamacare and the future of Healthcare" promises to be a one sided vilification of his partisan enemies.
What was really funny to me, was that when he finished the bold line above, either he or his side kick, said softly, "That's true" As I caught snippets of the program, he was laughing about the bizarre situation that he was speaking with these experts, and he mentioned two others with impressive credentials. He joked about, "Hey I'll start off by having a group discussion on how they keep the kids off their lawns, that should kill fifteen minutes, something I need to do" To him, this crowd is so different from his radio audience that we could be from mars. He acted as if he couldn't imagine that anyone over 30 was listening, riffing, "I know how to get their attention, I'll say that they are robbing their grandchildren with their social security and Medicare."
Actually, while he was laughing that he couldn't say this, it's consistent with the tea party mentality that he surrounds himself with. Here's my last email to him, with no response.
Hey Mike,
You are almost making me famous. But, did you do as you agreed, which was to mention my name, Al Rodbell; for better or for worse I'm the only one with this name in the country. A google of it gets to my blog, Alrodbell.blogspot.com, which has the Dailykos article up.
Yep, I never listened to your program before yesterday, and I did generalize. And you do seem civil to your callers, not as hostile as Limbaugh. And you gotta appreciate success. Thousands would love to do what you are doing, but you made it!
But be fair now. Allow your audience the opportunity to read what I did write, not your selective reading---even though with a great comedic twist. And you were right that I was writing about your talk before you gave it. To correct this, I will be there and listen carefully, making notes, and will write a full review of your presentation for Monday morning.
Look forward to seeing you at the expo.
Al Rodbell
That's where this sits, until 1:15 Pacific time Sunday, when I'll be in the audience. He will have some of his radio listeners there cheering him on; but I'm not getting much feedback, and damn little encouragement from you guys who are now reading this. These diaries aren't up long enough to get much readership, so those who could be at this event don't even know what's happening. Anyone near San Diego, let's get together at the conference and make sure he doesn't get away with spewing his Tea Party line without some real push back.