Kowabunga

The Randi Rhodes story has blossomed into something that one can only expect from the hard-left. From the Daily News:

Air America radio host Randi Rhodes is temporarily off the air, but claims she was brutally attacked near her Manhattan apartment are bogus, her lawyer and a police source said today.

Fellow host Jon Elliott claimed on the liberal radio network that Rhodes had been mugged while walking her dog, Simon, on Sunday night. Elliot, who said Rhodes lost several teeth in the attack, waxed about a possible conspiracy.

"Is this an attempt by the right-wing, hate machine to silence one of our own?" he asked on the air, according to Talking Radio, a blog. "Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we're winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?"

The article goes on to state that Rhodes fell and hit her head while walking her dog. Rhodes has not filed a police report nor claimed to have been mugged. The whole idea that she was mugged "by the right-wing hate machine" is a fabrication, either by Air America host Jon Elliot or by a blogger at Air America.

October 16-NEW YORK-On Sunday evening, October 14, Air America host Randi Rhodes experienced an unfortunate incident hindering her from hosting her show. The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded. Ms. Rhodes looks forward to being back on the air on Thursday.

Amazing…I started writing this piece this morning, didn't finish, and checked the originating blogger post, and guess what I found. The guy at Talking Radio Blog has perpetrated a hoax. His reasoning is that he is retaliating against Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" comment and the context it was made, so he cooked up his context on the Randi Rhodes story, now claiming that the context was in the sense that Liberal Talk Radio is frequently attacked by "right-wingers." And people, including those at Air America, bought into it, with many main-stream blogs linking to his original post. This explains why his post, which referred to an Air America blog and he quoted, links back to his blog. This is what I suspected was the case.

Here's what the hoaxer now says(no link...cut and paste: talkingradio.blogspot.com/2007/10/what-difference-day-makes.html):

When 41 members of the U.S. Senate and members of the anti-Iraq war veterans group votevets.org expressed outrage over Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldier" remark, the right-wing talk show host said that his critics didn't consider the "context" in which his remark was made.

Well, we too have a "context" issue. Our coverage of the alleged attack on Randi Rhodes was presented in the "context" of several very real politically motivated attacks against liberal stations and talk hosts. We chronicled the recent shooting at a lib talk station in Houston, a death threat directed to Stephanie Miller, and a beating received by Tom Leykis. We also, referred to several incidents that may be forgotten because they occurred several years ago - e.g. shots fired at Thom Hartmann's car, transmitters blown up in Texas, and most tragically, the murder of lib talk show host Alan Berg.

So, his context is that he is upset about some stuff purported to have taken place but no one has ever heard of, therefore it is okay to claim that a liberal talk show host was mugged in an anti-liberal hate crime.

This is the kind of idiot I served my country to protect and give the right to free speech. To me a hoax like this is the same as going into a movie theater and shouting "fire" when there isn't one. I wonder if this peckawood ever served in the Armed Forces…

Tags:

Randi Rhodes Hate Crime Talking Radio Air America Hoax