In a bigtime case of the pot calling the kettle black, liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz is attacking the credibility of Air America radio host Randi Rhodes concerning her highly dubious story about her non-mugging last Sunday outside an Irish bar in New York. Brian Maloney of the Radio Equalizer has been on top of this Randi Rhodes "mugging" story from the beginning. Maloney yesterday highlighted the credibility problems of Rhodes' lame explanation on the air Thursday of her non-mugging:

Sadly, the explanation of events given during a seven-minute opening segment yesterday simply doesn't hold water, especially her reason for initially telling others it was a mugging. Rhodes claims doctors told her she might have been attacked because they couldn't find any evidence she'd fainted.

Without a shred of real evidence to back that up, why make a statement like that? And if she did feel there had been an attack, then why not call the police at once?

You can hear Randi "explain" why she incorrectly claimed to be mugged and allowed her fellow Air America talk host, Jon Elliott, hang out to dry by promoting Randi's incorrect mugging story on YouTube. Judging from the YouTube comments on her commentary, it appears that Randi's explanation lacks credibility even among those who agree with her political views:

In all fairness, she is one of the few hosts on AAR who, at least, has cred AS a broadcaster. That much said, she was wrong for saying she was allegedly mugged.

Personal responsibility, Babe. You should apply that to yourself and admit that you are a drunk that passes out in the alley.

 

Among those to cast aspersions upon Randi's credibility was Ed Schultz who, as reported by the Radio Equalizer, didn't even wait until Randi's on-air explanation to begin slamming her on Wednesday:

"We're all rooting for you to be OK. But you got some 'splaining to do here, girl. You know, how did you get your teeth kicked out or knocked out or how did you fall down or did you get into a fight? It's not fair to those of us who are out there in the progressive format trying to defend you, go to bat for you, help you, be a part of you, see you succeed and everything else. This is about the goofiest damn story I think I've ever heard in my life."

That Schultz slammed Randi's veracity is not really surprising. There is no love lost between Big Ed and Air America as you can hear in this incredible rant that Schultz went on against that radio network last February. In addition, there is quite a bit of animosity directed towards Randi and her "mugging" story by Ed's fans on the Ed Schultz Message Board:

What an asshat, Randi. She's giving a partial truth at best. She admits being at the Irish Pub, going outside for a smoke then the next thing she knew she was face down on the sidewalk. She wrote an email to management that she'd been mugged almost immediately after getting home so her shift on Monday would be covered.

I personally never had a boss that liked being lied to. She should apologize to John Elliot.

Yep, she lied. Two sentence message to AAR.  The first five minutes of her show were as sad as they were hilarious. Bizarre cover story about not knowing if she was hit or fainted, not eating anything before going into the bar, not hearing anything about the story until her Ex called her. She lawyed up, hid from the press--because..and these are HER words...."None of them asked me how I was doing!"

I had to tune in yesterday. I had to hear what she had to say on this attack. People here are right, she did send an email to Air America that said something about being mugged. She admitted that much on the air. She was ALL OVER the place with her explanation. She mentioned that she hadn't eaten... I don't know if that was to explain why she was drunk or an indication that it was a blood sugar kind of thing. The whole thing was PATHETIC. "Nobody cared to ask me how I was..." Of course, they never got that far, they were too busy addressing the elephant in the room which was, "Were you mugged or not?" Then she goes and has her ATTORNEY field questions. Brilliant.

Ed's loyal fans shouldn't feel too smug about Randi's obvious lack of credibility. Their hero, Big Eddy, has bigtime credibilty problems of his own as I pointed out in a September NewsBusters blog. Although Schultz has loudly challenged any conservative radio talk show host to debate him, the reality is that Big Eddy, via his producer, James, has been backing down from his own challenge. The producer and cohost of the Steve Kane Show, Brian Craig, has repeatedly called James but to no avail since the Schultz show producer refuses to accept any offer to debate despite the challenge his boss so loudly put out over the air. So while Ed Schultz attacks the credibilty of Randi Rhodes, he definitely has credibilty problems of his own due to his failure to live up to his debate challenge.

—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.