Hillary Gets Slammed by Liberal Radio Host For Refusing Interviews

As liberal members of Congress advocate a return of the decades-old Fairness Doctrine, an intriguing hypocrisy has surfaced: the Democrat front-runner for president in 2008 shuns talk radio interviews. As a result, one of the top liberal talk radio hosts in the nation, Ed Schultz, is slamming Hillary Clinton at his website (emphasis mine throughout):

Cutting to the chase, Hillary's people treat us like dirt. We are constantly disregarded, told things that aren't true, and given speculation an interview might happen someday.

Quite frankly, I'm sick of it.

It appears that one of America's top liberal radio hosts, with an audience of 2.5 million listeners a week, can’t get Hillary to do an interview with him. As a result, Schultz isn’t happy:

Reaching over 2.5 million listeners who are engaged in changing the country I believe qualifies us for some attention. I realize Hillary is an international figure and star but this pattern of treatment to The Ed Schultz Show has been an on-going pattern which tells me all they care about is her mug on TV.

The conservatives have done wonders with audio continually talking to and solidifying their base. It's apparent to me radio is minor to the people surrounding this leading candidate.

When Wendy and I see Hillary from time to time she is more than respectful, likeable, and seemingly interested in how we are doing. But when it comes to supplying any workable connection to helping progressive talk it all falls short.

Hillary tells us how much she cares about progressives on radio but we just don't get the love. I just thought as listeners you might want to know this.

What does this tell us? Well, one conclusion would be that the recent calls by folks like Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-New York) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) to reenact the Fairness Doctrine which, in effect, would require that conservative talk radio hosts give equal time to liberal guests and views, is a smokescreen.

Think about it. If the Democrats were really interested in equal time on talk radio, wouldn’t one of their leading presidential candidates be anxious to do talk radio interviews? This seems especially true given Hillary’s difficulties with the extreme left as a result of her support for the Iraq war. As such, shouldn’t she accept every liberal talk radio invitation as an opportunity to speak to this disgruntled portion of her party?

Since she isn’t, doesn’t this suggest that this equal time nonsense is more designed to limit the amount of time conservatives have to speak over the airwaves that they currently dominate rather than increasing the amount of time liberals get?

Furthering this premise, Hillary herself voiced a certain dismay for this genre when she stated on Monday’s “Today” show that people shouldn’t “draw [conclusions about her] from what you hear somebody say on, you know, radio or cable TV.”

As NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein pointed out in his report about this segment, this was clearly a swipe at the kings of talk radio such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Add it all up, and these legislative proposals to reenact the Fairness Doctrine are in no way about equal time for opposing views. Instead, this is all about reducing America’s exposure to conservative ones, especially those being expressed by people like Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Levin, Hewitt, Boortz, Ingraham, et al.