Thom Hartmann

It’s time for your liberal radio quiz: which of these quotes is wackiest? First, on Friday’s Bill Press radio show, Bill decided to loosen up for the weekend by trying out his Ed Schultz impression. He didn’t try to do the Schultz voice. He just stole the whole “the Republicans like it when the woman gets cancer" routine, and applied it to the scheduled sequestration.

“The reason they’re not going to get anything down is Republicans decided they like the sequester,” said Press. “They want it to happen they want 800,000 employees to lose their jobs at the Pentagon. They want the economy to go into a tailspin.” Oh, the GOP was rooting for disaster, and he wasn’t through:

Talk radio never has been as big a deal on the left as it is on the right, but some lefty talk hosts have found a sizable national audience. One of them, self-described democratic socialist Thom Hartmann, has been a staple in the top ten of Talkers magazine's Heavy Hundred host rankings (he was #8 on the 2012 list, just behind Mark Levin and just ahead of Glenn Beck). Hartmann's program airs live from 3 to 6 p.m. Eastern time on commercial and noncommercial terrestrial stations as well as on SiriusXM satellite radio and Free Speech TV.

Here's a rundown of Hartmann's most notable comments of 2012, listed by air date. Almost all pertain to his dual obsession with the alleged madness and depravity of today's Republican party as well as with Ronald Reagan's presidency, which Hartmann views as a ruinous turning point for America.

What a shock it's not -- liberal radio host Thom Hartmann responding to last week's unspeakable atrocity in Newtown by demanding redistribution of wealth.

That the rampage occurred in a leafy bedroom community in one of the most affluent states in the country has apparently eluded Hartmann, as has the fact that Connecticut is among the states with the most stringent gun laws. (audio clip after page break)

How can you tell when conservatives really annoy a liberal?

When his hyperbole exceeds even the broad parameters of absurdity embraced on the left. Case in point -- attorney and "Ring of Fire" radio show co-host Mike Papantonio's appearance on fellow libtalker Thom Hartmann's show on Wednesday. (audio clip after page break)

Lions and tigers and Nazis, oh my!

You know liberals are desperate when their hyperbole about Republicans turns the corner from absurd to unhinged. (audio clips after page break)

In case anyone is in doubt that Liberal Talk Radio-land can display the tendency to all hit the same talking points, many liberal hosts all hit the same post-debate theme on Thursday: Mitt Romney only won because he shamelessly lied his face off. (They find it charming when Clinton does.)

Al Sharpton was outraged, as if he never lied as he was callously spreading the Tawana Brawley racial hoax: “I think there is nothing admirable and applaud-able [?] about a man standing up 90 minutes and making his case by distortion and lies."

A caller to Thom Hartmann's radio show Friday offered what he described as an "absurd" suggestion. That it certainly was, though Hartmann didn't think so.

The caller complained that President Obama missed "a great opportunity" to rein in defense spending and asked Hartmann what he thought about "completely closing down the military." Here's a transcript of the conversation and Hartmann's response (audio) --

In a rural area where “The economy sucks when it’s good,” natural gas drilling could have gone a long way. Could have, until environmental extremists and regulators got in the way.

That’s what happened in Wayne County, Pa., just a few years ago when “corporations offered struggling farmers lucrative leases for mineral rights” but a documentary filmmaker and government prevented the drilling, according to a June 7, 2012 story from Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.

Liberal radio host Thom Hartmann came unglued over Trayvon Martin on Wednesday, blaming his death on...the Koch brothers.

"A young man died," he declared. "A young man died a violent and unnecessary death because the Koch brothers and other right-wingers and large corporations in America decided that it would be a really cool idea if they got together and wrote laws that they would then give to mostly Republican legislators in state legislatures all across the country at meetings twice a year of the so-called American Legislative Exchange Council." He also blamed the NRA and Wal-Mart:

Give the man credit, he keeps setting new standards for delusion.

It was only weeks ago that liberal radio host Thom Hartmann was offering the most novel theory yet for the US-led invasion of Iraq, that it was a Rube Goldbergesque plot to privatize Social Security. (audio clips after page break)

If you heard a loved one fulminate like this, you'd be morally obligated to initiate a medical, substance abuse or psychiatric intervention.

Liberal radio host Thom Hartmann unleased the latest moonbat conspiracy theory on his radio show Monday in response to a caller disparaging government (audio) --

President Obama is pursuing policies that "define all the world's major religions," Thom Hartmann gushes. Which no president should ever do, Thom Hartmann warns.

The liberal radio host tried to pass off this apparent contradiction during conversations with callers to his show on Jan. 5 (audio clips after page break)

On Tuesday, liberal radio host Thom Hartmann engaged a conservative caller who was tired of the anti-capitalist rhetoric from President Obama and the left. “From the president’s own mouth, the anti-capitalist rhetoric is so poisoned,” said the caller.

Hartmann interrupted: “It is rhetoric in opposition to the excesses of unregulated capitalism. Unregulated capitalism can become a cancer just like unregulated growth in a cell is the definition of cancer.” Hartmann went on to say that libertarian notions are corrupting government, and that the Founding Fathers were for “general welfare” exactly like Franklin Roosevelt.

The American Family Association is conducting a “Naughty or Nice” campaign noting which major retailers sound hostile in avoiding Christmas in their seasonal sales. Somehow, on his Monday program, leftist radio host Thom Hartmann yelled that this made him sick and that the AFA is “promoting blasphemy.” He threw the B-word repeatedly.

Citing the Gospel of Matthew, Hartmann also insisted that Christianity and welfare statism are synonymous, and that the House Republicans are terrible Christians because they propose “Oh, we’ve got to cut these social safety net programs – which is the essence of what Jesus Christ said you’ve gotta do to get into Heaven! And instead replace them with tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.” Hartmann began by asserting the AFA thinks Jesus is a liar, but the AFA’s Bryan Fischer drove Hartmann crazy by refusing to take the bait and fight:

On Thursday, December 1, several left-wing radio talkers viciously attacked Newt Gingrich, the GOP front-runner. There is a special toxicity level they reach when talking of the former House speaker.

Take Randi Rhodes, who mocked his appearance: "He always looks like a corpse that was pulled out of a lake! Every time I watch CSI and they pull somebody out of the lake, I think, hey, is that Newt? No, it's this week's murder victim. He's bloated and a massive mutiliated middle aged flesh curtain hanging!" Then take Mike Malloy, who compared Newt to an ax murderer and railed against his bad breath:

Listening to liberal talk radio is sometimes like just listening to the world being turned upside down. Liberal hosts make claims that are demonstrably ridiculous, and expect listeners to lap it up.

Case in point: Thom Hartmann praised the Occupy Wall Street protesters for changing the media conversation. He claimed that ever since Reagan was elected, the media has forbidden any discussion of the maldistribution of wealth, as if the words "Decade of Greed" weren't a media favorite, as if the "three million homeless" weren't routinely on the lips of liberal media personalities:

And if you laughed at those remarks, you're a criminal too. Or at the very least, a thought criminal. Yes, you.

Liberal radio host Thom Hartmann is peeved that media outlets such as Fox News and CNN are covering the so-called Occupy Wall Street movement and allegedly interviewing only the most "politically unsophisticated" protesters, after searching all of nanoseconds to find them. (audio after page break)

Leave it to Thom Hartmann, the liberal radio host, to assert that conservative Republicans are un-American, because apparently, unless you love Big Government, you're not very American. He not only said that on Monday's show. He asserted that if there were such a thing as a "sentient deity" he would be urgently send us the message "Stop pumping carbon into your atmosphere!"

Is it any wonder they can't make liberal radio a ratings smash? Here's the "powerful strain of anti-Americanism" rant:

Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer offered the latest in liberal earthquake conspiracy theories: liberal radio host Thom Hartmann has found the cause, and it is "fracking" for natural gas. This is becoming a pet cause on the left, leading some to sue fracking energy companies for earthquake damage.

Maloney began with sarcasm: "Thank goodness our 'progressive friends are a go-to source on 'science,' a subject we conservatives adamantly oppose." Hartmann doesn't care if you call him a conspiracy theorist:

Liberals are insistent that conservatives quote the Second Amendment in its entirety, with emphasis on its first clause -- "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Liberals are more cavalier when it comes to quoting one of Ronald Reagan's most famous remarks, from his first inaugural address, invariably neglecting to include its first clause -- "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."

Yet another example of selective editing of the Great Communicator's views on government came on Friday from liberal radio host Thom Hartmann when he said this about Reagan while talking with a caller (audio here; video clip after page break) --

... which helps explain why conservative radio continues to dominate the airwaves while Air America Radio, uh, went kaput.

During a recent appearance on Tavis Smiley's PBS show, enviro lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose "Ring of Fire" show ran on Air America, made what reasonable souls among us might construe as a questionable claim.

Here's Kennedy responding to a question from Smiley on how liberals can better hone their message (video clip after page break) --

Sometimes, it can be heartwarming to listen to the radio and hear the sound of the Seventies. That's not true for the Thom Hartmann radio show. On Friday, Hartmann parlayed some classic 1971 socialist economics about who should get credit for the economic recovery:

The job creators are the people on welfare. The job creators are the people who are on unemployment. They’re the people who are working. Because what creates jobs is when people take money out of their pocket and buy something. And when enough people buy enough things that creates demand in the economy and somebody’s got to make the stuff that’s being bought and in order to make that stuff they have to hire people who can make it for less than it costs to sell it so that they can make a profit on that. It’s a very very simple concept.

The sour grapes were incredibly sour on the Thom Hartmann radio show on Thursday when they led off with the news that Anthony Weiner was resigning. Broadcasting live from the Netroots Nation hootenanny in Minneapolis, Hartmann went right from an admitted sex scandal to an unproven old story from last November in the National Enquirer:

Looks like Anthony Weiner’s about to step down. John Boehner’s involved in a major sex scandal. It’s all over the page of the National Enquirer. Two different women, they’re naming the women. So this is this is shades of the John Edwards revisit.

Agreed, the parallels between Palin and bin Laden are uncanny. To say nothing of women appearing so frequently to speak on behalf of al Qaeda.

If liberals have a strong case against Palin, why do they say such stupid things about her? (audio) --

HARTMANN: (After music at start of segment, "Give Peace a Chance," from bellicose pacifist John Lennon):  Sarah Palin. She hasn't come out of her cave up there in Alaska. Sarah bin Palin, should we call her? But she has issued a video!

What makes Hartmann's criticism on his radio show Wednesday all the more peculiar is that it came after Palin released her seven-minute video statement on liberals' unhinged reaction in according blame for the rampage in Tucson.