The death of Paul Harvey has resulted in some very respectful notices in the media, like Richard Corliss of Time magazine. (Except for this sentence: "The rosy sentimentalist was also a fretful conservative; he backed Joe McCarthy's search for imaginary Communists in the State Department." ) Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer is highlighting Internet scribblings offering a more impolite reflection, of the rot-in-Hell variety. Ken Layne, the operator of the liberal blog Wonkette, trashed Harvey, and Rush Limbaugh:
The best thing about Paul Harvey -- humble old Paul Harvey with his solid family life and one (just one!) wife who was with him until her death in 2007 -- is that his peak audience was millions bigger than Rush Limbaugh's largest audience.’
Fat sex-creep Rush peaked with 20 million listeners in 2003 (all downhill since then!), while Paul Harvey peaked with 22 million. And while Paul Harvey was long mocked by hipsters and comedians, he sure wasn't hated. In fact, Paul Harvey was one of the most admired people in America for half a century. Rush Limbaugh is despised by most Americans, while his only fans are mouth-breathing angry losers.
Layne began his Harvey rip with the line: "He had a face for radio and the political compass of the Inquisition." He concluded:
So, farewell, Paul Harvey. Farewell to your odd little stories, outrageously twisted wingnut version of current events, and the commercials you wove so seamlessly into your "news" that the old and feeble-minded could never really tell if those mattresses and mail-order radio sets were part of the day's headlines or not.
Maloney also drew a nice line from Mark Levin in an interview: Mark called him "the Norman Rockwell of radio."
