I have been a long time listener of Michael Medved\u2019s nationally syndicated talk radio show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But now, all of that has changed.<\/p>\n
Medved had been one of my favorite talk show hosts.\u00a0 I found him to be quick-witted, articulate, and perceptive. Unlike those of his colleagues who routinely demonize their political rivals while heaping abuse upon callers to their shows, Medved could generally be relied upon to treat his opponents and interlocutors with civility and respect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But now, all of that has changed.<\/p>\n
Just today alone, two people\u2014one a close friend, the other a facebook \u201cfriend\u201d\u2014made comments to me regarding Medved\u2019s peculiar, and dramatic, shift in temperament.\u00a0 My close friend, who hadn\u2019t listened to Medved in quite some time, happened to tune in just as the latter was berating a caller who challenged the constitutionality of the Iraq War.\u00a0 Moments later, my friend contacted me: \u201cWhat\u2019s up with Medved?\u201d he asked in shock.\u00a0 \u201cHe sounded like a total whack job just a minute ago!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Incidentally, my friend agreed <\/em>with the substance of Medved\u2019s position.\u00a0<\/p>\n My facebook friend remarked upon what he perceived to be the raw \u201chatred\u201d and \u201cbitterness\u201d that now routinely spewed from Medved\u2019s lips.\u00a0 Yet he also noted something else: Medved sounded most angry, most \u201cbitter,\u201d and most \u201chateful\u201d when he spoke of Ron Paul.\u00a0 <\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n This is a crucial insight.\u00a0<\/p>\n I have written some articles in which I speak of \u201cPaulophobia.\u201d\u00a0 My analysis of Paulophobia was, largely, satirical in nature.\u00a0 Obviously, I never really believed that I had struck upon a heretofore undiscovered cognitive disorder.\u00a0 But, I must say, if Paulophobia was <\/em>a real mental disease, Michael Medved would be a classic textbook case of it.<\/p>\n This is no exaggeration.\u00a0 Like a Pavlovian dog, Medved instinctively turns hostile at the mere mention of Paul\u2019s name.\u00a0 Paul is a \u201ckook,\u201d a \u201cnut,\u201d a \u201ccrackpot,\u201d and an \u201cextremist.\u201d\u00a0 And although, as far as I can gather, he never explicitly <\/em>called Paul a \u201cracist,\u201d a \u201cneo-Nazi,\u201d an \u201canti-Semite,\u201d and a \u201c9\/11 Truther,\u201d Medved has spared no occasion to implicitly <\/em>convict Paul of such charges.<\/p>\n During his coverage of the GOP presidential primary race, Medved has never <\/em>given Paul the slightest bit of credit for any of the Texas Congressman\u2019s many achievements. Paul routinely runs away with straw polls, nearly prevails in theIowa caucus, and steadily remains within the top-tier of candidates.\u00a0 Yet the Paulophobia from which Medved has been suffering for years renders him from even begrudgingly acknowledging any of this. Paul\u2019s campaign is as well organized and effective as any candidate\u2019s, and it is supported, not by the kinds of special interest groups and zillionaires that pour resources into the coffers of the other candidates, but by millions of working class Americans composing a real \u201cgrassroots\u201d movement.\u00a0 On this phenomenon, however, Medved is silent.<\/p>\n Medved\u2019s Paulophobia is so virulent that he adamantly refuses to entertain a hypothetical scenario in which Paul becomes the GOP\u2019s nominee. Recently, when a caller started <\/em>to ask him a question regarding just the possibility <\/em>of Paul\u2019s receiving the nomination, Medved quickly interrupted him: \u201cHe won\u2019t <\/em>be the nominee!\u201d he retorted.\u00a0 Ron Paul is completely <\/em>\u201cunelectable,\u201d Medved repeated.\u00a0 He is unelectable!\u00a0 Unelectable!\u00a0<\/p>\n Such is Medved\u2019s desperation to purge Ron Paul, not just from the primary contest and the Republican Party, but from \u201cpolite society,\u201d that he has taken to spreading outright lies <\/em>about Paul.\u00a0 Just a couple of days ago, Medved said on the air that a \u201cpoll\u201d shows Ron Paul losing to Barack Obama in a general election by 20 points<\/em>!\u00a0<\/p>\n There is one very good reason why Medved never specified the poll to which he referred: no such poll exists. <\/em><\/p>\n Medved, I believe, probably first heard of this \u201cpoll\u201d when another raging Paulophobe, Dick Morris, referenced it.\u00a0 Interestingly, though, Morris did <\/em>mention Rasmussen <\/em>as the source of this statistic. There are only two problems, however.\u00a0<\/p>\n First, the Rasmussen poll in question shows Ron Paul down by roughly seven <\/em>points in a head-to-head match up with President Obama\u2014not <\/em>20 points.\u00a0 Second, even this isn\u2019t nearly as bad as it sounds when we see that the very same poll shows that among the other candidates, only Mitt Romney does better than Paul when pitted against Obama.\u00a0 In other words, the idea that Morris and Medved try to convey when they cite this fiction\u2014the idea that Paul will do worse in a general election than any other Republican candidate\u2014is another big lie.\u00a0 <\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n There is one other charge that Medved has leveled against Paul.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paul is not a real \u201cconservative,\u201d he has emphatically declared.\u00a0 This is ironic, coming from Medved, for it is he <\/em>who is not a real conservative.\u00a0<\/p>\n Medved has never <\/em>been a conservative.\u00a0 He is a neoconservative\u2014<\/em>which is to say a pseudo-<\/em>conservative. To put this point another way, Medved remains attached to the leftism of his youth, for neoconservatism or pseudo-conservatism is really just another variant of leftism.\u00a0 It is a lighter or softer version, yes, but it is an expression of leftism all of the same.\u00a0 We needn\u2019t even consult his policy prescriptions to see that this is true. For this purpose, a simple consideration of the fact that Medved regularly embraces the ad hominem attack generally and Politically Correct attacks specifically is more than sufficient.\u00a0 Real conservatives have neither the desire nor the need for such vicious and baseless non-arguments.<\/p>\n Medved is a sad figure.\u00a0 He has become a mean-spirited and irrational little man.<\/p>\n If only he would have sought help for his Paulophobia a long time ago, he may have been able to prevent his present condition from coming to pass. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been a long time listener of Michael Medved\u2019s nationally syndicated talk radio show.\u00a0 But now, all of that has changed. Medved had been one of my favorite talk show hosts.\u00a0 I found him to be quick-witted, articulate, and perceptive. Unlike those of his colleagues who routinely demonize their political rivals while heaping abuse…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n