Ed Schultz (was: Prov. shuffle: Rush, Buddy, etc)

[Donna Halper]

>Bob wrote--
>Today Sean Hannity was making fun of Schultz--and saying Schultz
>makes fun of him on HIS show all the time. He brought up a recent
>incident in a bar where a GOP donor somehow thought that
>Schultz was still a Republican, as he apparently was a bit
>more conservative in his earlier radio career, and a big
>fight ensued. It was apparently mentioned in a Fargo, N.D.
>newspaper.

Too bad the newspaper didn't bother to be accurate, and had to pull 
half of what was on its website.  According to various witnesses, the 
rightie had been drinking heavily and called Ed some rude names and 
also threatened Ed; the guy then called Ed's wife even worse 
names.  Ed used to be a heavy drinker, but since he re-married, he 
basically will have a couple of beers, and he didn't want to fight 
with the guy.  But the guy persisted, and he got up in Ed's face, so 
Ed pushed him away; then bouncers got involved, the rightie was asked 
to leave, the end.  Today's version of the story was a bit more 
accurate but that was only after people who had been at the club in 
question called the newspaper and objected to their breathless 
tabloid-style "Ed Schultz in a bar fight" headlines.  The newspaper, 
the Fargo (ND) Forum,  is owned by a major donor to the Republican 
party and never says a kind word about Ed even though he has HUGE 
ratings in Fargo (he's the only progressive on an all rightie 
station, but he still gets big numbers).  I understand that not 
everyone likes Ed, but since nobody at the newspaper was at the club 
and got the story only from the rightie, the paper seemed all too 
eager to run something that made Ed look bad.  Today, the paper did 
seem to back down from its earlier coverage.

That said, Hannity and Schultz have been going at each other on the 
air the same way Keith Olbermann goes after Bill-o and vice 
versa.  Hannity has said that Ed has no advertisers and Democratic 
congressmen keep him on the air by buying time on his show-- which by 
the way is totally false; Ed's show is sold out with (gasp) real, 
honest to goodness advertisers, some local and some national.  When 
Ed first went on the air, two congressmen lent him money so he could 
keep the show afloat, but that was in 2004.  Ed has offered to debate 
Sean, but Sean keeps refusing.  So they snipe at each other on the 
air, the way talk show hosts often do.  But in this case, by all 
accounts, there was no "bar fight" and Ed did nothing wrong.  Those 
of you who are involved with sports radio, you know that some people 
will come up to a ballplayer in a club or at a bar and start telling 
them how they sucked last night or they're a crappy player etc.  The 
impression I get is that this incident with Ed started off with the 
rightie saying he disliked Ed's show and it just escalated into not 
liking Ed's political views and then on into insults and curses and 
threats.  Ed was annoyed about it because he said he was just trying 
to have a nice evening out with his wife...

Ed still is conservative about certain issues, by the way-- he is 
very much pro-life, but doesn't believe the government should impose 
religious doctrines on anyone else, so he just doesn't discuss it on 
his show.