NYT, Lott, Grahamnesty whine, pout about "muscular, untamed" talk radio

Pro-amnesty senators Martinez and Grahamnesty Dramatic Chipmunk have received threats for their support of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill. And like a good neighbor, the New York Times is there to help them tie this to talk radio, so they can hurry up and pass that fairness doctrine again:

Republicans who support the immigration bill are facing unusually intense opposition from conservative groups fighting it. This is among the first times, several of them said, that they have felt the full brunt of an advocacy machine built around conservative talk radio and cable television programs that have long buttressed Republican efforts to defeat Democrats and their policies.

While the majority of the telephone calls and faxes, letters and e-mail messages have been civil, aides to several senators said, the correspondence has taken a menacing tone in several cases.

...

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is one of the architects of the immigration overhaul, said he also had received threats in telephone calls and letters to his office. Mr. Graham said several other senators had told him privately that they also received similar messages.

“There’s racism in this debate,” Mr. Graham said. “Nobody likes to talk about it, but a very small percentage of people involved in this debate really have racial and bigoted remarks. The tone that we create around these debates, whether it be rhetoric in a union hall or rhetoric on talk radio, it can take people who are on the fence and push them over emotionally.”

Senator Dramatic Chipmunk is right: there is racism in the debate. There are some cretins who just hate Mexicans, and there are also plain-old-vanilla idiots who say stupid things because they won't pull up their big boy pants and be serious about a serious topic. It's ugly and of course it ought to be repudiated.

And in fact it invariably is. These threats aren't coming from talk radio, and they're not coming from cable television. Hugh Hewitt is not some Twelver imam handing down fatwas against Senators. Lou Dobbs, though wrong on a lot of things, isn't winking and drawing his finger across his throat when these Senators' names are mentioned. Rush Limbaugh has remarked that Senator Lott's getting way too big for his britches, but he's not bellowing "Will no one rid me of this troublesome hair-helmet?" To draw that connection between talk radio and cable television in the absence of any evidence is dishonest and conniving.

At the heart of the opposition rests conservative hosts on talk radio and cable television, which often are a muscular if untamed piece of the Republican message machine.

Several senators said Wednesday that they did not care to be identified speaking critically of the broadcasters, fearing the same conservative backlash that befell Senator Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, this month when he declared: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”

Organizations that have mobilized tens of thousands of people to speak against the immigration legislation said they did not advocate threats.

Dangit, what about blogs? I want to be "muscular if untamed!"

Actually, there's a very good reason that blogs aren't mentioned: they're not part of the fairness doctrine debate. The Times and their stoogepublicans are trying to stir up resentment against talk radio and cable.

As Mr. Graham walked back to his office on Wednesday, he said he doubted that senators would be deterred by any threats. “I’m sure a lot of the people who have taken a high-profile position on this have been threatened, but what are you going to do?” he said. “You saw what happened to Senator Daschle.”

Mr. Graham was referring to Tom Daschle, the former Democratic majority leader from South Dakota, whose office received a mailing of anthrax in 2001. The case remains unsolved.

“One of the requirements of public service in modern America is dealing with a few voices that are full of hate,” Mr. Graham said. “And our discourse and the way we politic, the way we engage each other, brings that out.”

(Cue dramatic chipmunk chord!)

Let's just pretend this anger and racism is coming from one side, shall we? And you guys just keep on believing that"Por la Raza, todo, fuera de la Raza, nada" translates to "My Country 'Tis Of Thee".