Talk Radio Hosts Have Something To Say About Liddy’s Award
The plan by talk radio hosts to honor G. Gordon Liddy this weekend is running into some serious static.
A half-dozen prominent members of the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts are boycotting the award ceremony at the group’s Houston convention. Fifty-four members of Congress are pushing a resolution denouncing his selection for the Freedom of Speech Award. Police groups are planning to picket and hand out fliers criticizing Liddy.
“To me it’s an insult, and an insult to the people who received it before,” said Mary Beal, a Republican who hosts a radio show in Jacksonville, Fla., and is on the association’s board. “I’m offended by it. I’m hurt by it. I’m not going to stand up … and applaud this guy.”
Liddy, who reaches 260 stations, has been criticized by President Clinton and others for urging listeners to shoot federal firearms agents in the head in selfdefense. He has spoken of using drawings of the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton for target practice. The former Watergate burglar has dismissed the criticism as misguided, saying he never advocated violence.
In a split decision, the radio group’s board members recently gave Liddy the nod after being told he was the leading candidate who would agree to accept the award in Houston. The controversy has grown ever since.
“If our shining example of freedom is a convicted felon … this award could just as easily go to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for calling Judaism ‘a gutter religion’ (or) to Michigan militia leader Mark Koernke,” said Alan Colmes, a liberal New York host. Writing in the industry magazine Talkers, Colmes said: “Perhaps I can be on that podium in 1996 if I call for the violent overthrow of the government.”
“The mere expression of extremist language does not qualify anyone, in my view, for the Freedom of Speech Award,” said Mike Siegel, a conservative Seattle host.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., is pushing the House resolution “condemning the use of hateful speech that fosters violence against those who enforce the Nation’s laws.”
Last year’s recipient, former New York governor (and nascent talk show host) Mario Cuomo, is refusing to present the award to Liddy. “I don’t think the way to make the point that the First Amendment is important,” he said, “is to (honor) the most outrageous abuses of that great privilege.”
Michael Harrison, chairman of the convention, dismissed as “ridiculous” the notion that this is a publicity stunt.
“This is a major talk show host who received a lot of heat about Oklahoma City from the mainstream press and the president,” Harrison said. “By making G. Gordon Liddy the recipient of the award, it created a forum to discuss this issue. … If you just give it to someone who’s popular and with whom you agree fully, then it’s no award at all.”