Liberal talk show host mugged in Manhattan—her colleagues and fans charge right-wing hate crime

Randi Rhodes, a talk show host on the liberal Air America Radio, was attacked and seriously hurt Sunday evening while walking her dog at 39th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan. For people unfamiliar with New York City, that is a prosperous residential neighborhood at the heart of Midtown, and not a place where you would expect a violent mugging. The website talkingradioblogspot reports:

According to Air America Radio late night host Jon Elliott, Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, losing several teeth and will probably be off the air for at least the rest of the week. At of late Monday night we have not able to locate any press accounts of the attack and nothing has been posted on the AAR website….

Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying “it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home.”

Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that “this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging.”

“Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own,” he asked. “Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we’re winning. Are they trying to silence and intimidate us.”

Some of blog posters also expressed concerns that the attack on Rhodes was a hate crime. Other posters warned that we need more facts before any judgements are made.

Indeed, at a website called the Democratic Underground many of the commenters think Rhodes was attacked by conservatives or even “neocons.” Think of it, a violent hate crime committed by New York neoconservatives. Maybe Norman Podhoretz and Richard John Neuhaus ordered the hit. Then there’s that still unsolved noose incident up at Columbia University Teachers College…

Here are selections from the Wikipedia article on Rhodes, culminating in the attack on her two days ago:

Randi Rhodes (born Randi Bueten on January 28, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American talk radio personality featured on Air America Radio where her eponymous program, The Randi Rhodes Show, airs Monday through Friday from 3 pm to 6 pm Eastern Time, with many Air America Radio affiliates recording the show for broadcast later in the evening. Her married name is Randi Robertson; Rhodes is a stage name chosen to honor Ozzy Osbourne’s guitar player Randy Rhoads, whom Rhodes describes as “a consummate professional … who lived to be the best.”

Rhodes was brought up in a Jewish household, but does not discuss her religious views publicly. Her father was a mechanical engineer and World War II veteran and her mother worked in a dress shop. She grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, but her parents divorced when she was 15, and she and her father moved to California.

Rhodes enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1977 and worked stateside as a mechanic in Texas, achieving the rank of Airman First Class. She left the Air Force early and relocated to Ohio, where she participated in a program called Palace Chase to release her to the reserves and honorably discharge her. Although she left active duty before her contract was up, she still received an honorable discharge after completing the program. [2]

In 1994, Rhodes started at WJNO (1230/1330 AM) in West Palm Beach, Florida to replace syndicated host G. Gordon Liddy, whom she likes to call either “Mr. Giddy” or “The Felon”. She contributed expert commentary on the O.J. Simpson trial in 1994, catapulting her to fame and higher Arbitron ratings. During the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, the West Palm Beach location of Rhodes show allowed her to provide commentary as an alternative to the mainstream media coverage on the local proceedings, as Palm Beach was a major Florida county disputed in the election.

Rhodes gained national attention soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States by being particularly critical of President Bush, and by closely monitoring questions surrounding the destruction of the World Trade Center, damage to The Pentagon, and related issues. She has always been highly critical of those she deems right-wingers, conservatives or neoconservatives, as well as Christian, Islamic and Jewish religious fundamentalists.

In 2004, she appeared on the cover of The New Republic in an article entitled Talking Back: The Coming Rise of Liberal Talk Radio.

In 2004, Rhodes joined Air America Radio, bringing The Randi Rhodes Show to its largest audience to date. Rhodes’ show consists principally of monologue with comedic content and listener calls. Only occasionally does she do interviews. The show is punctuated with musical interludes, including the show’s unofficial theme song, Pain by Stereomud. On Fridays, Rhodes opens the show with the song Bounce Your Boobies by Rusty Warren. With her distinctive Brooklyn-Queens accent, she takes calls spanning the political spectrum, aggressively promoting her views.

Rhodes regularly asserts that she is not a journalist, but does analyze and comment on news reports with a journalistic eye. She proclaims herself to be a stickler for facts, and also claims to hold to many of the basic tenets of journalism ethics and standards such as corroboration, attribution and truthfulness. She offers citations to a wide array of newspapers, magazines, websites, government documents and Radio/Television reports. Rhodes takes on the roles of editorialist, satirist, comedian and news analyst. She is a leading activist for accountability and standards in the media, and has spoken at congressional hearings about creating a framework of national standards for what can be labelled news. She frequently tells her listeners to never trust anyone they hear on the radio, not even herself. She tells her audience to do their own research after hearing supposed facts on the air.

The Anti-Defamation League sent Ms. Rhodes a letter censuring her for comments relating to the evacuation of victims from Hurricane Katrina. Rhodes compared the bungled evacuation to the intentional mass murder of Jews at Auschwitz. The ADL believed that these comments showed great insensitivity to the victims of the Holocaust.

On Sunday, October 14, 2007, Rhodes was walking her dog in her neighborhood in Manhattan, when she was mugged near the intersection of 39th and Park. Air America host Jon Elliott reported about the attack on his October 15 show, saying that Rhodes lost several teeth in the attack. Morning host Lionel filled in for her on October 15, however, he revealed no details on that day’s show. Some fans, including Elliott himself, are speculating that this was not just a random mugging, but that it may have been politically motivated.

It’s ironic that such a fantastic idea as a neocon hit on Rhodes would have been instantly believed by Rhodes’s liberal colleague and her fans in the complete absence of any facts, given that Rhodes herself, as seems to be suggested in the Wikipedia article on her, is among those who charge that President Bush was behind the 9/11 attack. I’ve been saying for years that we are in the middle of the mental breakdown of liberalism, and the only question is whether liberalism finishes destroying itself before it has destroyed our civilization, giving our civilization a chance to recover and survive, or not.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 16, 2007 01:14 PM | Send