Friday, August 26, 2005

Dumbest Call

As you know, I spent a great deal of time monitoring C-SPAN2 today watching the BRAC Commission deliberations on military base closings. During breaks in the action C-SPAN2 took calls. I rarely listen to C-SPAN or C-SPAN2 call-in shows because, frankly, I get tired of the idiots who call. I can get that on talk radio anytime. And it is particularly annoying because the C-SPAN folks remain completely detached from the calls, essentially allowing anyone to spew any disinformation they like without correction. That is generally one of my criteria for listening to a talk show; the host/moderator must be able to step in and stop the bullshit before it hangs out their for all to believe. WMAY's Jim Leach is a good example of someone who tries to keep the callers honest (much to the annoyance of those who are only interested in scoring political points and not the facts).

Anyway, today, I left C-SPAN2 on even during the call segments and, as usual, the callers could say anything completely unchallenged, no matter how stupid. The big argument among callers was whether or not the residents of Clovis, New Mexico were nice to the servicemen stationed at nearby Cannon Air Force Base. Yeah, whatever. But the best call of the day (i.e. most stupid) was from a woman who was glad that Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota was allowed to remain open because it is only one of two bases that have B-1 bombers. Her fear was that if the bombers were all put on one base (as was the plan) "the terrorist" could easily blow up all the B-1s at once! This way, not ALL the B-1s could be wiped out in one terrorist attack! I was slapping myself on the forehead for 10 minutes after that.

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