[tater]

I have never been able to stomach any of the opinion shows on TV, regardless of network. It's not fair to paint Beck as a bad journalist, since I doubt he's ever called himself one. It's an opinion show, so it's like reading a blog.

I have heard Beck a few times on the radio while driving, and I listened a while so I'd have some sense of where he was coming from. I found him first to be annoying (he pauses a lot (for whiny, dramatic effect?), and dead air is incredibly bad radio). I think like any of these goons there is probably some truth in there here and there, but he's such a loon, any good data that might be contained is wiped out by the crazy.

I listened to Hannity on the radio a few times as well. One time, he was taking a side that I agreed with... and managed to pick the worst possible argument to defend it. Stunningly dumb guy, IMO, when you can take something that is basically self-evidently true, and pick an argument for it that is so bad, I want to disagree with it (pretty much universally true any time someone takes a conservative stance (that is correct WRT the Founders) and uses religion to back it up).

FWIW, the 2 radio shows I have listened to the most are by a wide margin NPR Morning Edition, and until a few years ago... Democracy Now! The latter is total moonbat leftist propaganda. At least as nutty as Rush/Hannity/Beck, but it doesn't claim to be opinion as they do, it claims to be the unvarnished truth. For years I listed to that 1 hour a day just to know what the other side thought. I tried to listen to Air American a couple times when it was on, but that was at least as nutty as Beck, every single show I heard (no hosts memorable at all, and the only one I remember the name of was Al Frankin).