In Defense of Talk Radio Listeners, Cont'd: A Host's Response

by Conor Friedersdorf

In response to my defense of talk radio listeners, and my respectful exchange with one of his fans, Mark Levin has posted the following on Facebook:

We are under constant scrutiny by bloggers, like Friedersdork, who run nothing, are responsible for nothing, and contribute nothing to the advancement of liberty. If you google his name, you will see what a menace he has become, who he likes, and who he dislikes. He is obsessed with me, this site, and will now try to make nice with some of the posters here.

Take a good look at his "work" if you care. I have no idea why he listens to my radio show, contacts people on this site, and generally spends his days looking for any post with my name on it. But I find him truly pathetic. He fits the definition of a stalker, and he is now contacting some of you folks directly. Just be careful. He's very strange.

I actually tried to explain why I listen to Mr. Levin's radio show here:

It is nevertheless important to engage prominent talk radio show hosts by setting down their words on blogs, because otherwise their most indefensible nonsense just drifts off into the air unchallenged, a convenience that allows them to grow lazy in their call-screener-maintained cocoon while retaining more respect than is deserved from their ideologically friendly colleagues outside of it.

That was written back during the Shirley Sherrod controversy, when the talk radio host told his audience that he looked at the whole video of the USDA staffer's speech -- as opposed to the two minute excerpt posted by Andrew Breitbart -- and that it hurt her case rather than helping it. To be fair, Mr. Levin is absolutely right when he claims that I am very strange, as evidenced by this short film I made encouraging people to use the word panama as a noun.