All McGee, all the time

Ten posts in 36 hours on Michael McGee Jr.?

And McBride's just getting warmed up.

At what point does it become an obsession?

(Sorry, no links. We are not enabling her.)

Some introspection may be in order

Jessica McBride links to this item, calling it "a great read" and saying, "So true."

In its original form, it was entitled, "The graduation speech you'll never hear from the left."

Your homework assignment: In 10 minutes or less, identify the three pieces of wisdom contained in this "speech" that Jessica should take to heart. (Hint: It's not the last one.)

Political correctness is censorship. It is an attempt by others to regulate what you think.

Polls are orchestrated dishonesty. The people paying for the polls expect certain results.

The culture war is real. More often than not, the culture war is a battle for your disposable income.

Everyone is a victim of something. Live with it.

You will have enemies. Be gracious to them. It’s important you learn why they want you to fail.

The President of the United States is not responsible for your bad attitude.

The economy is not static. It percolates. Competition defines excellence. A sword is forged with fire.

Want to climb the ladder? Show up five minutes early, everyday, do your job and keep your opinions to yourself until you’re asked.

Never, ever, gossip in the workplace. Within a week it will come back to you.

Want a good job? Create your own. The hours will be tough but you’ll always get along with the boss.

Satan is a tough and deceptive negotiator. Part of his charm is that he can always make you believe you outwitted him.

You cannot compromise with evil. You can surrender to it or you can imprison it or you can kill it – there are no other options.

Headlines often lie. Don’t believe them. The truth is usually in the fourteenth paragraph.

Stay sober, don’t have kids until you’re married and learn how to use the English language. It’s a simple formula.

A basic understanding of anatomy ought to tell you babies are never accidents.

Your parents will get smarter.

It’s more work to look busy than to be busy. You might as well work.

Beauty is an attitude. If you give a jerk a make-over, you have a well-groomed jerk.

The lottery is a tax on the stupid.

The mainstream press is unreliable. Period.

Success is usually the result of having exhausted all your failures.

If anger persists – you lost.

Read. There are a million good, rich, uplifting stories in print. Hollywood has discovered only a handful of them.

Your silence, if you use it strategically, will sometimes be interpreted as wisdom.

Don’t fight other people’s battles.

“Like” is a word meaning similar to. Use it accordingly

God gave you two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion.

Hollywood is not a holy city. Actors are not high priests. Producers are not prophets. Scriptwriters are not imbued with heavenly visions and special effects are not acts of God.

The world isn’t conspiring against you. You’re not that important.

History didn’t begin the moment you were born.

There will be a point in time when you will be asked to ignore, or deny, your faith. Formulate your answer before it happens and understand: It will cost you.

When Jesus said “judge not, lest ye be judged” he was saying we should judge cautiously. Learn the whole verse and rehearse your response because it is, perhaps, the most oft-repeated excuse to justify bad behavior.

Love isn’t enough. Studies show almost half of broken marriages were predictable before the wedding day - and had nothing to do with the chemistry of love.

Marry a friend.

Despite what teachers say, self-esteem cannot be bestowed. It can only be earned.

Sin can, and is, forgiven - but only through submission.

Young men are wired for sex. Young women are wired for relationships. This makes young men clueless, stupid and awkward, and makes young women impatient with young men. This is part of God’s creation called comedy. Learn to laugh at it and remember that it is easier for the woman to be a little more patient than it is for the man to be a little less stupid.

We've seen Lou Dobbs from both sides now

Apologies to Joni Mitchell.

Jessica McBride sings the praises of the courageous Lou Dobbs, one of the few in the mainstream media who, in her view, tells it like it is on immigration:

Have you been listening to Lou Dobbs on illegal immigration lately? He's been speaking out about it for some time, but I flipped on CNN the other day, and I couldn't believe how much sense he was making. He was cutting through all of the rhetoric, and he was asking the tough questions most in the media won't touch, namely focusing on the economic cost of illegal immigration.

The same day, David Leonhardt of that disreputable New York Times says this about her hero:

For one thing, Mr. Dobbs has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality. He has said, for example, that one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants. That’s wrong, too. According to the Justice Department, 6 percent of prisoners in this country are noncitizens (compared with 7 percent of the population). For a variety of reasons, the crime rate is actually lower among immigrants than natives.

Second, Mr. Dobbs really does give airtime to white supremacy sympathizers. Ms. Cosman, who is now deceased, was a lawyer and Renaissance studies scholar, never a medical doctor or a leprosy expert. She gave speeches in which she said that Mexican immigrants had a habit of molesting children. Back in their home villages, she would explain, rape was not as serious a crime as cow stealing. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps a list of other such guests from “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

Finally, Mr. Dobbs is fond of darkly hinting that this country is under attack. He suggested last week that the new immigration bill in Congress could be the first step toward a new nation — a “North American union” — that combines the United States, Canada and Mexico. On other occasions, his program has described a supposed Mexican plot to reclaim the Southwest. In one such report, one of his correspondents referred to a Utah visit by Vicente Fox, then Mexico’s president, as a “Mexican military incursion.”

When I asked Mr. Dobbs about this yesterday, he said, “You’ve raised this to a level that frankly I find offensive.”

The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths. He is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans.

There is no denying that this country’s immigration system is broken. But it defies belief — and a whole lot of economic research — to suggest that the problems of the middle class stem from illegal immigrants. Those immigrants, remember, are largely non-English speakers without a high school diploma. They have probably hurt the wages of native-born high school dropouts and made everyone else better off.

More to the point, if Mr. Dobbs’s arguments were really so good, don’t you think he would be able to stick to the facts? And if CNN were serious about being “the most trusted name in news,” as it claims to be, don’t you think it would be big enough to issue an actual correction?

Into the dustbin of history

UPDATE: McBride has reposted the deleted items, which she had taken down 24 hours earlier with no explanation. (Don't ask, don't tell?) She also says: "I doubt I will have anything more to say on this, unless something unforseen comes up." Bets, anyone?
------------------------------------------------------

Taking a page from the old Soviet regimes, which had a system of making inconvenient facts and even images disappear from historical records and photos, Jessica McBride has begun to purge the Internet of some of the things she apparently wishes she had never written.

Brew City Brawler, a frequent McBride critic, discovered the deletions from her blog, and was taken aback. Says the Brawler:

So the casual reader no longer will be able to read her accusations that WTMJ's decision to replace her with Dennis Miller indicated the station was going wobbly on conservatism. Or that she was contemplating suing the Journal Sentinel. Or her fan mail.

Did she figure out attacking not one, but [two] former employers was not a shrewd move in pursuing future employment? Did her buddy Charlie Sykes suggest she was undermining the cause by attacking WTMJ's bonafides? Did WTMJ management contact her regarding her characterization of her final conversations with them?

The Brawler has no idea. But he would suggest that she rename her site mcbridememoryhole.

The Brawler vows he is now through writing about McBride, a college journalism instructor. He says:

...[She] really should not be teaching a profession in which accountability is paramount. In which what you write matters.

Thanks to Folkbum and the Google cache system, we are able to bring you one of last week's classic posts which McBride has deleted from her blog. But this is getting confusing. Is it a public service to make more McBride rants available, or should we all be trying to help her delete them?

Thursday, May 24, 2007
PR 101

Don't put someone in a position where they have to defend their honor and reputation.

I didn't need all of this. Nor did I want it. If they wanted to switch me for Dennis Miller, which was never anything I had heard about before the Cuprisin hatchet job broke, I would have said, your call, your station, thanks for the opportunity. And gone back quietly to my life like Ken Herrera, end of story. I am a big girl. The radio biz is brutal. I get that. I have a full life. Husband, kids, teaching job, column, dog, etc.

But falsely comparing me to Michael McGee Sr. and Don Imus in the state's largest newspaper? Journal Communications didn't think I might want to defend myself about that? What would Ken Herrera have said if they compared him to Michael McGee?

Oh, PR 101A.

Really don't put someone in a position where they have to defend their honor and reputation if they have a widely read blog.

Trust me: I want all of this to just go back to normal. But I will simply not stand for being fraudulently compared to Michael McGee Sr. and Don Imus (if you don't think that comparison was drawn, go read the last paragraph of Tim Cuprisin's "fair-and-balanced" column from Saturday. He wrote: The move came after a series of similar gaffes. Last month, Don Imus was fired by CBS Radio and MSNBC for offensive comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Earlier this month, Michael McGee was suspended from his WNOV-AM (860) show after offensive comments about the death of WTMJ talker Charlie Sykes' mother.).

Are you kidding me? Go listen to McGee's audio again. Cuprisin really thinks I made a "similar gaffe" - as he falsely wrote, I don't accept those terms - to a man who used the N word repeatedly, and made such statements as this one in the exact infamous radio rant that got McGee kicked off the radio and to which Cuprisin compared me:

Milwaukee as a whole, they hate a (N word excised by me). And they hate, they hate, they hate, and they’re just like they’re on a plantation and when you really think about it. Nothing changed too much telling you when the master’s pissing in your face and telling you it’s rain and the (N word excised by me)’s saying, hey he’s pissing on you. Right in your face.

And that's just for starters. Cuprisin compared me to that? For asking a faux Eugene Kane if he finally thinks it's a crisis after the tragic passing of a little girl whose death I'd already expressed my outrage over on my blog and radio show? (Facts Cuprisin omitted, among others, including all context.)

You know what Don Imus said, which is something I condemned on the radio. He used a racial and misognystic slur. I didn't do anything remotely similar to that. And I won't stand for it.

Frankly, it's so outrageous as to raise defamation (I am a public figure, which makes it a high hurdle legally but don't think I'm not at least considering legal action against the MJS for that comparison).

Furthermore, PR 101B.

If you are going to put someone with a prominent blog in a position where they have to defend their honor and reputation, don't keep endlessly switching your story in emails to upset listeners, putting said blogger in the annoying position of having to defend her honor all over again and hacking off upset listeners more because they see through the shell game. And don't switch the stories in writing because your emails will probably end up in the hands of the talk show host with the huge megaphone across town. Oh, and don't copy the person with the blog on some of the emails with switching stories.

PR 101C

Get your characters right. Consider. Do you really want to go after a conservative for poking harmless fun at EUGENE KANE?

PR 101D

If you want a less ideologically conservative show at night, or anytime else, and you tell that to the person with the blog, just level with the listeners. They can see through anything else, and they're going to figure it out pretty soon anyway when the new host admits he doesn't like the conservative label to... Cuprisin.

Good grief.

By the way, when is Tim Cuprisin going to report that company honcho Jon Schweitzer, in a listener email, changed his story from Saturday's money quote? He now says the Kane situation had nothing to do with canning me: She wasn’t even dismissed over the Eugene Kane piece she aired...

Oh really? On Saturday, he said it "contributed" to it and Cuprisin built his whole story around that, giving the readers what apparently was a false impression about me, at least now according to Schweitzer, Cuprisin's key source.

If MJS is honest, they will report that and retract their entire story, which was apparently based on a completely false premise, according to their key source, in writing.

Tim Cuprisin, I dare you to link to THIS post.

posted by Jessica McBride at 3:13:00 AM

UPDATE: Another batch of deleted McBride posts, sent our way by an e-mailer calling himself Ed Murrow, who says his RSS feed saved these:

MAY 24

Dennis Miller says: I shun the conservative label

I told you so. You know, what? That is WTMJ's right. It's their station. Their company. On Friday, the program director, Tom Parker,(email him at tparker@620wtmj.com), told me they'd decided to move away from "ideologically conservative" programs. He said it wasn't the growth potential of the station anymore. (Except for Charlie's show, he said. Don't worry. I never got the impression they would meddle with Charlie's show at all, and I don't believe Charlie would let them. He's too ethical, and his show is too good and too highly rated). By not mentioning him, I am not implying anything about Jeff, who is also a fantastic person and host. I only know what I was told by Parker.

Tom Parker told me that Dennis Miller is conservative but not ideologically so (whatever that means). That's a better fit coming out of sports, he said. Now the station is denying this in listener emails.

But the proof is in the pudding. I told you so. Again, it's their station. Their right. But why not just be up front about it if that's where they think the audience is? Maybe the audience spoke back?

Tim Cuprisin on Dennis Miller today:

While talk radio of his type is generally labeled as conservative, he doesn't go with that label. "Anybody who says I'm way out on the right is wrong, or way out on the left is wrong," he says, describing himself as a "reasonably measured man."

"I'm not on here to excoriate callers or guests. I'm not on here to be presumptuous enough to think that my opinion should rule. I'll say my opinion, and then I'm willing to be convinced." So who is his audience?

"I'm hoping I'm talking to pragmatists. I'm getting sick of being shouted down by certain people; the stridency is giving me a headache. "The day-to-day discourse in this country, the Hatfield and McCoy thing, it's over for me. It's tired, it's boring."

Blah, blah, blah. Don't trust me. Just read this. Whatever. This is just as tired of a schtick as that which he thinks he's condemning - the, "let's pretend I'm not partisan because people are sick of partisanship" schtick. I don't agree with this at all, so, maybe I just wasn't a good fit for WTMJ in retrospect.

I should have known that two months ago when Parker said I might want to talk less about Doyle, taxes, and Bush, and more about lifestyle issues. I remember going home to my husband and saying, "Paul, does Hannity talk about lifestyle issues? Does Belling? Are we living in the 1960s, when they made my grandmother cover the First Ladies for the women's section of the old Milwaukee Sentinel, when she really
wanted to cover politics?" (As a very young girl, I remember looking at her press passes from the Ladies Teas at the White House in her photo albums).

Let me be honest. Candidly blunt. I was never good at trying to talk about lifestyle issues. Deep down, I know that. I just couldn't force it. Anyway, the night I tried talking about Britney being bald (is that a "lifestyle issue?"), my phone lines jammed for an hour anyway with callers attacking me for talking about Britney being bald. "Don't I talk about the war in Iraq enough for your folks!" I remember
saying. Regular listeners! You know this.

Guess what? I am interested in Doyle, taxes, and Bush. I think they are important.

What he calls partisanship and boring, I call principle. I don't believe the Hatfield and McCoy thing is boring and tired at all. I respect people who have principles and know their own minds. I am proud to admit that I am conservative in most, although not every, position. I am presumptous enough to think that my opinion should rule - that is, that the conservative opinion should rule.

Ironically, this is exactly the point I made in the "controversial" left side of the moon segment (the part that didn't make it into the Journal Sentinel; the lengthy and serious introduction before the Kane part).

Here's an excerpt of the "controversial" segment (I heard a blogger might have audio coming soon):

All right, so my producer Robert Hampton and I have created a new segment for the program. It is called left side of the moon. And here's where the idea came from. Maybe, I don't know, two weeks ago, an MPS teacher -- a very good teacher by the way -- we don't hear enough about the very good teachers in MPS. And he has a debate class, and he's been inviting very interesting people into that class. Now, I'm not describing myself as very interesting, but he had John Chisholm in there. He had Robert Donovan in there. What a great experience for these MPS kids. And he's been trying to spark debates and then they have to write columns about it or something.

Well, this teacher invited me into the class, and he invited Eugene Kane into the class. On the same day. At the same time. And we were supposed to debate the National Guard going into the inner city issue. Which isn't really my pet issue or anything. But I said all right, I'm game. I'll come in, and I'll try to advance that side. And I thought it was enormous fun, number one. And so Robert and I concocted a new regular segment for the program. It's going to run on Tuesdays and Fridays. Not every single Tuesday and Friday but on Tuesdays and/or Fridays when I have long enough shows. Because those are the days that Robert's my producer. He's sort of done this with me, so I really only want to do this segment when he is here. I will announce it on my blog on wtmj.com when I am going to have a new left side of the moon segment.

The idea behind it is this. I am a little sick and tired, not to criticize anyone else, but I personally as a listener of other conservative shows nationally and everything, I get a little sick and tired of hearing the usual suspects on the shows. Now I love Paul Ryan, wonderful, wonderful man, and Mark Green and all of these individuals, great people, great politicians, have a lot to say but I'm a little bit sick and tired of only hearing conservative hosts talk to the usual suspects. So I thought how interesting would it be to invite a liberal on my show every now and then to have a debate.

Now, let me make this very clear. Let me tell you what left side of the moon will not be. It?s not Kumbayah. We?re not going to be roasting marshmallows in the studio. I?m not going to be holding hands with Eugene Kane or Gov. Doyle or whatever like they do on NPR. This is not National Public Radio, nor will it ever be. Because I don't believe that all ideas are inherently equal. I don't believe that all viewpoints really have equal merit. That's kind of the liberal point of view sometimes, although they say that?s their point of view, that they're the non judgmental ones, and then they judge everybody else.

They say they?re the tolerant ones, who consider all points of view. But they're incredibly intolerant to the conservative point of view. And that's perfectly OK. Because I'm intolerant to the liberal point of view. Not all of the time, but a lot of the time. That's because I do believe that the conservative position -- this is not the Republican position, that's a different thing -- but the conservative position philosophically, is for the most part, most times, logically and ethically stronger than the liberal point of view. And I would like to invite some prominent liberals and maybe some not so prominent ones, we will see, onto the program and ask them to defend their viewpoints.

Uh, yeah. Not a good fit.

Dennis Miller is a good person. But he's just not me. You know, maybe things happen for a reason. If that's what the marketplace wants (which I doubt), they are a business, so go for it, I guess. But don't confuse it with principle.

**********************
MAY 23

Belling on "my carcass"
Don't worry. This carcass ain't dead, yet. It will keep fighting the conservative fight. I don't need corporate America to give me a voice. Not in a new media age.

I knew that would get your attention.

As usual, Mark Belling hits the nail right on the head 9http://www.gmtoday.com/milwaukeetoday/editorials/belling/belling_05232007.asp). He's right on everything in this column, including that the midterms didn't mean people have turned away from the conservative message. They were sending a message on the war (but not to surrender) and on the Republican establishment (Foley, spending, etc...) The pendulum will swing back.

Those execs who think otherwise, and choose to ride the short-term wave of today rather than the steady tide of principle, will find themselves sadly mistaken and exposed as utterly lacking principle in the end, in my opinion. As I've said before, I don't know a single person who wants their taxes raised, criminals released, and America to surrender to the terrorists. Well, maybe one or two. They're all in
the MSM and academia. But other than that...

******************
MAY 23

Charlie and Mark

Let me make this very clear: Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling are both men I respect. I have known them both for a long time, back into the late 1990s, when I wrote a column on gangs that sparked their interest. As a conservative, I want MORE conservative voices in this community, and I am glad that Milwaukee is lucky enough to have four strong conservative talk radio voices, in Charlie, Mark, Jeff Wagner,and Jay Weber (plus rising star James T. Harris). Too bad Vikki McKenna doesn't come in here - she is amazing.

Mark and Charlie have turned conservative talk into a fine art with their very different, and extremely effective, styles.

I will never forget how Mark Belling went to bat for me a long time ago. He asked me on his television show, but Milwaukee Journal Sentinel management said they preferred that I didn't go on the program. I don't remember the exact date. It was probably the late 1990s. Mark called Editor Martin Kaiser and raised holy hell about it.

He asked why they only allowed the males in the newsroom to go on his show. Marty came out of his office a couple minutes later and rather sheepishly said I could go on the Belling show. Mark gave me a chance. He has always shown me respect. He's an absolute master at what he does. I appreciate Mark's defense of me this week.

If it weren't for Charlie Sykes, I wouldn't have a blog. Charlie Sykes encouraged me to start my very first blog. Charlie is a man of brilliant intellect, and I've learned a lot from him. Our families have a lot in common. His father was a professor at UWM and Charlie used to work at the newspaper too, among other things. He first invited me on his television show years ago (the Monica Ray story) and on his radio show. He's been very kind to me and is my friend. Charlie had nothing to do with the actions of WTMJ management. He doesn't run the radio station. I appreciate the nice and very gracious things he said about me today on his show and blog. I thank him for that enormously.

*************
MAY 22

Listener/reader response

Update: Click on the home page for regular posts on other issues now. I am getting sick of my own story.

I thought you might be interested in hearing the opinion that will never make it through the mainstream media's gate (see vanishing "defense"
(http://latermeask.blogspot.com/2007/05/cuprisin-watch-case-of-missing-post.html) post). I have removed the writers' names to protect their privacy. These are all people I don't personally know. They also aren't party activists, as far as I know. Those emails and calls came in too in far greater numbers than I ever expected, but I've selected a sampling for posting below of emails from "average" listeners only. I'm not going to post them all. The response has been overwhelming and is so greatly appreciated. It's really been amazing the past couple of days - Thanks.

Incidentally, I've received a grand total of two angry, vicious emails, including one that said, "we at UWM know who you are." (I received zero complaints after the segment aired, even though many people called in with ideas for left side of the moon's next guest, until Jim Rowen and Tim Cuprisin started making hay with it on Friday morning. Then I got a grand total of two, and they weren't that angry. They were just questioning about what they had read.)

Those emails have been drowned out by the kindness anyway, so thanks. I haven't even been able to obtain the emails in my company account since Friday morning because they blocked it out after telling me I could access it. These are just the ones coming through my personal blog email, which people are just starting to find again.

What these emails tell me is this: This is not so much about me (trust me, I recognize that) as it is about the fact that people are hungering for more conservative voices. There still aren't that many of us outside the Web. The most disturbing part of this entire story is that WTMJ told me they are moving away from "conservative ideological" programs due to the midterms. I was also told at one
point to talk less about Doyle, taxes, and Bush! (yeah, right). Frankly, it's their station. If that's the direction they want to go in, it's obviously their right.

But WTMJ radio is the "largest stick in the state", so that means fewer conservative ideological local/state voices in this state. Furthermore, there are people at night who do hunger for issues-driven shows with a local/state bent. That's a great thing for civic life.

Also, the conservative audience gets it - they understand that the liberal media, in concert with the partisan attack blogs, are attempting to silence conservative voices these days, especially those critical of... well, the liberal media.

Why won't the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel print this side of the story? We all know the answer to that question, don't we?

###

Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your show and how disgusted I am in regard to your treatment and firing. We are in a culture war and the liberals fight dirty. I am hoping that while this battle was lost, the war will eventually be won. I would very much like to see you surface on another station. Keep up the good work.

###

I just sent this to wtmj: "I was so pleased when you put Jessica on the air. That move showed a great deal of forward thinking on your part. She is a super star of the evening air waves. I would look forward to her show with a great deal of enthusiasm . I think that your dismissal of her was narrow minded, prejudicial, and showed poor judgment. I would hope that you would reconsider your decision. If
not, I will be listening to Mark Levine on another station." I will be "listening" to you, Jessica, on your blog. Keep up the good work.

###

I'm sorry about your recent dismissal from WTMJ Radio. I haven't heard much about it yet today, but was very upset about it. I look forward to your show, as I work nights by myself and enjoy your company. I have just recently started reading your blog and will continue to do so. Sorry again.

###

I have enjoyed listening to you on WTMJ and your podcasts.. I was so disappointed to hear of their decision regarding your show. I always appreciated how you disected a subject. The way you handled some of the strangest of night time callers and the way you maintained your objectivity during your husband's statewide campaign were a tribute to your professional integrity. I hope we get to hear you again on the
airwaves. Until then, my best to you on your career at UWM and with your blog.

###

Jessica, I never wrote to a talk show host before, but I thought that I ought to let you know that I will miss your presence on the radio. You've been a very pleasant breath of fresh air in the evenings and I look forward to hearing you again on another medium. WTMJ is clearly in a meltdown these days.

###

I was out of town and when I got back home on Sunday night my husband told me about your being fired from WTMJ.

I became a listener of your show only recently and really enjoyed it. Mostly I appreciated the fact that you told it like it is. You don't dance around a subject and when conservatives (Republicans) are wrong you point it out. My best to you and your family.

A loyal listener,

###

I can't believe you are off..I loved you and your show..Now what do I do...I wish you well.

###

It is sad to see a world where people get fired over something they didn't say. You were NOT making fun of the murder of a 4 year old but rather of Eugene Kane. I am sorry. But I glad you are back blogging because we need your common sense voice

###

First, I would like to say that I'm sorry you're gone from WTMJ. I always enjoyed listening to you. Second, I just read your blog post about illegals. I agree 100%!

###

I just want to give my best wishes to your new future since leaving TMJ. It's disheartening to hear that you had to endure a situation in which your employer didn't support you. I caught parts of your show a few times and thought it was well done. I read your blog for the first time and will check back from time to time now.

###

(listener forwarded this message the listener sent to station management)

Jon, ....I understand you canned JMcB. I consider the circumstances questionable & therefore am immediately "canning" radio 620. 1/ First, radio 620 comes off my truck radio memory buttons, and off the 2 radios in my home that also have memory buttons. 2/ Further, if I hear WTMJ on ANY radio, I will insist insofar as possible that the station be changed or the radio turned off. This will apply in the health club I frequent, and several other locations. If others ask why I make my 'urgent' request, I will freely tell them. 3/ Finally, I will forward copies of this email to all local listings in my email address book, with an explanation, and ask that they implement these same 3 steps.

###

I'm writing a quick note to let you know that I will miss your show. I work second shift and always enjoyed listening to your show driving home at night. There are not nearly enough female conservative voices out there, so you will be missed. I think am620 is probably betting that the Dennis Miller show will be successful but I'm not so sure. He didn't work out well on Monday night football and he gets tiresome to
listen to after awhile. good luck to you - I will be following your blog.

###

It?s no wonder the people in this state are so liberal, there is no news source to inform them of the truth. Excellent article by the way, I am going to be directing quite a few people to it. By the way, I'm sorry about your TMJ firing, but those hacks and communists wouldn't know the truth if it bit them in the ass.

###

I'm shocked. Given the opportunity, TMJ has revealed their true colors. TMJ is now forever linked to cowardly liberal bias.

###

My daughter, who lives in Brookfield, told me about your problem with WTMJ. I am extremely disappointed that they have acted this way. I live in the Fox Valley and listen to WTMJ for much of the day, and alway sended with your program. In fact I was always glad when the sporting events were over, and even happier when they didn't occur at all and you could have a full show. Always regretted weekends when you wouldn't be'on air'. I know you will find something else, but I am sorry - we really need more female influences in this world! I do thank you for your informative program and trust you will be 'back' again soon on a station that has enough power to come to the Fox Valley.

###

Take care and good luck with your future endeavours? Do a podcast.Keep getting your message out there!

###

I just read your blog in illegal?s and cannot agree more. I will also be contacting our public elected officials to put the heat on. In liberal-ville, that is tough sledding, but the message has to be presented even if it is not understood. Kenosha hopefully will wake up and DO SOMETHING. We will miss you on TMJ?you were very good.

###

I will miss your show and just wanted you to know I will be searching your blog for your new station and for news we do not always find elsewhere. Thank you for all your great work and thought provoking news you have done. Wtmj has lost alot caving to the thought police and ever considering getting rid of you. Please you do not need to respond as I am sure you getting tons of support but know there are many thinking of you considering the friends and family I have gotten to listen to your show. I just wanted to let you know you had me and many others as a fan.

###

I just wanted to send you a note of support. You are fantastic and will continue to do great things. I am so sorry for the abuse you are getting.

###

I don't know what the fall-out from the recent personel moves at 620 will be, but if they keep canning talent, Air America might have a new home. Of course, maybe 620 has insider news that the fairness doctrine is coming back and they are "scrambling"several years in advance to get in compliance.

###

What happened to you at TMJ reminds me of Bernie What's-His-Name's book title: "Crazies To The Left Of Me, Wimps To The Right". That explains it exactly. Obviously, Cuprisin spun the spot for effect, and TMJ responded "appropriately" in the wake of Imus and that moron McGee. C.Y.A. is a convenient excuse here... But, frankly, I think the station has made a programming error. I don't know what market share you had, but I suspect Miller's will be less.

###

(Another email to the station forwarded to me) Hello, You've just lost me as a "loyal WTMJ listener." And I am the person in the demographic that you need the most. White. Female, Baby Boomer with money. Conservative. Republican. You made a terrible mistake by firing Jessica McBride. She was such a breath of fresh air to TMJ. This will be a big deal for me to seek out other radio stations at my age. I
grew up listening to your radio station. Now I am gone. You've made a terrible decision to fire her. And I hate baseball. But I'd stay up late and listen to those games just for Jessica to come on the air. Even if it was for 30 minutes. I needed her to inform me of what was going on in the community. And she delivered it to me the way I understood it.

### Well, I could go on. But you get the point.

*********************
MAY 19
Kenosha's accused cop killer is an illegal immigrant on state
supervision recently given HUBER jail

New update: New conservative blogger reaction (sorry, I know I didn't
catch all of it. I've been busy today).

Silent E Speaks
(http://silentespeaks.blogspot.com/2007/05/wtmj-fires-jessica-mcbride.html)/Stepping Right Up (http://steppingrightup.blogspot.com/2007/05/wtmj-has-some-explaining-to-do.html)./ Ask Me Later (http://latermeask.blogspot.com/2007/05/cuprisin-watch-case-of-missing-post.html) on the vanishing post/ Tom McMahon (http://www.tommcmahon.net/2007/05/the_continuing_.html)./ Badger Blogger (http://badgerblogger.com/?p=5331)./ Pete Republic (http://peterepublic.org/archives/2007/05/jessica_mcbride_1.html)/ John McAdams (http://mu-warrior.blogspot.com/2007/05/wtmj-has-pulled-jessica-mcbrides-blog.html) (also go to his home page and scroll down for more today)/ Real Debate Wisconsin (http://realdebatewisconsin.blogspot.com/2007/05/breaking-news-mcgee-calls-for-mcbride.html)/ Shark and Shepherd (http://sharkandshepherd.blogspot.com/2007/05/laffaire-mcbride.html)/ James Wigderson
(http://wigdersonlibrarypub.blogspot.com/2007/05/mcgee-jr-looking-for-revenge.html)/

Mark Belling Monday
podcast(http://www.belling.com/cc-common/podcast.html) (he talked about this at 3 and at 4).

The listener and reader responses are overwhelming, as well as the calls from conservative activists all over the state. I have been completely inundated with them today. Thank you to all!

####

I may not blog on this site permanently (some things are in flux), but this post couldn't wait. WTMJ 620 AM has asked to continue my blog (that's why it's still up), but I have no interest in doing so. I will be asking them to remove my name and blog from it. So, for now, you can check this site for postings.

Update: I noticed I am getting heavy traffic to my blog. So I have decided to say a bit more - briefly. Then, I will move on to the illegal immigrant story. It's a good one, so please read on.

I am disappointed because I fear that WTMJ has set a new standard for "offensiveness" on the radio that all conservative hosts in this town are now going to be judged by. I think that's a very dangerous precedent that should concern anyone who cares about a thriving conservative media. It's a tactic that the left has seized on since Don Imus (who wasn't even a conservative host). The threshhold for offense is lowering every day (I was one of those who argued that what Don Imus said was clearly offensive, by the way. But in cases that are at the best close calls, hosts deserve the defense of management).

I believe strongly in the power of a growing conservative media, which we didn't always have. This new tactic has been wedded with attempts to renew the Fairness Doctrine and to stifle conservative talk radio using campaign finance laws. Thus, it's important that corporate management defend its hosts, particularly when partisan liberal blogs (including a juvenile/abusive anonymous one and one run by the man who was the other finalist for my job at UWM) are driving the outrage in
concert with the liberal media. I do believe that they are moving more away from conservative ideological programs anyway - at least that's what I was told - which is also disappointing.

I appreciated the people I worked with greatly. Charlie Sykes, Jeff Wagner, Joe Scialfa, Stacy Blasiola, my producers, Rick Belcher (the program director who hired me) - class acts all. They do great work, and I am sure they will continue doing it and being champions of the conservative voice on the air and the Web. I appreciate the emails and calls from average listeners who enjoyed the show. They are people
I've never even met, and the support has been overwhelming. I also appreciated Mark Belling's defense of me on his show (). He always says it like it is, and that's something I really respect. Thank you also to the conservative bloggers and activists who have defended me -
Texas Hold Em
(http://texasholdemblogger.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/wtmj-and-jessica/), Real
Debate Wisconsin
(http://realdebatewisconsin.blogspot.com/2007/05/wrong-outrage-people.html),
Badger Blogger (http://badgerblogger.com/?p=5316), Wigderson
(http://wigdersonlibrarypub.blogspot.com/2007/05/mcbride-fired.html),
Pete Republic
(http://peterepublic.org/archives/2007/05/weighing_in_on.html) and
others.

Things happen the way they happen. I'm not a person who will sit around dwelling on it. The beauty of the new media is that anyone can blog or broadcast in five minutes anyway. I have things to say about the world, so I will keep saying them in one format or the other. To be honest, I couldn't work for a station that doesn't defend its hosts when they come under fire from the left, because that's almost a daily
occurrence in this field.

In the segment in question, I had posed a series of serious questions that I really would like the answer to. I came up with the questions I would have really asked if Eugene Kane had agreed to come on - because I had invited him. Another was: What's one solution, other than blaming the system, that you have for solving the violent crime problem? And: Why do you see race in absolutely everything? The question that liberal blogs and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel jumped on - and took out of context - asked whether, in light of the 4-year-old girl's death, Eugene Kane would at least finally acknowledge it's a crisis in Milwaukee. I would like to know the
answer to that question still. This was part of a lengthy discussion about a new segment on my show in which I would debate liberals. I had expressed my outrage over Jasmine's death on the radio and my blog. I made light of the fact only that Eugene Kane refused to come on the show to talk about serious issues by using the sound effect (as I noted in my original post on this at the time of the show, I know
Eugene was on vacation that day. I had invited him on the show as a blanket invitation at a time that worked in his schedule, and he said no to ever come on). I also said during the program that I was giving him a standing invite to change his mind and come on any time in the future. I would have asked the same questions had he done so. The point of the segment was to ask liberals the questions the media won't ask them - the tough questions.

My point in asking the "controversial" question was that we are in a crisis in the City of Milwaukee. Until the community admits the magnitude of the problem, the community won't ever begin to solve it. Period. It's important that hosts be allowed to say controversial things.

It is what it is. Life goes forward. I don't intend to say any more about it. I just want to move on, look ahead. So let's go forward by getting back to the issues now.

Out-Bushing Bush on Iraq

Who's more pig-headed than George W. Bush when it comes to Iraq? You guessed it:

All wrong

(The Politico) President Bush said today if the Iraqi government were to ask the United States to leave Iraq, he would grant the request. "We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It's their government's choice,’’ the president said during a Rose Garden news conference. "If they were to say leave, we would leave."

We should leave Iraq when doing so will not harm OUR national security. Period.

If Iraq becomes a haven for Al-Qaida or Iran, we'll be back there anyway. Finish the job.

Let's review.

A majority of people in the US want our troops out of Iraq.

So does a majority of the US Congress.

And a majority of the people of Iraq.

That has left one person, The Decider, insisting that US troops stay no matter what anyone else says.

But now Bush says that if the Iraqi government we've set up, in the name of bringing democracy to Iraq, asks the US to leave, he would do what they ask.

Which leaves only Jessica McBride, defender of freedom and enemy of Islam, who would maintain the occupation no matter what anyone else wants. (So that Iraq doesn't become "a haven for Iran?")

Fortunately, she is not The Decider.

McBride v. Barrett, Round 2

Payback time: Kevin Barrett, the fruitcake Jessica McBride helped make famous (or infamous) by hosting him and airing his Sept. 11 conspiracy theories on her radio show, invites McBride to be a guest on his show.

Link.

Eugene Kane: 'Don't weep for Jessica'

Eugene Kane, who was on vacation when his "debate" with Jessica McBride took place, says:

Don't feel sorry for Jessica. She will survive nicely. She's a privileged woman in this community with political connections along with the proven ability to get jobs for which she is supremely unqualified. As for WTMJ-AM, I think the management is being disingenuous by suggesting McBride was let go because of this silly comedy skit that involved me and mentioned Jasmine Owens.

She was fired for doing a lousy radio show.

The missing link -- McBride audio

WisPolitics has unearthed the audio to the Jessica McBride segment which contributed, at least to some degree, to her losing her WTMJ radio show.

Management had taken it down from her website and blog a week ago, when the controversy began.

Now you can listen yourself and judge whether it was (a) inappropriate and (b)a firing offense.

Playing the victim

There's a right-wing Milwaukee talk radio host who has written a book asserting that the United States has become "a nation of self-proclaimed victims," in the words of a Publishers Weekly review on Amazon.com.

Who is the author?

Hint: It's not Jessica McBride. As Mike Plaisted points out, McBride and her supporters play the victim card themselves. Sykes, according to the Library Journal, would say:

This perception of ourselves as a nation of victims represents nothing less than the decay of the American character. (Author Charles) Sykes calls for a "moratorium on blame" and a return to the acceptance of personal responsibility for one's actions.

Wouldn't that be refreshing?

Brawler to Jessica: Give it a rest

Brew City Brawler, a frequent McBride critic who keeps asking how she got a job teaching journalism, seems genuinely concerned about Jessica's current state of mind.

This comes at the end of a post examining whether McBride has any grounds to sue the Journal Sentinel for defamation, as she's threatened:

Jessica: I know we've had our differences. But the Brawler is sincere when he says: Take some time off. You're really not doing yourself any favors and you're not proving anything by rambling at 3 in the morning. Take some time off, get some perspective and if you still feel the need to come back, do so. Seriously.

Out of the mainstream

Mark Belling's impassioned defense of McBride, a victim of the mainstream liberal media, runs off the track a little:

... The bit wasn’t very funny (and is actually a ripoff of something I did years ago) but it’s hardly offensive...

The reason McBride didn’t stand a chance despite the harmlessness of her bit is that she doesn’t have a lot of listeners...

Is Belling someone you'd want in your foxhole?

His rant about the mainstream media's lack of conservative voices is a little hard to swallow, since he acknowledges that Clear Channel, the biggest station owner in America, and the Waukesha Freeman, in which his column appears, both employ lots of conservative commentators. Apparently Clear Channel and the Freeman are out of the mainstream. But we knew that, didn't we?

'Firings miss fundamental problem'

Joel McNally, a talk show host himself on WMCS-AM in Milwaukee, in the Shepherd Express:

Another reason to fire McBride was that her show was never very good. It was the same right-wing clichés you could hear from Sykes delivered in a more annoying voice.

The excuse for the firing was an attempt at wacky comedy by McBride about the tragic death of a 4-year-old Milwaukee girl caught in the crossfire of an inner-city shooting.

McBride set up a mock interview with black Milwaukee columnist Eugene Kane about the little girl’s murder that had Kane squawking like a chicken.

Kane is a frequent racial target on right-wing shows. Most decent people would fail to see the point—or the humor—in attacking Kane over a heartbreaking tragedy that touched an entire community, black and white.

None of these firings over isolated, tasteless incidents addresses the fundamental problem with talk radio. That is the dominance of one narrow-minded point of view promoting intolerance.

The solution isn’t to fire all the right-wing radio hosts, as enjoyable as that might be. The solution to offensive speech in a free society is more speech.

We desperately need more points of view on the radio.

He also comments on Don Imus and Michael McGee. You can read it here.

Poker Playing 101

As Jessica likes to say, "I Am Dying of Laughter Right Now."

Now she is teaching Public Relations 101, a syllabus posted at 3 a.m., with enough content to last several semesters. She lashes out at WTMJ radio manager Jon Schweitzer, columnist Tim Cuprisin, and even her replacement, Dennis Miller.

What she needs is a short course in Poker 101: Know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. It is past time to fold 'em.

As the Brew City Brawler points out, she says she is tired of her own story, but continues to wallow in it.

Sometimes there's accidentally a little kernel of truth in what she says:

On Friday, the program director, Tom Parker, (email him at tparker@620wtmj.com), told me they'd decided to move away from "ideologically conservative" programs. He said it wasn't the growth potential of the station anymore. (Except for Charlie's show, he said. Don't worry. I never got the impression they would meddle with Charlie's show at all, and I don't believe Charlie would let them. He's too ethical, and his show is too good and too highly rated).

"Too good and too highly-rated" could be a key phrase here, but she seems to skip right over it in trying to figure out why she's off the air.

Now we know who to blame

If it weren't for Charlie Sykes, I wouldn't have a blog. Charlie Sykes encouraged me to start my very first blog.

-- Jessica McBride. But she loves Belling, too.

In the interest of full disclosure ...

John McAdams says, among other things, that Jim Rowen should have disclosed, when writing about Jessica McBride, that they once competed for the same job.

Paul Soglin goes him one better. This is what you call full disclosure.

Bottom line: McBride didn't sell

Charlie Sykes writes:

When all of this calms down I hope folks remember two things: in radio ultimately our fates are determined by the marketplace; and although these are controversial and painful issues, they do involve actual people.

In other words, despite all that Sykes did for her as his protege (some would say creation), she could not find an audience.

Maybe even WTMJ listeners are more discerning than we give them credit for.

Tim Cuprisin agrees, and says Mark Belling is just trying to stick it to his rival station with his comments supporting McBride. It would serve WISN right if McBride got a little airtime there -- but it would clearly not help their bottom line.

Missing the mainstream

Ms. McBride would have us believe that she and her cohort of right-wing bloggers represent some "mainstream" majority views on issues of the day, while the loony lefties are baying at the moon.

Jay "folkbum" Bullock takes issue with her latest declaration on immigration, and finds that it is McBride & Co. who are out of the mainstream and off in some tributary.

Making it personal

Did you ever notice how quickly conservatives attack personally when they can't defend themselves substantively?

Jessica McBride -- long may she blog, so we can stay in business -- went on the attack immediately after losing her job on Friday. Her first post on Saturday, back on her old blog:

Thus, it's important that corporate management defend its hosts, particularly when partisan liberal blogs (including a juvenile/abusive anonymous one and one run by the man who was the other finalist for my job at UWM) are driving the outrage in concert with the liberal media.

Presumably, Whallah! is the "juvenile/abusive" one. Need we say that being called juvenile and abusive by Jessica McBride is like being called smelly by a skunk? No, we needn't. (And how can we forget her strong defense of Dennis York's right to anonymity?

We are more concerned by the sliming of Jim Rowen, a polite, thoughtful, policy-oriented wonk blogger who writes primarily about environmental issues but occasionally comments on right-wing talk radio outrages.

Rowen was the first to comment on McBride's tasteless segment that mixed chicken squawks with a question about the killing of 4-year-old Jasmine Owens.

By blogging standards, it was pretty mild:

Tacky Talk Radio: McBride Mocks The Death Of A Child

WTMJ-AM 620 rightwing talker and blogger Jessica McBride stages a fake interview with one of her frequent targets - - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel local columnist Eugene Kane - - and supplies chicken squawking sound effects as Kane's answers, since he didn't accept the interview invitation.

No surprise there, as McBride says the idea behind the kind of interview she wanted to do with Kane is to hammer a liberal on the air, so what, from the 'guest's' point of view, would be the point?

... it seems as if you going to hear another juvenile but relatively harmless political radio rip...except that McBride uses those comedic sound effects for 'Kane's' answer to a question about the recent, horrific Jasmine Owens murder.

Jasmine is the little girl killed by a bullet to the head in a Milwaukee drive-by shooting.

So is the murder of a child, and an earlier murder McBride sets up in a similar way, fair game for entertainment radio programming?

Are listeners entertained?

Would Jasmine's mother enjoy hearing her child's name bandied around on a radio program?

Would Jasmine's mother enjoy hearing the host yuk it up with the producer who collaborated on the scheme hos clever was this bit on the state's largest AM radio station?

That was it. No call for McBride's head. No demand that she be fired. It wasn't until later, after WTMJ management had removed the offending post and audio from their website, that Rowen even suggested an apology was in order.

McBride, lashing out in all directions, says Rowen went after her because she was hired, instead of him, for a UWM journalism lecturer position several years ago. Rowen has moved on to other interests, and seems a lot happier and at peace with what he's doing than McBride does with her life. He's probably thankful he didn't get the job.

John McAdams, a Marquette faculty member who should know better, writes about Rowen like it's an expose. How did he find out Rowen had competed for the UWM job? He asked him. Rowen said yes, that was true -- which is why he has never commented about McBride's performance at UWM.

Pretty big expose, huh?

So pleased with it was McAdams than he began to post comments on lefty blogger sites, saying "you liberal bloggers have allowed yourselves to get caught up in carrying the water for a fellow with some rather personal issues with McBride," and linking to his post.

Excuse us, but who's carrying the water here? He's taken an unfounded attack by McBride -- who left Rowen's name out but no doubt hoped to be asked who she was talking about -- and spread it far and wide. Real Debate Wisconsin chimed in, too. And Badger Blogger is peddling the complete untruth that Rowen wants McBride fired from UWM.

None of them offers any substantive defense for the terrible mistake she made on the air Tuesday night in an effort to score points in her grudge match against Eugene Kane, who calls her out regularly. Just spreading McBride's personal venom. (Michael Mathias points out how ludicrous attack on Rowen is.)

WTMJ management, meanwhile, says McBride was on her way out the door anyway, and the station just moved up her departure date.

Whallah! prefers to think -- although it defies all logic -- that Rowen got her fired.

Rowen has moved on to other topics. Time for us to do likewise.

The last word: Rowen also was critical of Michael McGee's on-air comments about the Sykes family, and praised WNOV for taking him off the air. We're still waiting for the evidence that Rowen had applied to host McGee's show.

Here's an idea

Here's an idea we can all get behind. It's an email from one of McBride's fans to WTMJ management, she says:

Jon, ....I understand you canned JMcB. I consider the circumstances questionable & therefore am immediately "canning" radio 620. By firing JMcB, you make it clear that NONE of your on-air personalities, ....Charlie, Jeff, Jonathan, and others, can now be trusted to speak their own minds. 1/ First, radio 620 comes off my truck radio memory buttons, and off the 2 radios in my home that also have memory buttons. 2/ Further, if I hear WTMJ on ANY radio, I will insist insofar as possible that the station be changed or the radio turned off. This will apply in the health club I frequent, and several other locations. If others ask why I make my 'urgent' request, I will freely tell them. 3/ Finally, I will forward copies of this email to all local listings in my email address book, with an explanation, and ask that they implement these same 3 steps.

She's back...

…and she’s telling WTMJ to take their blog and shove it.

Update: McBride offers a Kanea culpa. Basically, Eugene Kane’s failure to admit Milwaukee has a crime problem got her fired.

Clueless McBride speeded up departure

Radio is a tough business. It can be cruel. No two-week notice. You'll find out at the end of your shift that it's time to clean out your desk.

The decision to replace Jessica McBride had been in the works for some time, WTMJ management says. There is no reason to doubt that. She apparently had a small audience, and deservedly so.

But the station's general manager also acknowledged to columnist Tim Cuprisin that McBride's failed attempt this week to incorporate the drive-by killing of a 4-year-old into a comic routine(!) hastened her demise.

She may have been on the way out, in other words, but not this week.

McBride herself clearly didn't have a clue she was going anywhere. She introduced her disastrously unfunny "Left Side of the Moon" feature on Tuesday night, saying on the air and on her blog that it would run on Tuesdays and Fridays in the future.

Actually, it only ran once, and that was the segment with a chicken sound effect substituing for Eugene Kane.

Kane, who was on vacation, won the "debate" by a knockout without even being there.

It speaks volumes to McBride's lack of judgment -- and how clueless she truly is -- that she not only did the tasteless segment Tuesday night but was quite proud of it. So proud that she didn't just broadcast it, but wrote about it on her blog and posted a link to the offensive audio.

If she hadn't done that, she might have stayed out of trouble.

It was the post that caught the attention of Jim Rowen and other bloggers, before station management listened to it, found it "inappropriate," and took it down.

She may have been gone in a week or two, or in a month, anyway.

But McBride has no one to blame but her tone-deaf self for accelerating the date of her exit.

'McBride did herself in'

Tim Cuprisin, Journal Sentinel Tv-radio columnist:

FRIDAY, May 18, 2007, 7:40 p.m.

More on the end of McBride

The news release didn't mention McBride's fate, but I did talk to 'TMJ's general manager, Jon Schweitzer, this evening.

She is, in fact, gone from the station as of today. Her blog is still posted at WTMJ's web site, but there's a link to the release on the addition of Dennis Miller.

The replacement of McBride with Miller was something that was in the works, but was sped up by this gaffe.

I'll have the details in a column in Saturday's paper. (See below.)

This is another sign that the world of talk radio is changing (ask Don Imus, Michael McGee and, this week, Opie and Anthony, who were suspended by XM Satellite Radio, which is supposed to be a freer form of radio, after an offensive bit involving Condoleezza Rice, the first lady and the queen of England.)

I've said that recordings of over-the-line bits like Imus' slur against the Rutgers women's basketball team were going to do in other talkers... In McBride's case, it was her own recording, that she posted on her blog, that did her in.

MORE FROM CUPRISIN: Saturday's column says that the furor over McBride's failed "comedy" segment Tuesday night moved up her dismissal date, although it may have been coming anyway:

A day after an offensive podcast from her Tuesday show was removed from the WTMJ-AM (620) Web site, the station has fired Jessica McBride, replacing her with Dennis Miller's nationally syndicated show.

General manager Jon Schweitzer said Friday that the move had been in the works, but was sped up by McBride's attempted comedy bit that featured a reference to a 4-year-old girl killed earlier this week in a drive-by shooting.

"It contributed to the timing of it," Schweitzer says. "We felt it was in the best interest of the station and Jessica to make the move right now."

Schweitzer says Miller's show, being billed as "Miller Time," would fit better with the sports programming that airs on the station in the evening. Miller launches Thursday. McBride is off WTMJ immediately.

She didn't return a call Friday.

It Was Just a Matter of Time with this One...

McBride was a train wreck waiting to happen. No surprise to me. Someone that mean and nasty could not last on the airwaves...

We all knew she was a Coulter wannabe without the slickness or the looks...the world doesn't need one Coulter let alone a local wannabe...

What a cop out to replace her with Miller! God forbid they find a liberal talk show host... If we find Miller offensive, we have no way to respond locally. Nice way to hide from the local audience.

I'm sure the right will spin this as Imus backlash, but it's not, its good decent people who are tired of the hate that's spewed over their airwaves with no air time for the other side. The advertisers should be paying attention... Milwaukee has decent people who believe in decent dialogue and the right wing talk shows don't talk to us, but we do spend money...

I refused to listen anyway and will until they replace Sykes and Wagner or at least try to find some balance in their programming. One down two to go...

McBride fired from radio show

Tim Cuprisin of the Journal Sentinel reports:

FRIDAY, May 18, 2007, 5:48 p.m.

That was quick, McBride is out

WTMJ-AM (620) will replace Jessica McBride in the 8 p.m. to 11 slot next Thursday, adding Dennis Miller's new syndicated talk show to its lineup when sports isn't scheduled.

Here's the statement issued by WTMJ this afternoon:

Newsradio 620 WTMJ Proclaims Miller Time!

MILWAUKEE, Wis. – Five-time Emmy award winner and four-time Writers' Guild award winner Dennis Miller will join the lineup from 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. beginning Thursday, May 24th on Newsradio 620 WTMJ. Tom Parker, 620 WTMJ Program Director made the announcement today.

Parker said, “We’ve been working for weeks to find a unique, hip and entertaining show that would be a great compliment to Brewers Baseball in the evening.” Now, after the Brewers game, it’s Miller Time on 620 WTMJ!” Dennis Miller will be a home run!”

In his first ever radio show, Dennis Miller offers his unique take on the day's topics with comedy and satire. His superb talent appeals to all ages and political persuasions. The daily 3-hour talk show also features Miller taking listener calls, as well as interviewing high-profile special guests. The show debuted nationally in March.

Cuprisin: Why McBride usually doesn't rate coverage

UPDATE: McBride loses radio show.

Tim Cuprisin of the Journal Sentinel blogs about McBride's stepping in it and offers this review of her show on WTMJ radio:

For the record, folks have asked me over the year or so of McBride's show why I wasn't "taking it on," suggesting it was because of the corporate connection. The fact is, that after announcing she was taking the slot, there hasn't been much to write about. It's in an obscure corner of radio listening -- TV's prime time is generally radio's dead time.

Her audience isn't very large and she generally doesn't say anything that you haven't heard on at least three other Milwaukee talk shows and dozens of national radio programs.

But this time, she said something worth pointing out. Even without a talk radio climate affected by the Don Imus firing and the Mike McGee suspension, using the murder of a 4-year-old in a feeble attempt at comedy merits some comment.

No matter what the offense, Brew City Brawler, says the evidence is that McBride doesn't do apologies.

The beat goes on: McBride outrage demands an apology

UPDATE: McBride fired; Dennis Miller show replaces her.

Jessica McBride's tasteless exploitation of a 4-year-old girl's murder -- a segment of her radio show that she thought was so clever she blogged about it and posted the audio -- has gotten her into hot water.

It is time to turn up the heat on McBride and her employer, WTMJ Radio.

The station removed the offensive post from her WTMJ blog on Thursday, after it was highlighted by blogger Jim Rowen.

The Journal Sentinel's Tim Cuprisin says it was not a case of McBride coming to her senses, but station management that took the action:

ANOTHER RADIO GAFFE: This time, it's WTMJ-AM (620) nighttime talker Jessica McBride who crossed the line in an attempted comedy bit bringing up the murder of 4-year-old Jasmine Owens in a fake interview with Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane.

Said McBride on Tuesday's show: "Now that a 4-year-old girl was just gunned down while. . . What was she doing? I think jumping rope or something last night. . . You acknowledge it's a crisis, right?"

The faked answer from the faux Kane was the sound of a squawking chicken.

After being informed of the bit, posted as a podcast at WTMJ's Web site, general manager Jon Schweitzer promptly pulled the audio.

"We just found it to be inappropriate," he told Inside TV & Radio.

Here's a rule of thumb for talkers: The murder of a 4-year-old girl is never, ever, ever suitable for a comedy bit.

That'a start, but hardly enough, Rowen says:

McBride and WTMJ-AM 620 Fail The Responsibility Test
If I had a dollar for every sanctimonious, preachy mention on conservative blogs and talk radio about "personal responsibility," or "taking responsibility," I'd be ever so much closer to retirement.

It's the Right's mantra, and is often hurled at a variety of liberals, poor people, bureaucrats and all the other individuals and groups that are not living up to the responsible, accountable standards of proper, upright Rightists.

Except when they cut and run the way Jessica McBride and 620 WTMJ-AM radio have done when they erased from McBride's blog all references to the insensitive audio mocking she posted earlier this week about the drive-by murder of four-year-old Jasmine Owens.

McBride and her radio producer thought they were being hilarious when they first played the bit, contained in a juvenile, fake interview with McBride nemesis Eugene Kane, the Journal Sentinel columnist. The audio featured her self-congratulatory chatter.

And she bragged about the radio bit on her blog, too, posting the audio along with more text and threw the whole thing in her podcast section, too, because she wanted readers and other bloggers to know about her handiwork - - until the heat began to come down on this blog, and elsewhere.

I hope someone has saved the audio, because the items have disappeared.

Erased, as can be done on Internet postings.

So it's gone, perhaps. But not forgotten.

For WTMJ-AM, the self-proclaimed "biggest stick in the state," it was an employer-sanctioned, 50,000 watt abuse of the public airwaves - - allowing an employee to poke a big stick in the eye of a community already appalled, but united in grief.

Save for one irresponsible blogger/talker and her employer who failed the personal responsibility test.

Rather than delete the offending items with a keystroke, both McBride and station management should step up publicly, take responsibility, and at least issue an apology.

Others have joined in calling for an apology, rather than a simple erasure, from McBride and the station. Among them:

Cory Liebmann at One Wisconsin Now.

Jay Bullock of folkbum's rambles and rants.

Dyskeptic Radio.

Michael Mathias of Pundit Nation.

Bill Christofferson on Uppity Wisconsin.

Will WTMJ do the right thing? Or will McBride's admirers, like Charlie Sykes and Jeff Wagner, come to her defense? Will any conservative bloggers speak up?

Stay tuned.

If you'd like to email McBride or her boss, you'll find the addresses here.

UPDATE: Here is McBride's original post, thanks to Google's cache system, although there is no way to restore the audio:

TUESDAY, May 15, 2007, 11:32 p.m.
LISTEN TO MY DEBATE TONIGHT WITH EUGENE KANE

Listen here.

This is part of a new segment I launched tonight called LEFT SIDE OF THE MOON.

I am a bit sick of hearing conservatives only invite prominent conservative guests on their programs - the usual suspects. How fun it would be, I thought, to debate a prominent liberal every now and then. The number one reason for the segment is to ask liberals the questions the media don't/won't ask them and to see if they can defend their positions under challenge.

Left Side of the Moon is a segment I created with my producer, Robert. It will run only on Tuesdays and Fridays. Not every Tuesday and Friday. I will alert you, through this blog, in advance, to the days it will run.

My first invitee was Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane.

This is not NPR. It is not going to be a "conversation." We are not going to play guitar and hold hands and roast marshmallows in the studio. It's a debate. I believe that, most of the time, the conservative viewpoint is stronger than the liberal one logically and ethically. Can the liberal viewpoint withstand the challenge?

On the days when my liberal guest refuses to come on, I may just open the phone lines to any old liberal for a half hour or so. I find them vastly entertaining a lot of the time.

Update! Someone said Kane is on vacation. Just for the record, I know that! I invited him on the radio program without a specific date. I was willing to work around his schedule, and he flat-out refused to ever come on. It's a standing invitation. I think it would be tons of fun. But anyway, you can listen to our interview above!!!!

UPDATE: Tim Cuprisin on Why McBride broadcasts in obscurity.

UPDATE 2: Ken Mobile at Mobile's Take and Jim McGuigan of Watchdog Milwaukee weigh in, and A conservative/libertarian blogger joins the chorus:

I honestly don't get the talking heads and their pure hypocrisy. They rightly complain about how people were insulting Jerry Falwell too soon after he died. They rightly complained about Michael McGee's trash regarding Charlie Sykes' mother. They ask for leadership and acting like adults when Summerfest invites Ludicrous to perform. Yet somehow it's funny and cool to use the tragic death of a poor little girl to score political points against a rival columnist? Who's acting like an adult now? Who's being compassionate now?

Facts Wrong, Again

Even when McBride tries to act journalistic, she still gets the facts wrong. The first part of this post is incoherent, then this:

I have no idea the immigration status of Lopez. Because of the fact he had several aliases and social security numbers, I called Kenosha SD today to ask if he is in this country legally. They referred me to DCI. I will try them tomorrow.

But I will say this: There is a reason for cops to ask people they pull over in traffic stops or their social security numbers.

Uh, not sure what the point of this post is because no one is required to carry a social security card. In fact, it is strongly recommended that social security cards not be carried to reduce the chances they will become lost, and consequently, reduce the risk of identity theft. Therefore, Lopez was under no obligation to show one.

McBride's obsession with illegal aliens makes me thankful I was not a Jew born in Nazi Germany and hiding from the Gestapo. With my luck, McBride would have been the German neighbor who blew the whistle.

Are all foreigners 'illegal immigrants?'

In McBride's world, the answer is yes.

Or maybe it's just all Mexicans who are illegal immigrants.

Today's piece of bigotry from Ms. Jessica:

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU'D HEARD IT ALL

Santa Fe police want to hire illegal immigrants..... as cops.

Because the Mexican police force is one we want to emulate, right?

What are the chances the cops would look the other way if they ran across illegal immigrants on the job? (100%)

One would think we would want people to serve as police officers only if they demonstrate they are respectful of the law.

What's next? Illegal immigrant border patrol agents?

Thing is, when you read the story she's linked to, it says:

The Santa Fe Police Department is considering the possibility of recruiting Mexican nationals to fill vacant police jobs.

Legal immigrants, it specifically says.

Remind us, why is this woman teaching journalism?

Eradicating the Muslims

McBride, expanding her scope and further exposing her ignorance of foreign affairs, revisits what she likes to call "the Balkans" in a Waukesha Freeman column, asserting that President Bill Clinton "bombed the former Yugoslavia to protect Islamists" who are part of the international terrorist network.

Brew City Brawler sets the record atraight:

There's a difference between subjective perception and telling a lie. And Jessica's column, my friends is a lie. Clinton bombed Serb forces after they overran Srebrenica and embarked on an orgy of slaughter that lasted for days and filled mass graves with thousands of people. Clinton bombed "the former Yugoslavia" when it seemed apparent Milosevic was willing to do the same thing in Kosovo.

Saying Clinton was "protecting Islamists" is a slander against the dead and a slander against Clinton. Jessica obviously doesn't care about the latter and, frankly, the Brawler wonders if she has the basic humanity to care about the former.

McBride had suggested earlier that the US was on the wrong side in Bosnia. Perhaps, as the Brawler suggested then, she really does think we should have helped Slobodan Milosevic kill all the Muslims, which, in her warped view of the world, would have protected Fort Dix from terrorists.

Finding the humor in 4-year-old's murder

Is there something funny about juxtaposing a question about a 4-year-old girl's murder with audio of a chicken squawking?

Jessica McBride thinks so.

Jim Rowen doesn't.

Rowen's right. The segment is not simply juvenile, but in extremely bad taste.

UPDATE: The offensive post -- titled "Listen to My Debate With Eugene Kane" -- has been removed from McBride's blog. The thing is, it wasn't just a blog item. It was a segment that was actually aired on her talk radio show earlier this week. Taking it off the website does not erase it from memory, or eliminate the need for a public apology.

email her at mcbride@620wtmj.com

and WTMJ General Manager Jon Schweitzer at jschweitzer@journalbroadcastgroup.com and demand an apology.

'Nothing wrong with Willie Horton attacks'

McBride on the GOP presidential debate:

Mike Huckabee was just asked about some parolee who got out and killed someone or something. I don't know what case they are talking about. Did the media just "Willie Horton" Huckabee? (Not that there was anything wrong with raising the Willie Horton question).

That's not surprising, given the fact that Paul Bucher, McBride's husband, was accused of using Willie Horton tactics against Kathleen Falk in the 2006 race for attorney general. It was McBride, not Bucher, who defended Bucher's Willie Horton website.

McBride is a fan of the Willie Horton type attack. Her profile on WisPolitics, for example, includes:

20. The book I'm recommending these days is ...

Ann Coulter, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism." I think that she opens herself up for criticism by going off the rhetorical deep end at times, but she's very good at deconstructing conventional wisdom. It's worth reading for her chapter on Willie Horton alone.

Here's one critique of Coulter's chapter, rewriting history. McBride did a little rewriting herself. Enjoy.

Playing the sexism card

If you criticize a female wingnut talker, is it automatically sexist? Male wingnut talker Jeff Wagner thinks so, and comes to Jessica's defense:

I think there is a huge element of sexism in the attacks on Jessica. My guess is that listening to her radio program is the closest that a lot of her critics ever come to having a woman other than their mothers (at least one that isn't inflatable) in their homes during the evening. In other words, they are unfamiliar around and don't deal well with women.

Au contraire, Jeffrey.

It is not about having a low tolerance for women. It is about not suffering fools, and our friend Jessica is a fool of the first order.

Is it our fault that Jessica is just a tad nuttier -- and a lot more uninformed -- than Wagner and Charlie Sykes? If either of them said or wrote the ditzy kinds of things she does, they'd have their own "stalkers." Maybe Jeff's just jealous.

Not-so-tough questions

Jessica has some questions for the Democrats:

Will the media ask the Democrats these questions:

Al-Qaida says it's captured several American soldiers and may have just killed four other American soldiers. Do you still believe we've lost in Iraq? Do you believe we should withdraw our troops? We should just leave the American soldiers in the hands of Al-Qaida?

I'm not authorized to speak for every Democrat, but I am one, so let me try to answer those really tough questions.

1. Yes, I still believe we've lost in Iraq. If Al-Qaida really has captured several US troops and killed some more, that does not change my mind and make me think we are winning.

2. Yes, I still believe we should withdraw our troops. So do most of the people in the United States and in Iraq.

3. Of course we should not leave captured soldiers behind. We should make every effort to free them or to negotiate their release. But that has nothing to do with Questions 1 and 2.

Al-Qaida's presence in Iraq, which has certainly grown during the US occupation, is no rationale for leaving our troops there. Al-Qaida is there, in large part, because we are there.

Some ignorance is not amusing

Sometimes Jessica's ignorance is amusing, Brew City Brawler agrees. Like not knowing "Voila!" from "Whallah!"

But sometimes it is not funny at all, as in her suggestion that the US was on the wrong side in Bosnia.

In that case, her ignorance is frightening.

"Hysterical" ... "Hilarious"

"Hysterical." "Hilarious." -- Jessica McBride.

What's she reviewing?

A report that the State Investment Board invests in and makes money on Big Oil stocks.

What's so hysterical? Well, Gov. Jim Doyle wants to tax the oil companies, see?

Hehehe. LOL!

Excuse the hilarity. Just too funny for words, isn't it?

Jessica has a low hilarity threshold. Perhaps she doesn't get out enough. It must be a laugh a minute around the McBride-Bucher household.

It's easy to tape, but who wants to listen?

Don Imus. Michael McGee.

Who will be the next talker to step in it?

Tim Cuprisin of the Journal Sentinel says the key to calling out both Imus and McGee was that someone began to routinely tape their programs every day.

Jay "Folkbum" Bullock says the way to take on the talkers is to cite chapter and verse, not issue broadsides complaining about their content. But he notes there is no one performing that service, at least so far. Says Folkbum:

This is the blogosphere, people, and the great beauty of it, as I've said before, is that if you see a hole in the middle of it, you have the ability to form a SykesWatch-sized piece to fill that hole. In the meantime, calling someone a "neocrybaby" or demanding "Sistah Souljah" moments just makes you look petty. Aligning yourself with the rhetoric of the McGees makes you look cretinous.

Here's the rub: Creating a McBrideWatch, for example -- since this site is all things McBride -- would require someone not only to tape her programs, but to listen closely, analyze them, and write about them. In a bad week that could mean 15 hours of programming. Mercifully, with baseball season it is a lot less airtime, but still quite a commitment to regularly expose one's brain cells to hours of her scolding and annoying whine.

Small wonder there has been no volunteer. To do all of the right-wing talkers in Milwaukee would be a full-time job. Talk about taking one for the team; that would be the ultimate sacrifice.

In otherwords, deportemall

Grrrrr! First those illegal immigrants take our jobs, and now they're taking our college scholarships.

Marquette has given a scholarship to a Mexican student who is the country illegally, and has been in the US at least for middle school and high school. In other words, he came here with his family at a pretty young age.

McBride would like to deport him, but the "illegal alien lobby" won't allow that, she claims.

You have to give her credit, though. Even while frothing at the mouth, she coins a new word:

In otherwords, they want no borders.

In "otherwords," she's still careless as can be, with the facts and with the language.

UPDATE: That was no typo. She really thinks "otherwords" is a word.

Today's post, ranting about the beer tax, includes:

In otherwords, moderate, responsible drinkers would have to pay for those who abuse the product.

THE BEAT GOES ON. Continuing her crusade to rewrite the language, McBride writes:

In otherwords, it's a tax.

Bucher for supreme court? Puleeze!

Owen Robinson of Boots & Sabers floats Paul Bucher's name for Supreme Court, acknowledging that there are a few problems with a Bucher candidacy, like being an unappealing loser and not being a judge.

There's one sure sign it's not for real. Jessica, the loyal and ambitious spouse, is not talking it up.

Come to think of it, there's another problem with a Bucher candidacy -- her willingness to give him political advice.

Whallah! upside the head

A reader e-mails:

I LOVE the name "Whallah!" for your website: It evokes the sound of a 2 X 4 whacking one "upside the head," as my old man used to say.

However, I think you're being too hard on Jessie McB; she couldn't really be expected to know that she meant "Voila" when she wrote "Whallah." Jessica, as you may know by reading her recent columns, grew up in north central Wisconsin where the school had no extras, no extracurriculars, and probably no running water. (And they learnt just fine, thank you very much.) For certain, the school district offered no French language instruction, or if they did, little Jessie did not avail herself, the French people having been bailed out of WW II by the Americans and failing to show proper gratitude since. Wasn't John Kerry French? Or his wife? There's something unpatriotic about anything French, so therefore we shouldn't associate ourselves too closely. And let's not forget that "Freedom Fries" replaced the "French Fries" in the Congressional Mess (hall).

Back to Jessica's education: My writing teachers and professors--and Strunk and White no less--drummed one lesson into every student's brain: Write in complete sentences. You must know the rule. You must follow the rule. You must become the rule. If you would dare to break the rule, you must be an exceptional writer, a damned good writer, and you must have a damned good reason for violating the trust placed in you by the reader who expects at least a subject and a verb between periods. If you dare to flaunt the rule, you should probably obtain written permission from God as well.

Jessica regularly flaunts this rule. Sadly, her writing is not good enough to justify the frequent incomplete sentences and the resultant loss of meaning from a missing subject or verb. One wonders if she is merely ignorant, or in too much of a rush to declare "Whallah!" Perhaps her declarative style requires a vague interpretation, rather than a specific understanding.

I, too, wonder what she is teaching the journalists of tomorrow with her words and by her example--that if you are imprecise, you can't be held accountable for what you say or write? That if you entwine just a thread of fact with your opinion, you can twist a strand of near-believability? That a journalist writing a column of opinion means never having to verify a fact, support an argument or say you're sorry.

Feds, state? Whallah's the difference?

Just a little confused -- how unusual! -- McBride thinks that a Federal Elections Commission ruling somehow clears Mark Green of any violations of state election law.

Xoff sets her straight.

Jessica solves the unemployment problem

Don't sit there in the central city saying there aren't any jobs.

Look in the classifieds. Whallah! Good jobs for everyone!

Sorry we ever doubted. She's a genius.

The March unemployment figures put the Milwaukee metro area jobless rate at 5.5%, but that doesn't count a lot of "discouraged" workers who are not officially in the pool and actively looking. That rate equals 43,932 people looking for work.

The headline on McBride's post is a classic:

THERE ARE ENOUGH JOBS TO FILL THE CLASSIFIED ADS EVERY SUNDAY

In the same way, I have marveled at the fact that there is just enough news every day to exactly fill the pages of the Journal Sentinel. They never run out, and there's never any extra. Whallah!

Then there's the fact that there are just the right number of every kind of job to match the population -- just enough executive jobs for people who want to be executives, and enough garbage collection jobs for people who want to collect garbage.

This must be what they call Intelligent Design, no?