As If Limbaugh and Beck Weren't Bad Enough, the Granddaddy of Hate Radio Is Back on the Air
By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted August 24, 2009.
Bob Grant taught a generation of conservative talkers how to channel white rage, until a listener boycott helped push him off the air. Now he's back. Here's a talk radio riddle: What do Glenn Beck's recent radio meltdown and the ongoing boycott against his television show have in common?
Answer: Both find echo and inspiration in the career of Bob Grant, the granddaddy of conservative hate radio who this week announced his return to New York's 77 WABC for one last go-around. Starting September 13, the frail octogenarian will host a Sunday show between noon and 2 p.m.
...
Grant's show became New York's megaphone for blue-collar white rage. He railed against the welfare state and slammed liberal politicians, peppering his insults with earthy southern Italian slang. He called blacks "sub-humans" and "savages" and invoked an earlier New York that never existed, "where everyone spoke English."
During his first months in New York, Grant's anger at the world around him was compounded by the fact that he despised the city and yearned to return to California. He found New York loud, filthy, and too crowded with non-whites and immigrants. Grant would later write that he hated New York so much that he "subconsciously wanted to get fired." Toward that end, Grant cranked up the hate in every direction. "I was becoming irascible on the air. Argumentative. Feisty. Impatient with the callers… I didn't care what anybody thought of me or my manners… I was telling people off left and right."
By the time New York started to grow on Grant, he realized something: not only had his spitfire persona failed to get him canned, his ratings were through the roof. So he kept up the act. For the next three decades, Grant's vitriolic rants against liberals and immigrants, originally fueled by self-hatred and disgust with New York, would inspire the next (and currently dominant) generation of conservative talkers. This includes Sean Hannity, who listened to Grant in Long Island during the 1970s, to Glenn Beck, who listened to him in New Haven during the early 1990s.
more:
http://www.alternet.org/media/142149/as_if_limbaugh_and_beck_weren%27t_bad_enough%2C_the_granddaddy_of_hate_radio_is_back_on_the_air/
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