The most hated person in America – according to Townhall.com’s Top 100 Americans hated by the left survey.
Interestingly, on today’s show on the radio, Glenn talked with a columnist for TownHall.com, and it seems that Glenn has never visited the web site prior to this week.
The list is not on the web – you have to subscribe to the paper magazine to get the list… or get it from Glenn Beck :)
http://media.glennbeck.com/docs/100americans-pg1.pdf
While amusing, this list is fundamentally flawed. It is a list of who the editors of Townhall.com *think* the left hates. It’s very full of people that are published on townhall.com, or whose books they sell. A systematic search (like looking at Huffington post) would probably create a more meaningful list. I don’t think most people on the left (or even the right) know who Michael Medved is, let alone hate him.
It’s also generationally skewed – missing from the list are Oliver North, George H.W. Bush, G Gordon Liddy, Dan Quayle, Ed Meese, James Baker, or anyone else from the Reagan era
Where is Boortz? Townhall was very self serving. Prager, Hewitt and Medved on and Boortz is left off?!?!? Just on the strength of either the radio show or fair tax books Boortz should be on the list. Look at the Streaminradioguide.com rankings. Neal Boortz has more listeners than many of the radio hosts listed. Shameful.
Boortz isn’t heard “on the coasts”, so therefore is invisble to Big Media. His show is produced at WSB in Atlanta (owned by Cox) – most of his affiliates are Cox Radio stations which are generally located in the SouthEast United States… his popularity here is probably more a reflection that he is not available in places where people want to listen to him, so they arrive here.
While it’s probably generally true, it’s probably also a mistake for them to assume that Conservatives liking a person is a measure of how much “the left” hates them. David Horowitz is an example – probably few people on “the right” know who he is – but people on the left hate him with a passion because he was one of “them” before he woke up – and now is active in organizing Conservative student groups on Universities and fighting against left wing censorship and documenting all the ties among all the left wing groups, foundations and government funded NGOs. He’s fighting the left on their turf, not just hanging around with the usual right wing suspects. Tammy Bruce also fits into that category.
Chris Wallace is another name I didn’t see on the list.
Philip Anschutz is someone few people would recognize. He lives a very private life and works behind the scenes. He is mostly known (if at all) as the backer of the film Chronicles of Narnia and being one fo the few Conservative people in the movie production business. I suspect he might be involved with TRN (based mostly on geography), but I don’t have anything solid to back up my suspicion.
There is one case where you could make the case for Boortz being one of the left’s “most hated:” his leading the charge for the FairTax. (Now, keep in mind, there’s a lot of people on the right who aren’t gaga over the whole concept of a sales tax plus “prebate” scheme, either.)
If I were to guess, by my judgment alone: Beck is probably close to #1 right now, right up there with Sarah Palin. George W. Bush is 3rd, followed by Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney.
It’s also interesting how, unless I missed a few names, virtually all of the people are on the right. The left is almost equally rabid about those on their own side who they don’t see as sufficiently leftist. The late Tim Russert comes to mind.