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I was able to listen to about half an hour of KSFO's "town hall meeting," and I have a few comments.

First off, the hardest thing for me to grasp is that these people are actually adults. Granted, Morgan, Sussman, and Rodgers are as trapped in their respective personae as the Three Stooges, which limits their emotional range and their ability to be honest. Plenty of entertainers are one-trick ponies, and expecting Lee Rodgers not to act like Lee Rodgers is like expecting REO Speedwagon not to play "Ridin' the Storm Out" at the Colusa County Fair. Still, I find it amazing that these folks were obliged to defend their credibility today - if not their sanity - and the best they could manage, while I was listening, was a collection of infantile lies and evasions that would make a cat laugh.

For instance, Rodgers played the clip in which he fantasized about attaching electrodes to a criminal's genitals before shooting him in the "bleeping" head. Afterwards, he insisted at length that he was simply taking a principled stand in favor of capital punishment.

I don't know of any state where genital torture is a legal prelude to execution, and I don't know any supporters of capital punishment who get excited at the thought of "entertaining" criminals by electrocuting their balls. I've heard many arguments for the death penalty in my day, from people across the political spectrum. Rodgers is the only person I've ever heard recommend the sexual torture of condemned Americans as a sort of foreplay to execution. It's bad enough that such punishment is unconstitutional, but the fact that Rodgers sounds like he's jerking himself off while he talks about it makes it very uneasy listening indeed.

Now to be fair, Rodgers always sounds like he's jerking himself off. It's very possible that he's so captivated by the timbre and cadence of his own voice that he pays no attention to what he's actually saying. But even so, the fact remains that advertisers are naturally going to question the wisdom of being associated in the public mind with a man who waxes quasi-erotic over testicle torture. Hell, they'd be exceedingly bad businesspeople if they didn't. Which makes it all the more bizarre that Rodgers would call the people who were upset by Spocko's clips - i.e., KSFO's advertisers - "gullible dolts." This is damage control like Iraq is a cakewalk.

Speaking of genital torture, Brian Sussman didn't come across as quite as much of a slack-jawed onanist as Rodgers when he was fantasizing about lopping off Iraqi penises, but he was a lot whinier and siller. He complained that he'd been unfairly characterized as "pro-torture," simply because he read a "scripted bit" based on 24 Hours, in which the torture of an Islamofascist just happens to save a bunch of American lives. Morgan and Rodgers found this a compelling argument, of course. The thing is, see, Sussman wasn't saying torture is good; he was just implying that it works really, really well. Hey, if you'd rather have your buddies murdered by ragheads than lop off a pecker or two, that's your own "bleeping" problem, you...you...clown.

I'm sure we've all heard media figures and politicians argue soberly that torture can be effective. While we may've disagreed with them, we probably didn't write letters to advertisers to complain that they were given airtime. But the problem with Sussman is that like Rodgers, he sounds too goddamn cheerful. Even people who agree with BushCo's policies in theory don't necessarily want to have their noses rubbed in the gory details, especially by people who seem to revel in cruelty, instead of seeing it as a painful duty that must be draped with the Veil of Civility. It's quite possible that some of KSFO's advertisers are worried less about the moral implications of advocating torture than they are about the fact that Sussman and company are too déclassé and...well, too fucking weird, quite frankly.

If KSFO's hosts want to display their dipshit sadism like a badge of courage, that's their right. But expecting advertisers to accept it unquestioningly is a bit delusional, to put it mildly. (Which is odd, because conservatives normally have a much better grasp of "personal responsibility" and "unintended consequences" than you or me or the man in the next street.)

Melanie Morgan was fairly subdued, at least while I was listening. She announced that unlike the "coward" Spocko, she shows her real name and face to the public. True enough, I guess. But as we've recently had occasion to notice, Morgan also has a phalanx of lawyers with which to frighten her critics, and a powerful radio transmitter with which to denounce them. As usual with right-wing bullies, there's no acknowledgment of any difference in power and resources between the wildly successful, world-beloved, truth-empowered, all-American radio hosts and the pathetic Castro-loving faggot-ass crackpots who dare to slap their wrists.

Actually, that's not quite true. In fact, Morgan worried at one point that Spocko might pose a physical threat to her. You can just imagine Melanie and her cronies cowering in the underground bunker they built in anticipation of the Y2K meltdown, while Spocko - his pockets bulging with George Soros's blood money - growls and paws at the hatch like a starving bear trying to break into a beaver lodge.

Dissenters were invited to call, although Rodgers repeatedly cautioned the Hun against pissing his bleeping ass off with their bleeping profanity, lest the station lose its bleeping license already. I'll bet you a bottle of soda pop that these ruff tuff creampuffs are equipped with as lengthy a tape delay as you'll find in the business, but Rodgers clearly believes that what his acolytes don't know won't hurt him.

Anyway, the best call I heard was from a gentleman who was furious that anyone would dream of accusing his heroes of spouting racist and eliminationist hogwash. He went on to say that "Mohammedism" is a cancer, and that "the only cure for cancer is radiation." QE bleeping D, ya goddamn lie-berals!

That's right about where I had to tune out. Overall, I was pretty amazed at how poorly thought out and executed their "rebuttals" were. Obviously, they pleased the station's regular listeners, who'd eat a plate of dogshit and ask for seconds if Lee Rodgers required it of them. But I can't see how this grueling triumphalist circle-jerk is going to reassure advertisers, or bring new ones into the fold. I'm extremely prejudiced, of course, but looks to me like this round goes to Spocko.