MEDIA
Shafting Schultz

Yesterday, the Pentagon abruptly canceled the debut of The Ed Schultz
Show -- the country's most popular progressive radio talk show -- on
Armed Forces Network Radio (AFN), a station broadcast to U.S. troops
serving outside the United States. AFN currently features an hour of
programming from the right-wing Rush Limbaugh show, but no comparable
progressive content. That was supposed to change. But early yesterday
morning, the producer of the Ed Schultz show, James Holm, received a
call from Pentagon communications aide Allison Barber informing him
that the show would not be debuting on AFN. Coincidently, Schultz
"spent the end of last week chastising Barber for coaching a group of
U.S. soldiers in Iraq before a teleconference with President Bush."

EMAIL CONTRADICTS PENTAGON SPIN: The official line from the Pentagon is
that there was "no decision made with respect to expanding the
programming." An email sent to Schultz's syndication company from AFR
proves otherwise. Manny Levy, radio division chief at AFN, wrote "AFN
Radio has squared away everything on our end to begin carrying the
first hour of 'The Ed Schultz Show' each day, beginning Monday, October
17, 2005 at noon PT/3 ET." Levy added, "An awful lot of people in the
government had (or tried to have) a hand in program selection process
that ended with the decision to add 'The Ed Schultz Show.'"

BARBER STRIKES AGAIN: Last week, Barber was caught on tape coaching
U.S. troops about what to say during a televised conversation with
President Bush. Barber said, "So if there's a question that the
president comes up with that we haven't drilled through today, then
I'm expecting the microphone to go right back to you, Captain
Kennedy." There is evidence that Barber was familiar with the contents
of Schultz's show on Friday, where he replayed Barber's comments.
Barber told Holm that she was aware that Schultz announced he would
begin broadcasting on AFN during Friday's show. Schultz made his views
clear: "The fact is, they don't want dissenting voices or any other
kind of speech unless it's going to be promotional for them. Obviously,
these people are making sure they're not going to have any opinion
other than the Rush Limbaughs of the world." Pentagon spokesman Bryan
Whitman said the perception that Schultz's criticism of Barber had
anything to do with the decision to cancel his debut was "an
unfortunate misperception."

REGULATIONS REQUIRE ARMED FORCES RADIO TO BE BALANCED: Sen. Tom Harkin
(D-IA) has worked hard to bring balance to AFN. With his leadership,
the Senate passed a resolution "asking, that AFRTS meet its own
mandate, as generally articulated in Department of Defense Regulation
5120.20R. That regulation calls for AFRTS political programming that is
'characterized by its fairness and balance,' as well as news
programming guided by a 'principle of fairness' that requires
'reasonable opportunities for the presentation of conflicting views on
important controversial public issues.'" At the time, Harkin said he
believed "the bias that exists in the social and political commentary
portions of this talk radio service is not intentional." Perhaps he was
being too generous.

RUSH TRIVIALIZES TORTURE, STAYS ON THE AIR: The Pentagon has retained
the services of Rush Limbaugh even after he spent weeks "condoning and
trivializing the abuse, torture, rape and possible murder of Iraqi
prisoners." For example, on May 6, 2004, Rush Limbaugh said of the
abuse at Abu Ghraib prison,"This is no different that what happens at
the Skull & Bones initiation. ... I'm talking about people having a
good time. These people -- you ever heard of emotional release? You
ever heard of needing to blow some steam off?" Two days later, he
called torturing prisoners a "brilliant maneuver." A petition signed by
nearly 50,000 people demanding Rush be removed from AFN was ignored.