NYT: Hate Radio Hosts Having Immigration Sadz
From today’s NYT:
On a Florida station, WFTL, the host Joyce Kaufman called it “pure amnesty.” Jim Sharpe, a talk show host on KFYI in Phoenix, promised that “Arizonans are still not taking this sitting down.” On Denny Schaffer’s show in New Orleans, callers demanded deportations.
“I see nothing wrong with putting them on a bus and shipping them back to wherever they came from,” a caller named Alan told Mr. Schaffer. “The law’s the law.”
But even some of the talk show hosts most vehemently opposed to illegal immigration said they were worried that times have changed. They said their listeners seemed less agitated by the prospect that 11 million illegal immigrants might be granted legal status and concede that proponents of the legislation — who now include some conservative radio personalities — are better at promoting their message this time around.
(snip)
“There are some people who lost their will to fight this fight,” said Ms. Kaufman, who remains combative but admitted in an interview during a commercial break that she was worried the legislation might pass. “They think they’ve lost it already and they’ve sort of thrown in the towel, including my fellow radio hosts.”
Or as Mr. Schaffer from New Orleans put it, “There is not that rage that was there.”
(snip)
Michael Medved, one of the few conservative talk show hosts who has always supported an immigration overhaul, said he sensed a shift.
“What you are not hearing as much, except from a handful of people, is ‘over my dead body,’ ” Mr. Medved said in an interview. “The level of apocalyptic hysteria is much less.”