New Song, New Singers

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan

I love talk radio; I love Fox News.

If it weren’t for the arrival of their strong conservative voices, Americans would still have nothing to listen to but the one-sided news and opinions of the left-liberals who run the mainstream New York-D.C. media.

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But I’m frustrated.

Talk radio and Fox are getting so boring, so predictable, so shrill, I can barely tune in anymore.

Night after night on Fox, it’s the same issues, the same arguments, the same lame liberal guests showing up to be browbeaten by Hannity and O’Reilly.

How many Juan Williamses does Fox have on its staff anyway? Five? Is my friend Alan Colmes the only liberal in North America who’ll come on and debate Hannity?

Seriously. Is there anything Williams and Colmes — or for that matter, pie-thrower Ann Coulter — will say about Obamacare or the Obama Economy they haven’t said 100 times on TV in the last year?

“The Five” is another example. It gets great ratings, but it’s so stale and predictable.

Can’t Fox find anyone better than Big, Bad Bob Beckel to go 1-on-4 with that show’s conservatives, who, except for funnyman Greg Gutfeld, are like watching Hannity II, III and IV?

And is there some new FCC law against having two liberals on a Fox show once in a while? (Not Juan Williams, thanks.)

Fox needs to get fresh faces and new voices into its regular lineup. Instead of arguing with Williams night after night, what’s wrong with Hannity or O’Reilly talking to ordinary Americans — people who’ve lost their homes or can’t find a job?

I think even loyal viewers are starting to notice that Fox’s slogan should be changed from “Fair and Balanced” to “Stale and Predictable.”

The other day, after seeing conservative guest Dennis Prager waste most of his air-time watching Hannity tangle his liberal guest, I sent out a Tweet saying, “I think sometimes Hannity invites guests on to watch him argue with another guest just to get their approval. It’s frustrating.”

The response from my conservative Republican followers was quick and one-sided; a bunch of Tweeters agreed with me that Fox was losing its steam.

A guy named Tom said nothing interesting ever happens on Hannity’s show. Another guy said he loved Hannity but said he “needs to find new people to interview, too many repeats.” Sharron tweeted she’s stopped watching him altogether.

This is a serious problem for conservatives and Republicans — and the United States of America.

We’re in a serious fight with Obama and his gang, who seem hell-bent on turning us into a socialist country with enough government spending and debt to qualify for membership in the European Union.

For good and bad, talk radio and Fox have become the national voices of conservatism, the places where conservative ideas and arguments can be publicized and debated.

The Republican Party has made the mistake of allowing Fox and talk radio to become its spokesman, in large part because it has no national spokesman of its own. But Fox and talk radio are letting the GOP and the rest of the country down.

People outside the Beltway are desperate for solutions to our economic and social problems, but Fox and talk radio seem more interested in giving them arguments — tired arguments.

People — our people in the conservative choir — are starting to tune out Fox and talk radio. And it’s because their song — our song — is getting stale and predictable.

We need to start hearing a new tune from the conservative media — and new singers.

Copyright ©2013 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com or call 800-696-7561.