You can add another casualty to the 2024 elections: the credibility of lockstep conservative talk show radio hosts.

There’s a difference between …

Simplistic partisanship is defending your party even when it doesn’t deserve defending.

As James Joyner wrote earlier today:

It’s one thing to be a partisan and quite another to be a partisan hack. If a commentator believes that their party’s leaders are failing to live up to their self-proclaimed values, then it’s incumbent upon him to say so. That’s how you build credibility.

Nor does pointing out the flaws prevent you from arguing that voting for your party is nonetheless the best alternative available. One can simultaneously say Denny Hastert should be fired and nonetheless prefer him to Nancy Pelosi; that Lincoln Chafee is barely a Republican but better than a Democrat; that Conrad Burns or George Allen have proven themselves to be dolts but that they’ll at least vote your way a lot more often than their opponents.

And I think that Limbaugh, Hannity and Hewitt are essentially partisan hacks, rather than thoughtful conservative commentators. There is a difference.

And note: this all came up in the context of Limbaugh basically admitting such (Hewitt as well)–see the previous post.

I fail to see how any of that has anything to do with “one’s responsibilities as an adult”–perhaps you care to elaborate on that one.

And I will also say that while one could have a long conversation about the MSM and the nighttime anchors, that really isn’t the issue at the moment.

What isn’t acceptable is that supposedly impartial broadcasters regularly make similar decisions, and seemd to me to do so way back when when I briefly worked at CBS News in New York City in the 1990s.

As for Sean Hannity, he seems a nice enough, earnest fellow, but I’ve always preferred Alan Colmes, though his thinking is decidedly odd … not to mention wrong.