Ignorant, cowardly, liar Jay Severin vs. "A-hole David"

I think I’ve discovered a new mental illness. It’s called Severinitis. Persons suffering from this disease are under the delusion that they can somehow get Jay Severin to soften his position or rhetoric on anything by presenting a rational and factual argument. They feel a compulsion to attempt this feat no matter how many times they try and fail.

I suffered my latest bout of Severinitis this afternoon.

David: Hi, Jay. I spent a fair amount of time preparing for this call, so I hope you’ll do me the honor of listening to me for a while and not cutting me off right away.

Jay: You do yourself and us the honor of performing well, so please proceed.

David: OK, so you said that because of Barack Obama’s background, he should be subject to a higher level of scrutiny, so —

Jay: No, I said that he might is not an unreasonable notion.

David: OK. So would it be reasonable to subject him to that higher level of scrutiny on the air right now?

Jay: Why not?

David: OK, so what I’m going to do is set up a little stall next to yours in the marketplace of ideas, and offer some additional information — some truthful information — and I’d like to do it in the form of a quiz, if I might.

Jay: OK.

David: So the first question is, you point out that Barack Obama spent some time outside of the country while he was growing up. Do you know where he spent that time?

Jay: Couldn’t care less.

David: It’s irrelevant?

Jay: Irrelevant to me, and I think to most Americans. It think the only thing that’s relevant here, again, is that you combine someone about whom we know nothing, or very, very little, tantamount to nothing, compared to other presidential campaigns. Here’s a guy who might be president in a few months, about whom we know very little, and who has, who shares a background, heritage, and other things, which happen coincidentally to be common to a people who are in the business of killing us. And so that might cause people to say "hmm, maybe I need to know a little bit more about this fellow than I know so far." That that would be a curious thing —

David: Well, I, I certainly —

Jay: [inaudible] than if his middle name was, you know, O’Reilly. Yeah, I think that’s entirely understandable.

David: Right, I agree, it might help to know a little bit more, but you don’t seem to be interested in getting that information yourself, so I’ll let you know —

Jay: David, can we stop being tedious? If you have something to add, please do.

David: Fine.

Jay: Otherwise all your preparation will be for naught.

David: Obama was not schooled in Africa as you said last week, but rather in Indonesia. In Jakarta, Indonesia.

Jay: Much more a hotbed of Islamofacism than Africa, so thank you for the upgrade.

David: Now you’ve pointed out that Barack Hussein Obama shares his name with his father. Could you tell us at what age his father left the household — [Jay hangs up on me after about 2 minutes 45 seconds; better than the 15 seconds or so I got on Friday]

Jay: Well, I hope not. You shouldn’t be hearing anything, except this:

Jay then simulated a test tone from the old days of television. In fact, what one hears after being disconnected is silence, followed by a "fast busy" signal.

The answer to question number two, by the way, is that Barack Obama fils was two years old when Barack Obama pere left Hawaii to return to Harvard. I had three more questions ready for Jay, which he must be glad he avoided:

1. True or false: While in Indonesia, Obama attended a type of Muslim school known as a madrassa. (False, of course.)

The other two questions were designed to counter Jay’s point that calling the candidate "Barack Hussein Obama" is fair game because that is how Obama refers to himself.

2. True or false: On his web sites and on the cover of his books, Obama identifies himself using his middle name. (False, of course.)

3. What was the caption next to Obama’s picture in his high school yearbook. (Answer: Barry Obama. Yeah — this is clearly someone who identified very closely with his Arabic-Muslim heritage.)

As fate would have it, the next caller was a fellow named Jerry, who was also a Severinitis sufferer:

Jay: Jerry, from Roslindale. If I’d known that was A-hole David, we wouldn’t have taken the call. Jerry, from Roslindale, how are ya?

Jerry: Not too bad, how are you?

Jay: I’m well, thank you sir.

Jerry: Good. I just wanted to follow up on what that last caller was saying, and then I want to take it into [inaudible] about the Muslim extremists.

Jay: Sure thing.

Jerry: Basically, the … do you consider General Abizaid — should we look at his background because of his Muslim heritage?

Jay: I don’t believe that General Abizaid is about to be President of the United States.

Jerry: So the only criteria is the President of the United States.

Jay: I’d say that’s the only one I’m discussing.

Jerry: OK, so how about Omar Bradley, who had a Muslim background?

Jay: Omar Bradley, is he living?

Jerry: World War II hero.

Jay: Yeah, he’s not living is he?

Jerry: No.

Jay: I would say that case is moot, then, wouldn’t you?

Jerry: You don’t question how American he is because of his first name?

Jay: You’re missing the point, my friend.

Jerry: OK, well let’s forget about that. I would be more concerned, however, and I —

Jay: Let me ask you a question, wise guy. Since we learned today that there are thousands of illegal aliens in this country registered in flight schools right now, —

Jerry: I–

Jay: Since we learned today — Shut up and listen for a second if you want to stay on the radio, it’s up to you. We learned today there are thousands of illegal aliens in this country registered in flight schools. If you headed up the division of the FBI that was going to take a look at the thousands of illegal aliens now enrolled in flight schools across the United States and you didn’t have all the manpower and money that you might like and you had to prioritize whom you would review first, would you pick first the people with Arabic Muslim names or would you pick people with Irish or Italian names?

Jerry: Uh, —

Jay: Thanks, Jerry, thanks a lot. [Jay disconnects Jerry.] Yep. The prosecution rests. Anybody who doesn’t see that we have enemies and that those enemies remain discernable by virtue of certain traits and backgrounds, anybody who doesn’t wonder more about Muslims praying aloud in the airport, moving around, standing up, you know, asking for extra seat belt extensions — I’m talking about the case of the Muslim imams who were in Minnesota going to Dallas, and they were acting strangely in the airport — anybody who isn’t worried when they see people of Middle Eastern background acting suspiciously is a fool. Anyone who equates the same behavior taking place involving a bunch of Catholic nuns and at any given moment across the airport in another gate, a bunch of young to middle-aged Arabic men who are acting suspiciously, and then again, at the other gate, Catholic nuns doing the same thing — anybody like Jerry and David, who just called, who think that those behaviors should attract and warrant equal scrutiny, that you should be equally worried or unworried about the nuns and the Muslims who are doing the same thing, anybody who’s that stupid, anybody who’s so politically fascistically correct that you think that despite the discernable traits of people among whom are our sworn enemy, if you would equate the behavior of the nuns, you would profile at the airport as many Catholic nuns as you would young Arabic men with backpacks who are saying their prayers aloud, if you would give the same level, if you would devote to each group the same level of scrutiny, Jerry and David, then you are — you can read about yourselves by reading Darwin. You are the fools, you are the inferior creatures who evolve away. I don’t intend to join you.

Pretty incredible, eh? He complains we don’t have enough information about Barack Obama, I call up to give him the information, and a few minutes later he’s turned my comments into a discussion about flight schools and an incident from November 2006. (They were going to Phoenix, by the way, Jay, not Dallas.) It’s the same change-the-subject tactic he employed against me last week. Of course, he can only do this when we are no longer able to respond.

Now although Jerry and I were unable to overcome our mental illness, it does seem that we rocked Jay’s world just a little bit. After Jerry’s call, he went on the defensive to a degree unusual even for him. Jerry’s call finished around 5:45, maybe 5:50. Jay’s show runs until 7:00 pm. Perhaps Jay was afraid that other callers might agree with us, so he took only two more calls for the rest of the show. As a substitute, he serenaded his audience with rants like these:

Jay: [I want to say something about] David and Jerry. I am absolutely and very earnestly appalled and frightened, I’m frightened and disgusted at the notion that there are two people in this entire radio audience, let alone two in a row, who may not be the only two, I am disgusted and frightened that there are two ostensibly grown people who take umbrage at the notion that we have a guy named Barack Hussein Obama who may become President of the United States and that that ought to make Americans curious, a little more curious about his background, someone about whom we know nothing, who was a state senator a few years ago, and his name is Barack Hussein Obama, an Arabic first name, an Arabic middle name, an Arabic last name, a Muslim middle name, Muslim school, Muslim father, Muslim grandfather — given the circumstances of the moment on planet Earth, the notion that he should receive scrutiny — and I go back to the example, if you’re at an airport, and you have two groups of people out loud performing religious services, kind of in a loud and unreasonable way, and you find one group is the Mormon Boys Tabernacle Choir or the other is Catholic nuns and a third is Middle Eastern men, or Muslims? This is so stupid that it’s not even worth discussing. If you don’t think the Muslim men are the ones that you check first, if you don’t think that they deserve a more immediate or higher level of scrutiny than the Catholic nuns, you’re just being intellectually backward and obstinate for laughs, or you really are so stupid that you shouldn’t be allowed out on the street without someone accompanying you [inaudible] or something. This is what worries me the most. [Read slowly and carefully now … Jay’s thought process gets a little loopy here.] If I were a member of a group that wanted to take over this country — now hear me clearly and don’t misquote me — were I a member of a group, real or imagined, were I a member of a group, and that group had religions affiliations as well as cultural and political affiliations, and I had tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, no, millions of my people surging into this country, setting up shop, identifying themselves as, well, let’s call them X-Men, OK? For no particular reason. If the X-Men came here and the X-Men regarded themselves apparently as X-Men first and Americans second, and there are millions of them, and part of the routine preaching in the X-Men house of worship is the death and destruction of the West in general and of Americans in particular, and if I found that in over the course of, say, ten years every single — not most, not the vast majority of them — every single act of murder and violence against Americans was both preached and perpetrated by X-Men, and I saw their numbers continue to grow, and I learned as I heard about one group (I won’t name them, but I happened to have heard about a group just last night, in the middle of the night, listening to BBC, either last night or Saturday night) that there’s a certain group in this country whose young people are being encouraged by their religious leaders to go into journalism, law, and politics — journalism, law, and politics — by way of changing the system, by way of changing the system how? If the X-Men believe you[?] — this imaginary group, the X-Men — if the X-Men regard themselves first and foremost as X-Men and only secondarily if at all as Americans, and now they have stated their intentions in addition to their sermons we hear so much about to go into political science, journalism, and law in order to change the system… If, David and Jerry, if you think that doesn’t require, doesn’t spark any curiosity or shouldn’t require a higher level of scrutiny than if a bunch of Irish-Americans did it, then again, you’re just going to evolve away pretty quickly. We’re just going to lose you off the scale, because you’re too stupid to survive. We’re talking about the most fundamental set of perceptions available to human beings: Are there people among me who mean me harm? Are there or aren’t there? Well, there are. And if there are, am I able to discern who they are? Not all of them, and not flawlessly, but if I know, if I establish as a fact there are people among me who wish me harm, me and mine, then am I able to distinguish, discern, identify them? If I am, if I put together Facts A and Fact B, Facts A and B, if there are people among whom I’m living, who wish me death and destruction, and if I’m able to discern, distinguish, or identify them, for me not to pay attention to that, for me not to devote a little bit more of my time, a little bit higher level of scrutiny to that than I would to people among me who mean me no harm, then I’d be like you: the really stupid end of the animal kingdom that evolves away. I mean, you’re just a step above mollusks. I think you should probably bow to and salute mollusks, if that’s the way you think. [Note to Jay: Mollusks have been around for more than 500 million years. I don’t think they’re going to evolve away any time soon.] And there is no more dangerous, there has never been in American culture ever, there has never been a threat as grave as the threat that you just heard from A-hole David and A-hole Jerry. Imbeciles who wrap themselves in a new dogma of political correctitude and say to you at the subway station or at the airport you have no right either to search or investigate or even suspect in the privacy of your own mind, your own home, late at night as you fall asleep in bed, you have no right morally, certainly not legally, to suspect anybody, even though you know there are killers living among you who have already killed and who are planning now to kill more, you have no right to try and figure out who those killers might be even though on a factual basis you can discern who they are. You have no right to do that. And that any attempts or any inclinations to do so make you a racist? That is the most grave threat to the continued existence of the United States of America than anything in our history. Far and away more of threat to us than anything in our history. Far, far greater than any of the false sins of the politically correct (i.e., bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, sunspots, fluctuations in the stock market, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa). Of all of the sins they falsely accuse us, reasonable people who are trying to survive, none of them (even were they true) begin remotely to approach in their catastrophic importance, in their profundity, the importance of making sure that people like David and Jerry are recognized for the fools they are, and we make sure that their blind political fascism doesn’t prevent us from doing the most basic human thing we need to do, and that is survive, that is protect ourselves, it means discern, distinguish, identify a threat and to make sure that we are not harmed. That does not apply to any group of all people, but it certainly applies to some people within certain discernible groups. And again I bring you back to the airport. If you’re the head of airport security, and you toss a coin, you flip a coin to decide whether to investigate a bunch of nuns who praying out loud, and they’re acting a little unusually, and they’re praying out loud, Catholic nuns, and over here you have a bunch of Islamic clerics who are praying out loud and doing something a little unusual — if you have to flip a coin to determine which of those two incidents, if either, should cause you any concern or ought to be given some scrutiny, well then you’re like David and Jerry. And the day that most of us, the day that 51 out of 100 of us become like David and Jerry, there will be no more us.

A little later on, Jay claimed he had a nine-year perfect record of not being guilty of hypocrisy,

notwithstanding idiots like Dave and Jerry. And I like some of your flavors, though, Dave and Jerry. I must say I buy sometimes the Chocolate Fudge Packer Pal, which — Dave, I think that was yours. You invented that one. [But no one should accuse you of homophobia, right, Jay?]

Jay also compared Jerry and me to Nazi collaborators in Vichy France, claiming that

no one is going to hurt us unless they hurt us from the inside, and they’ll only hurt us from the inside by finding collaborators. And the people at the Council on American Islamic Relations couldn’t be any happier than to have people like David and Jerry. Just stick to the ice cream, would you, David and Jerry, who called in earlier to slam me for discussing the notion that some people might warrant some extra scrutiny than other people based on who they are, what their heritage is, and all that. So I’m sure that at an airport, as I said, Dave and Jerry, instead of making ice cream — which they’re good at — if David and Jerry were in charge of airport security at Logan, they’d see a bunch of young Muslim men doing their prayers very loudly and sweating profusely and doing odd things, and then they’d see a bunch of Catholic nuns, and then they’d also see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and they’d say "we just don’t know who to search first, because no one deserves extra scrutiny, because all the people are equally innocent and wonderful.

It’s simply amazing to me that this guy makes a million dollars a year spewing this nonsense. Hey, WTKK: I’ve got an idea for you. Want to save some money in these tight financial times? Tell you what. I’ll do Jay’s job, and I’ll do it better and cheaper. Hell, I’d be willing to do it for a mere $900K. Have your people call my people — preferably on the air.