Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (22400)	3/7/2008 6:21:13 PM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 224707

Friday, November 10, 2006 Madison Air America affiliate will switch to sportsThe Business Journal of Milwaukee Madison's Air America affiliate will drop the liberal talk radio network's programming at the end of the year and replace it with Fox Sports. WXXM-FM (92.1) posted a statement on the change in formats on its Web site Friday from Jeff Tyler, who is the vice president and Madison market manager for owner Clear Channel Radio. Clear Channel owns six Madison-area stations and is based in San Antonio. Tyler made no reference to Air America or its performance in the Madison market. Instead, he said Clear Channel is looking to extend its brand for sports programming in Madison, where its stations carry the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks, NASCAR and high school sports championships. "Our programming decisions are based entirely on audience research and our knowledge of the communities we serve," Tyler said. The station has been known as "The Mic" since October 2004, when it became a charter affiliate of Air America, which filed for bankruptcy reorganization last month. The station will take a new nickname, "Fox Sports Radio 92.1." Clear Channel determined that listeners want more coverage of local high school and collegiate sports, Madison Mallards baseball and more live sports programming, Tyler said. "The addition of Fox Sports radio . . . will allow us to carry more of what sports fans in the Madison area want, more programming that highlights the local sports scene and more top sports programs live," Tyler said. Craig Karmazin's WTLX-FM (100.5) is currently the Fox Sports radio affiliate in the Madison area. Karmazin owns ESPN radio affiliate WAUK-AM (1510) in Milwaukee. Contact the Editor Need Assistance? More Latest News

To: American Spirit who wrote (22400)	3/7/2008 7:57:04 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224707

The Myth of America's Unpopularity By Michael Gerson, The Washington Post, Mar 7, 2008 WASHINGTON -- The one goal that unites and explains the Democratic approach to foreign policy is this: America must try -- urgently and desperately -- to be more popular in the world. "The world was with us after 9/11," explains Hillary Clinton. "We have so squandered that good will and we've got to rebuild it." Barack Obama has said that the "single most important issue" of the current election is picking a leader who can "repair all the damage that's been done to America's reputation overseas." This argument depends on three premises -- all of which are questionable. First, listening to the Democrats, one would assume that America in the Bush era is universally despised. The reality is more complicated. According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, the United States is very popular in sub-Saharan Africa, where President Bush has just finished a triumphant tour. (People in Kenya, the Ivory Coast and Ghana have a more favorable view of America than Americans do.) India and Japan are strongly pro-American. America remains popular in parts of "new Europe," as well as in Mexico, Peru and even Venezuela -- though there has been some erosion in both Latin America and Europe in recent years. Pew's general conclusion is that anti-Americanism has grown "deeper but not wider." And it is deepest in "old Europe" and the broader Middle East. The second premise of this Democratic argument is that American popularity in these regions could be increased, easily and permanently, by overturning Bush policies. It is worth noting that American relations with European governments have rebounded strongly in the last few years with the elections of Angela Merkel in Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy in France. Yet the tensions between American and European worldviews ultimately have little to do with specific policies. Europe is an increasingly pacifist continent -- which is an improvement upon its bloody history, but a source of inevitable tension with a superpower that must occasionally enforce world order. European governments generally view international institutions as a way to constrain American power. Any future American president will continue to view those institutions as a way to amplify our influence in keeping the peace. And the broader Middle East is an even more difficult case. A close look at the Pew poll shows that appeasing public opinion in this region would require not merely leaving Iraq but also leaving Afghanistan, abandoning the war on terror and ending our support for Israel. The third premise of the Democratic argument is that global popularity translates directly into global influence. Here the historical evidence is thin. Few American presidents have enjoyed a warmer embrace than John Kennedy visiting France in June of 1961. French newspapers swooned at the first lady's perfect French and the better Parisian shops sold silk scarves embroidered "Jackie." But President Charles de Gaulle remained more interested in the cultivation of French self-esteem than in trans-Atlantic unity. Having withdrawn the French Mediterranean fleet from NATO in 1959, he later ordered the removal of NATO troops from French soil. President Lyndon Johnson (in one of his finest hours) instructed his secretary of state to ask de Gaulle: "Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France's cemeteries?" Few American presidents have been more reviled in Europe than Ronald Reagan, who responded to the Soviet deployment of SS-20 nuclear missiles by deploying Pershing II nuclear missiles. In West Germany, millions of people marched in protest. American soldiers were surrounded by hostile demonstrators shouting, "We don't want you in our country." But Reagan's unpopular "cowboy" determination helped end the Cold War and lift the nuclear threat from Europe. And we have seen a good example in our time. The January 2007 decision to surge American troops in Iraq was clearly at odds with world opinion. But retreating from Iraq in failure would have earned global contempt for American weakness instead of global popularity. And the turnaround in Iraq has restored at least some of our standing and leverage in the Middle East. The real lesson in the years since 9/11 is different from what the Democratic candidates imagine: It is easy to be loved when you are a victim. It is harder to be popular when you act decisively to protect yourself and others. A successful president should strive for America to be liked -- and expect, on occasion, for America to be resented in a good cause.