Say Anything Blog

Because that station carries Rush Limbaugh’s show.

Rush Limbaugh has long been a thorn in the side of liberals, but now, because of him, some Democratic politicians don’t even want to join with a local radio station to broadcast hurricane information.

Radio station WIOD, AM 610, has been the official channel for emergency information from Broward County government for the past year. The County Commission, all Democrats, balked at renewing the deal Tuesday, unable to stomach the station also being home to Limbaugh’s talk show.

Commissioner Stacy Ritter said she did not want to support a station that’s out of step with area politics. Ritter, a Democratic stalwart in the state Legislature before being elected to county office, cited talk shows hosted by Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and WIOD’s partnership with Fox News.

“They have every right to speak, but we don’t have to do business with them,” she said.

Right.  Because politics are exactly the sort of thing that needs to be considered when choosing an emergency broadcast station.

How petty can people get?

And consider this for a moment too: What’s the biggest reason people tune in to local talk radio?  Talk radio.  That’s the overwhelming draw.  And which political ideology dominates talk radio?  Conservatism.  So if these Florida Democrats aren’t going to “do business” with a radio station that has conservative talk radio shows on it they’ll likely be picking a station with far fewer listeners than the ones they’ve blackballed.

Which means fewer people listening to emergency broadcasts.

Leave it to the Democrats to make public safety take a back seat to partisan politics.