I had feard the wosrt and my fears have come true.
I have mentioned here before, just how much talk radio I listen too on a daily basis. Let’s just say over 14 hours a day. 10 hours at work plus an hour on the road and a few more at home while I’m on the PC. I don’t listen to the uber-personalities like Limbaugh or Hannity. I think the biggest host I dial into is Medved, the smartest man on air and then Larry Elder, a very close second for that title. If I’m not listening to talk radio, I’m alseep or watching a DVD.
Just before New Years Day my favorite middle-left talk show host up and took off without any warning or even signing off.
Radio Beat: Wanted: An evening talk host for KIRO-AM
Fred Ebert worked the 1900 to 2200 slot on local KIRO-am. While liberal on more issue than he’d care to admit and a strident Basher of Bush et al, he was intelligent and well spoken. He got his point or topic out quickly and would take on all comers.
Left or right.
A former professor of hard sciences (physics, chemistry, etc), holder of at least 8 patents and CIA consultant, he knew enough about how things take place in the real world to get the blood boiling in members of either side of the aisle.
He was a straight shooter and sharp as a tack. He never attacked with hyperbole, nor did he try to switch topics and put the caller off balance by having to defend a different point as well as the original one.
He also had a segment he would whip out whent he news was slow or he felt in the mood called ‘Stump the Professor’. In over a year of shows, I don’t think I heard him get hung out to dry once, although he said it had happened.
Fred said often that he was a former Republican, but left due to the war in Iraq and the Bush Admins deficit spending. He says he voted a straight libertarian ticket this last time around after having voted for Bush in 2000. I believe him. He rarely, if ever had a kind word for Kerry, or any Democrat in this last year that I had listened to him
But sadly, he is in no way a Libertarian, big or little L. He was for all kinds of government programs and hand out and adamant that government could take care of most things FOR the people (SSI, welfare, gov’t funding of science including stem cell research, etc).
It takes quite a bit for me to get off my ass and dial a phone to argue with someone, but Fred managed to do it twice; the first was when he was going on about ‘How Bush Outsouced the Hunting of Bin Laden at Tora Bora’.
I told him about, and later sent him this link, the words of Col. John Mulholland, Commander, 5th Special Forces Group. You know, the actual guy in charge.
The other was when the topic was about the banning of military recruiters at George Washington University and the government withholding federal funding for doing so.
He did not think the gov’t should be allowed to withold the funds, my main point was that those funds were not entitlements and could be withdrawn for any reason.
In both cases, he told me that we would have to agree to disagree. He was not going to change my mind and I was not going to change his. I hate draws, but he held the power of the disconnect button, so what’s a guy to do?
He will be missed, especially since his time slot is being filled in by KIRO political analyst, Carl Jeffers, who I swear must think he gets paid by the word. Jeffers uses 20 words where 5 are needed, talks over people and a blind man with no fingers and who is having a seizure can hold onto jell-o better than Jeffers can hold down a topic.
Fred Ebert, if you found this, I hate to see you go, but I understand. Tell those goofballs at Kiro to give your slot to someone like Lou Pate and quit screwing around.
