Republicans Are Sick: Radio Host Fantasizes Obama Murdering His Own Grandmother
We've seen and heard some pretty ugly stories recently from the Republican ranks, but just when you think the stories can't get any uglier, they get uglier. So it was Friday morning (Oct. 24) on radio station WLS in Chicago, when conservative drive-time host Don Wade imagined how Barack Obama's allegedly adoring press corps would react to a video record of the senator murdering his own grandmother. Sadly, Wade's comments coincided with Obama's actual visit to the bedside of his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, which Wade ghoulishly turned into a fantasy murder scene captured on video. "The video clearly shows Grandmother greeting Barack Obama coming through the door...," Wade described with obvious relish, "...Barack Obama comes over, sits down beside the grandmother, and places a pillow over her face and holds the pillow over her face until she struggles no more" (CBS-2). Wade's wife and co-host Roma (picture here with Wade) expressed shock at her husband's words even as they were coming out of his mouth; and listeners expressed even greater shock in e-mail complaints such as this one quoted by CBS-2 News in Chicago: "Don Wade of WLS talk radio crossed the line this morning describing an insensitive and coded hate scenario where Obama goes to Hawaii and murders his grandmother. It was appalling, disturbing, ugly and over the top."
The Obama campaign has declined to comment on Wade's remarks. Those who would like to comment on Wade's remarks may do so at the WLS contact page ("Don & Roma" or "Don & Roma Producer" on pull-down menu). Don & Roma broadcast from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. local time Monday through Friday and take live callers at (312) 591-8900. Alternately, recorded messages for Don & Roma may be left at (312) 357-1489.
Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com
It's things like this that give me hope of a positive, civil Obama administration. No, really! Isn't there a common fairy-tale mechanism in which a large group of characters suddenly snaps into moral propriety, right around the plot's climax? (I can think of no examples--can you?) I have growing faith that a lot of conservatives who flirt with this trash are going to come to their senses and find civil, politically healthy ways to dissent.
October 25, 2008 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, you're a dreamer! I'm one too. Can't help myself. I do believe most people are fundamentally decent, and that we all share some common values, like it's really rank to protest at a funeral. The extremist who thinks that's great are universally shunned, across all lines.
This guy is playing for ratings and in one of the sickest ways possible. What next, a graphic description of Obama raping a 11-year old white girl? That's a turn on for a certain group and sure to bring the femi-nazis down on him and jack up his ad revenue.
What distresses me about the tone of the McCain/Palin campaign and their robocalls, is they have created an atmosphere where they've empowered extremists in their own party. People think their views are valid. They've brought monsters out of the shadows and they are doing nothing to put them back. This guy has a monster streak and he's gotten in touch with it, and has decided he's found a new, okay way to sell some ads.
I look at Obama today in front of that massive crowd in Denver and I am filled with hope that we can change the path we're on. Because of the unleashed monsters, my deepest fear is Dallas, 1963.
October 26, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much for this. I sent message via their contact e mail and also sent own e mails with pertinent info out to others.
Strongly rec'd and urge all to contact radio station.
October 25, 2008 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
So because Don Wade is a lunatic with a talk show (perhaps not for much longer) and a number of attendees at McCain/Palin rallies are lunatics, republicans are sick?
Chuck Hagel is not sick, Richard Luger is not sick, and millions of other folks who identify with the republican party are not sick, but are reasonable, responsible people.
So why doesn't your headline read "Don Wade is Sick"?
Don Wade is Caucasian, so all Caucasians must be sick. And all those who might subscribe to Don Wade's religion are sick.
Get the point?
October 25, 2008 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who are you responding to? No one here has argued that "republicans are sick."
October 25, 2008 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read the headline of the post again. And this time v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.
October 25, 2008 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL... I admire your restraint. I left myself wide open on that one.
October 25, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't back down friend WC! "Republicans are sick." is accurate in the same sense as "Americans are religious".
It was not meant to be a statement of the form "ALL x are y."
Lets use ordinary language here Chris. The ordinary language use of the blog title was understood by everyone but perhaps those who wanted to seize on a nit and then pick at it.
For their own reasons of course.
But one aspect of the troll's sullen craft is to take a small logical point and try to destroy a whole edifice with it.
You, of course, are not a troll. I want to stress that. Chris is NOT a troll. But operationally you performed the same jiu jitsu.
Where this thread should have gone is a discussion of the extremism of rightwing radio hosts and their effect on the political culture.
Where you sent it was a protracted and sterile discussion of stereotypes and bigotry on the left.
And as for "republicans are sick", yes many, many are definitely sick and hate-filled and have been operating out of darker regions of the human psyche for quite some time. I copied this from a right wing blog that MJ referred us to:
"will Obama be able to withstand the temptation to set free all the black people in federal prison, or various other temptations?"
And many more referring to the necessity of stocking up on ammo and guns in anticipation of a Democratic victory...
But that's only a small minority. True enough. But use statistics Chris. If the bell curve has a tail like that, and as prominent and numerous the data points have been for hateful rhetoric and emotions on the republican side, then we have to say the whole curve is shifted to the "sick" side of the x-axis. (to paraphrase a very bright poster).
October 26, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stop being an ass, troll.
October 25, 2008 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry, but could you explain this "troll" post.
October 25, 2008 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know who you are.
October 26, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you very clearly don't. I post under my real name and include a link to my blog in my profile so anyone interested may know exactly who I am.
October 26, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me that those who call other folks assess or must resort to tread worn, meaningless cliches, such as troll, really don't have much to say.
October 25, 2008 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
So I'll say something, and thanks for the invitation.
This Republican ghoul was on the air trying to whip up the Republican base with a hate-filled sociopath Republican yarn about the next President of the United States murdering his terminally-ill grandmother, during a time of his grief-filled last visit to her, and what bothers you about the report of this act of unimaginable cruelty is the syntax of the headline.
*That's* sick.
October 26, 2008 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
No it is not the syntax at all. It is the propensity of some to project onto all members of a perceived group, whether the group be republicans, women, African-Americans, Baptists, or any other group, the actions or beliefs of a few lunatics who might be part of that group.
I think it is an expression of bigotry.
October 26, 2008 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am with you Chris and I find that this bigotry can be tracked all the way to ignorance and shallow thinking; definitely an obvious lack of depth in the thought process.
October 26, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I couldn't agree more. As I am fond of saving "bigotry = ignorance."
October 26, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, you cannot take an extreme, isolated example and use it to characterize an entire group. I hope you apply this same level of enlightenment and tolerance when discussing other groups, such as Muslims and left-wing political activists.
October 26, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I assure you that I "apply this same level of enlightenment and tolerance when discussing other groups, such as Muslims and left-wing political activists."
Just for the record I have twice donated to the Obama campaign and supported him from the launch of his campaign, I voted for McGovern, and worked on McCarthy's campaign.
I also try to avoid making unwarranted assumptions about other folks.
October 26, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
perceived group,
_____
The Republican Party and its ADMITTED adherents are only a "perceived" "group"?
I'd suggest you could do better than that, except that you're a troll so know you can't.
Clue, troll: defending the Republican Party as a "perceived group" in effort to change the subject away from the America-hating slug which IS the topic of this thread is DISHONEST.
Let me guess: your name is Wade.
Or you're his employer.
Or his iwfe.
Or a relative of his.
Or simply a far-right wingnut -- lunatic fringer to whom he is directing his absolutely unhinged and indfensible hate-speech.
Go ahead, punk: try a defense of "freedom of speech" even when the speech is despicable and indefensible. But don't, ass, endeavor to pretend to be civil against those you falsely characterize as being incivil by defending such inexcusable incivility, else you be seen for what you are: an incivil troll.
AND a liar.
October 26, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Having a cognitive difficulties today? I in no way defended what Wade had to say. I in fact called him a lunatic. And, in fact, I never addressed the issue of freedom of speech.
My post addressed bigotry.
Like I said above those who resort to calling those with whom they disagreed troll and asses apparently have nothing of value to say.
October 26, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jeez, quit calling people trolls because you don't like what they say.
October 26, 2008 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I absolutely agree with you, it's sick. But I do not think one can say then all Republicans are sick. My dad's a staunch Republican, and he thinks this guy is sick.
So I don't like the specific being applied to the general; in most cases it's false. It's what McCain's robocalls are doing to Obama. My only quibble is with the first three words of the headline. It's no more true than "Radio Hosts are Sick." Other than that, I thank you, eades, for the blog and the information.
What he said was unclean, and advertisers on his program should dump him -- he sullied their products. That is the only thing that will silence this kind of sickness.
October 26, 2008 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. But they say with greater accuracy in spelling.
You fool no one with your fake outrage -- your self-dumbing-down which endeavors to distract from the exposure of an America-hating racist thug who is also a Republican by pretending we all should mistake that specific for a generalization.
But if you want to generalize beyond that by falsely accusing others of doing that, I'm game. McSlimer is a far-right America-hating fraud also.
So is Palin -- on top of which she's a fruit-loop. Secession indeed! -- can't be more anti-American than that!
Newt, Bushit criminal enterprise as a whole, Lindsey Graham -- everyone in the Republican party, and who identifies with it, and defends and supports its wholehearted embrace of the war crime of torture: America-hating thugs. SICK.
Shall I continue, Troll?
October 26, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
No he's right.
Not every Repub is an asshole like this Wade monkey.
October 26, 2008 1:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or like this "Chris Brown" who is attempting to distract from the topic of the thread.
October 26, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, just enough to ruin the country and create a climate of hatred, fear, and anxiety. Good goin', boys and girls!
October 26, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey JNagarya,
Apparently the irony of you, who showed up here just yesterday and began flooding the comment threads with comments calling people names, calling other trolls is lost on you.
Not surprising.
October 26, 2008 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been on this site -- with the same name -- since 2000. You might wake up and realize that you accidently didn't log on to Freerepublic.
October 26, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
After eight years of Bush/Cheney, anyone who still 'identifies' with the Republican Party, who may have been enthralled at the RNC hatefest in Minnesota, who thinks McCain/Palin are what this country needs at this juncture in our history, would leave it as an open question as to whether they were personally and conscience wise identical in make up to a Palin, a McCain, a Don Wade, a Limbaugh, a Dobson, a Ted Stevens, a Rick Renzi, a Karl Rove, an Alberto Gonzales, a Jeff Gannon, a Larry Craig, a Jack Abramhoff, a Brownie, a Rick Davisor any number of other Republican power brokers, criminals, liars and war profiteers.
Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar do not represent the mainstream Republican Party, they are true Republican 'mavericks'.
October 25, 2008 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those you name -- the extremist thugs -- are not "mainstream" in ANY sense. They are EXTREMISTS.
The political spectrum is a bell curce. On the far right are those luntics you name. One the far left is an EQUALLY SMALL extremism.
In the MIDDLE is the MAINSTREAM, which is the vast majority, who are MODERATE-LIBERAL.
October 25, 2008 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
But why are the Repub extremist the loudest while the Dem mainstream being the loudest.
October 26, 2008 1:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have no idea what you're getting it. But I'll point out that the "mainstream" is the MAJORITY. And that the NAJORITY is MODERATE.
October 26, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I did write the managers at WLS. I grew up listening to that station when I was a kid in the Chicago area.
I hope they send him on a mental health 'vacation'.
October 25, 2008 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read about this the other day and I was completely disgusted by such this heartless, soulless lowlife. Just when you think the extreme right-wingnuts cannot go any lower, they find a way to shock you.
October 25, 2008 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The total lack of respect and the aggression allowed by the dehumanizing/delegitimizing process is disheartening and frightening. Hard to see how the extremists can be be related to. Hopefully more people are seeing this for what it is. I have very little faith in the media when it comes to this kind of issue.
October 26, 2008 1:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I tried to send this on the WLS web site to Jerry Agar and WLS Management options:
I used to listen to WLS when Gerry Meier was on with Roe Conn but with comments that Don Wade made Friday are why normal people no longer listen. If it is any consolation (since I listened to your show Friday since I had read that it was to be your last), I now know why you have been replaced by Mancow. Your attempts at tastelessness does not come close to Wade or Mancow. Being second best to WLS management is actually less offensive.
I used to be a member of the WLS listeners club. But this radio station gets more and more out there. If you are not familiar with new hire wack job Mancow you might not understand that this formerly great radio station probably does not care about Wade's latest comments.
October 26, 2008 2:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I sent the station a protest message. And I'm Australian lol. What a goose. Your media is crazy.
October 26, 2008 2:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ya think?
well we have presidential candidates claiming their somewhat right-of-center opponents are communists aiming to take all your property and share it with the masses.
There is lotsa crazy to go around in this, the greatest nation on earth.
October 26, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
So because Don Wade is a lunatic with a talk show (perhaps not for much longer) and a number of attendees at McCain/Palin rallies are lunatics, republicans are sick?
Pay attention why don't you? These are not "isolated incidents", they're the accepted norm of the Republican base these days and this is dragging the whole party down.
October 26, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Colin Powell, Donald Fried, and all of the other republicans who have endorsed Obama are sick, eh?
Give me a break. Get a grip why don't you.
I realize that there are folks who don't enjoy the mental capability of keeping track of of the gray shades. Those folks are represented in the republican "base" and they are represented in this comment thread.
October 26, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's you who's making the suggestion that "all Reoublicans" are sick -- and naming names.
You name, as example, Colin Powell -- as one of those you are caliming isn;t "sick," and at the same time "baiting" any one of us to say otherwise, so you can do your trollish best to smear that person as being "hateful" "like" the Republican America-haters you are attemppting to defend.
Okay, I'll bite. These are FACTS about Colin Powell:
1. Powell was the first to "investigate" -- and cover up -- the My Lai massacre.
2. Powell, more than anyone, in lying to the electorate, the Congress, and the world, greased the skids for the Bushit criminal enterprise's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq -- even though he knew, as he later admitted, that it had noting whatever to do with 9/11; and knew that it didn't have WMDs.
And in so doing, he knew he was throwing away the lives of his troops for a lie, and for a lost cause.
And at least hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including many not illegally tortured, are dead as result of the lie.
3. And when it came to the war crime of torture -- prohibited always and everywhere; cannot be made legal; effort to make it legal is also illegal -- he participated in the planning and imposing of it onto persons not found guilty of anything accept the attributed ALLEGATION "terrorist".
Because they were "ALL" Muslims.
4. And those at the bottom who OBEYED the orders to do the torture are doing Powell's prison-time FOR him.
5. In endorsing Obama, Powell spoke movingly about the young Muslim American who -- sucker for the Bushit criminal enterprise/Powell lie -- was killed in Iraq.
Powell did not admit the fact that that young man was killede BECAUSE of the Bushit criminal enterprise/Powell lying of the US into Iraq.
So, since you named the name, you tell us, troll, whether Powell is sick -- or respectworthy -- in addition to the fact that he is a Republican.
October 26, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are decent republicans, most of whom have been conspicuously not been enthusastic in supporting this train wreck of a campaign that McCain has run. Where's Rice, Olympia Snowe, K.B. Hutchinson? What about Hagel, Sununu? Such people are embarrassed by what we've been subjected to from the likes of Don, Limbaugh et al.
What this Don fool did is not representative of all republicans, but it is what we have come to expect from some on the right. Just when you think it couldn't get any worse, something like this happens. You would think that they would get the notion that this stuff is not working. Then again, maybe they know that and its not about winning anymore, but just lashing out wildly in all directions.
Hate and negativity worked as a campaign tactic for some time, but now people are sick of it. There's too much going on for most to have the "luxury" of fantasizing over having beers with hockey moms and joe six packs.
The republicans should want to do better and purge themselves of these purveyors of hatred and idicoy.
October 26, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where's the "decent" Republican Condoleeza Rice? Perhaps she still chairing the NSA committee that plans and imposes the war crime of torture.
Perhapos she's continuing to push the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq based upon knowingly-false assertions about its connection with 9/11, and its possession of WMDs.
I think it is safe to say that Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rove, Rumsfeld, McSlimer, Palin, and other LEADERS of the party are in fact representative of the party. Don't they advance party/ideological ends, regardless the health and survival of the country?
Torture is a war crime. It cannot be made legal. It is illegal to attempt to make it legal. The Bushit criminal enterprise, including Powell and Rice, actively and willingly particpated in that war crime. And the Republican party defended and supported them and that war crime.
The list of Republicans not party to that SICKNESS is a great deal shorter than those party to it; in fact, it is at the moment blank.
The trolls here who want to pretend otherwise -- that this Wade fruit-loop is somehow unrepresentative of the party, though as foul-mouthed as the McPalin campaign that is representative of the party and its leadership --are engaged not only in America-hating but also in the immorality that is lying.
They fool no one.
October 26, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
This mad-man's background should be checked out. He has a pass--no one could come up with such a story unless he has had these fantasies before or actually committed a crime of the nature he described already. Who is this man? He should be fired on the spot.
October 26, 2008 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wade and his type is the very reason McCain is losing.
October 26, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're right. It is one of the reasons. Along with the fact that he is a phony and has run an inept campaign.
October 26, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
An inept campaign? With all the good news from Bush-onomics? Dude, I think this is problem of failed ideas, not bad communication.
But please, keep it up. And the Republican Party will soon join the Federalists, the Know-Nothings, and Whigs in history.
October 26, 2008 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wade did this so people like Eades would write about it so people like us would comment on it so others would tune in to the shpw so Wade's ratings would go up. It's been done a million times. Ignore him and he'll go away. Please don't write into the show. That is exactly what he wants. Ignore him.
October 26, 2008 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The self-flagellation on this thread is unbelievable. Here these fucking people are sending out paid Republican flyers with the word TERRORIST on one page and Obama's face on the next, and these arrogant oafs come on here saying *they're* being treated unfairly, and here you are,
gurgling
"Oh, yeah, they've really got a point!"
A POINT?!! Nobody said "all" or "every," so stop misquoting in the service of wickedness. You *don't* think that there's a general Republican pattern in calling the next President who rose from nothing, graduated at the top of Harvard Law to go help the poor, that calling him a terrorist, again, and again, and again, is sick? Really??? NOT SICK?!! Or you think that's not related to this utter filth? You also are concerned that the **problem** here is how this was reported? That's the problem?
What does McCain say about the terrorist charges? He supports it "absolutely." And you think, what?
(A) It's not sick?
or
(B) It isn't fair to attribute the paid Republican national ad campaign to Republicans?
(C) There's no pattern of this Republican odium?
A or B? C?
Which? Which?
Which? Which is it?
Which?
This is anti-Americanism, and you who defend them are offering them succor and safe harbor. You should be ashamed.
WAKE UP.
October 27, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink