Sparring with wing-nutty blowhard Darrell Ankarlo
"If I see that you are adamantly disagreeing with what I've got to say, you are never censored," announced Ankarlo. "I will let you in, just as I will let someone in who agrees with me. That's called discourse. That's called debate. That's called healthy in America."That's also called a load of heron hockey. The Bird's called in to Ankarlo's show before and told the screener it disagreed with Ankarlo's venom. Each time, this whippoorwill was placed on hold indefinitely. So the Thursday the Ankarlo article was published, The Bird phoned in as a huge Ankarlo fan. Surprise, surprise, this beak-bearer got through almost immediately. As "Dave in Phoenix," The Bird lauded the jock, informing him that the supposed smears of his enemies at New Times were just "terrible, terrible!" Later, Pat McMahon, who comes on after Ankarlo, made a quip about this egret's editorial, making it even harder for the bile-spittin' Darrell to ignore.
Indeed, though this sort of behavior is much more evident on that other conservative talk station — there, I can attest to sitting on hold for hours, hoping to hop on to challenge the host's idiocy. Furthermore, after initial denials, most of those efforts were to correct the host on a non-political matter, as I expected that I would never be granted air time unless I sounded like a complete dupe that could be tossed as a softball to an eager ideologue host.
Though I can honestly say when Ankarlo's spot was manned by David Leibowitz, he was always ready to duel with dissenters, even if he had a happy trigger finger to disengage a righteous caller once the argument got away from his grasp.