KOA's "Gunny" Bob asserted "[t]here's a lot of raw hatred and intolerance" at sister station KKZN, but omitted his own on-air history

Summary: Referring to sister Clear Channel Communications Inc. station KKZN, Newsradio 850 KOA host "Gunny" Bob Newman stated, "There's a lot of raw hatred and intolerance over there." Newman referenced controversial remarks by national radio hosts Ed Schultz and Randi Rhodes, whose programs are broadcast on KKZN, but did not mention the extreme opinions he has offered on his show -- such as his call for Muslim immigrants to be "required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times."

Referencing controversial statements by progressive radio hosts Ed Schultz and Randi Rhodes, as well as the broadcast corporation that owns Newsradio 850 KOA and sister station AM 760 KKZN, KOA's "Gunny" Bob Newman on April 7 asked his listeners, "Do you think Clear Channel should be broadcasting radical -- I mean genuine, extremist, hateful opinions" from Rhodes and Schultz, as well as "the rest of the gang over there on the far left?" Referring to KKZN, which broadcasts Rhodes' and Schultz's programs, Newman asserted, "They've got some people over there who've said some of the most horrendous things ever said in public and/or on the air. There's a lot of raw hatred and intolerance over there." Newman also suggested that it is "wiser to have 'em out there ... exposing themselves for what they actually believe," adding that "eventually their hatred, their loathing, their intolerance is going to get the best of them and they're gonna blurt it out."

However, in criticizing the purported "hatred and intolerance" of KOA's sister station and "the far left," Newman omitted the numerous extreme opinions he has voiced on his own show, such as his call for "every Muslim immigrant to America who holds a green card, a visa, or who is a naturalized citizen" to be "required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times."

As The New York Times reported, on April 3, Air America Radio, the network that produces and distributes Rhodes' show, suspended her for "repeatedly insulting Hillary Rodham Clinton" using "vulgar language that likened Ms. Clinton to a prostitute" at a March 22 event sponsored by Air America's San Francisco-area affiliate, KKGN-AM.

The Associated Press reported that at an April 4 fundraiser for the North Dakota Democratic Party, Schultz "tagged the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting [Sen. John McCain] as a 'warmonger,' " and that the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, who later addressed the event but was not present when Schultz made the remark, "repudiated" the comment. In its report, the AP quoted Schultz saying of McCain, "He's a perpetrator of the war. He's an advocate of the war."

Colorado Media Matters has noted numerous extreme or controversial statements Newman has made on his own show, including:

• September 4, 2007: Newman asserted that "anti-freedom liberals" are intent on "establishing their socialist utopian state under the spiked boot heel of Hillary Rodham Clinton." Newman also referred to Clinton when he warned that, depending on the outcome of the 2008 election, the United States might "hurtle[] into the abyss of Clintonista tyranny." Later in the broadcast, while criticizing MSNBC's recent decision not to air an advertisement produced by the organization Freedom's Watch in support of the Iraq war, Newman used a Nazi reference in characterizing MSNBC as "the network of the far-left anti-American hate merchant Keith Olbermeinkampf." Keith Olbermann is the host of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

• May 11, 2007: Before a change in content late on May 14, Newman's Newsradio 850 KOA website featured an item titled "Leftist Hate Group Attacks Gunny" that labeled the American Friends Service Committee a "leftist, anti-America, anti-Iraqi-freedom ... anti-US military hate group." The organization, founded by Quakers to pursue "service, development, social justice, and peace programs," on May 11 issued a press release condemning Newman's idea of monitoring all Muslim immigrants in the United States and calling for him to be taken off the air. In the same web posting and a related one, Newman stated that the organization sent him an "ugly hate-speech email" in which it "chastised the Gunny's deep-seated desire to prevent Muslim terrorists from killing more Americans."

• May 8, 2007: Discussing the breakup of an alleged terrorist plot to attack U.S. soldiers at New Jersey's Fort Dix, Newman said that "every Muslim immigrant to America who holds a green card, a visa, or who is a naturalized citizen [should] be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times," and that the government should "bug their places of work and their residences" and monitor "[a]ll mosques and community centers." Newman added, "If they don't like the idea, or if they refuse, throw their asses out of this country."

• April 11, 2007: Newman claimed that the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade granted "a woman's right to kill her child whenever she wished, so long as it wasn't born yet." Newman then said that while he found the idea of abortion "obscene," it "would be OK" to abort "horrible people" such as prominent Democrats, former dictators, an anti-war activist, and a terrorist leader, among others. His list comprised TV personality Rosie O'Donnell, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan.

• August 8, 2006: Newman said that former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), who was defeated in an August 8, 2006, primary election, is a "psychotic, hate-mongering, racist, scum-sucking pig wench." Newman added, "[T]hat's just how I feel about her," and later stated of McKinney, "You talk about a loose cannon."

• August 2, 2006: Newman proposed that in response to illegal immigration, "[w]e can do things like announcing to other nations that if you come to Colorado and our police catch you here illegally, we're going to put you on a chain gang. And you're going to work for five years on our state chain gang, doing public work projects, and you're not going to like it there." He then stated: "It sounds extreme, but it could be a lot more extreme, now couldn't it?" Later in the broadcast, Newman noted: "There are going to be a lot of people who don't like my idea of a chain gang for illegal aliens. They're going to say it's mean or it's cruel or it's barbaric or it's against human rights." Newman added, however, that "in reality, it's none of that stuff because if you wanted to be barbaric about it, what you do is you make it a capital offense for them to come here illegally, and you hang them. And I'm not for that."

From the April 7 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Gunny Bob Show:

NEWMAN: And again, a very common question I hear from my listeners, which they send in by, you know, instant message text or email. They want to know why Clear Channel -- my employer -- broadcasts hate radio. Shows like The Ed Schultz Show, The Randi Rhodes Show, and so on. Well, here's the thing. Let me ask you this: Do you think Clear Channel should be broadcasting radical -- I mean genuine, extremist, hateful opinions on, of hosts on the air, like Ed Schultz, and Randi Rhodes, and the rest of the gang over there on the far left? Like our sister station, 760 KKZN, right here on the fourth floor. We have three stations up here on the fourth floor in the mother ship on South Monaco: KOA, KHOW, and KKZN. And when you look at the lineup if you go to KKZN's website, it's pretty grim.

They've got some people over there who've said some of the most horrendous things ever said in public and/or on the air. There's a lot of raw hatred and intolerance over there. But -- wouldn't you rather know what your opponent is thinking? Isn't it wiser to have 'em out there talking, revealing themselves, exposing themselves for what they actually believe? Because, as we've seen, eventually their hatred, their loathing, their intolerance is going to get the best of them and they're gonna blurt it out. Just like we saw Randi Rhodes from Air America do just about a week or so ago. And just as we saw Ed Schultz -- who you can hear right over there on KKZN -- just as he did this past weekend by calling John McCain "a perpetrator of the war" -- key word, "perpetrator" -- and a "war monger." "War monger."

—E.B.