On the August 22 broadcast of The Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show, guest host Kevin Fischer claimed that Sen. Barack Obama “is the most dangerous candidate ever to run for the White House.” Fischer added: “Here's a man who has absolutely no regard for the lives of babies born that have survived abortions.” Fischer was presumably referring to Obama's opposition, as an Illinois state senator, to certain bills seeking to amend the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975. As Media Matters has repeatedly noted, Obama opposed those bills because he and other opponents of the bills said such bills would pose a threat to abortion rights and were unnecessary because Illinois law already prohibited the conduct supposedly addressed by the bills.
Earlier in the segment, Fischer falsely claimed, “Barack Obama, if elected president, will attempt to tax and spend the hell out of you.” In fact, as Media Matters has repeatedly noted, Obama has proposed lowering taxes for low- and moderate-income families.
Fischer also said that “no matter who Barack Hussein Obama picks as his running mate, that doesn't change the fact that he is the most liberal member of the United States Senate, numero uno.” (Obama had yet to announce his choice of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate at the time.) Many conservatives and media figures have repeated the National Journal's ranking of Obama as the “most liberal senator” for 2007 without noting the ranking's subjectivity. As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, the National Journal based its rankings not on all votes cast by senators in 2007, but on "99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale." In contrast, a study by political science professors Keith Poole and Jeff Lewis, using every non-unanimous vote cast in the Senate in 2007 to determine relative ideology, placed Obama in a tie with Biden for the ranking of 10th most liberal senator.
Fischer was filling in for Mark Belling, who is the “afternoon drive time host on News/Talk 1130 WISN-AM" in Milwaukee, owned by Clear Channel Communications.
From the August 22 broadcast of News/Talk 1130 WISN-AM's The Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show:
FISCHER: Couple of things that I'm not interested in, so we won't talk about them much on this late Friday afternoon. I'm interested to a certain degree -- of course, because I'm a political observer and I work in politics -- I am somewhat interested in who Barack Obama's going to choose as his running mate. But I'm not on the edge of my seat, I'm sorry. I'm really not. Keep in mind, folks, that no matter who Barack Hussein Obama picks as his running mate, that doesn't change the fact that he is the most liberal member of the United States Senate, numero uno. Hillary Clinton, the 16th most liberal member of the United States Senate.
So can you imagine how bad Barack Obama is if he's number one? Barack Obama's running mate doesn't change the fact that Barack Obama, if elected president, will attempt to tax and spend the hell out of you. His running mate doesn't change the fact that he is the most dangerous candidate to ever to run for the White House. Here's a man who has absolutely no regard for the lives of babies born that have survived abortions. How utterly despicable and disgusting can you be? So no matter what his choice is, it doesn't change his stripes -- that this is a very, very, very liberal politician. He is not -- he is not good for our economy; and he is very, very dangerous.
Asli Bashir is an Intern with Media Matters for America
