After having touted the planned release of his next book during the May 11 broadcast of his Newsradio 850 KOA show, will host “Gunny” Bob Newman now inform listeners that his publisher has canceled the book?
Newman brought up the book, The War for America: Liberal Extremism, Moral Turpitude, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors (Cumberland House Publishing), on his May 11 show while discussing the backlash against his May 8 on-air remarks 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.” As Colorado Media Matters noted, Newman also had urged that the U.S. government “bug their places of work and their residences” and monitor "[a]ll mosques and community centers." He also stated, “If they don't like the idea, or if they refuse, throw their asses out of this country.”
The remarks sparked messages of condemnation from a variety of organizations, including the Quaker-founded American Friends Service Committee, which Newman on his website at the time labeled a “leftist, anti-America, anti-Iraqi-freedom ... anti-US military hate group.” During that broadcast Newman also stated that, according to an acquaintance, visitors to “liberal hate blogs” are suggesting “that liberals should protest me and my right to freedom of speech” at signings of The War for America. Newman labeled people who might protest him as “holier-than-thou, politically correct, anti-First Amendment, namby-pamby fools” and asserted that “many of them qualify as fascists.”
Newman also promoted the book on his KOA website at least through late May.
Despite the book's scheduled June release, it had not become publicly available as of November 29. In response to an inquiry by Colorado Media Matters, Cumberland House's manager of marketing and publicity, Michelle Nikolai, stated in an email that “the book has been cancelled.” Asked the reason for the cancellation, Nikolai responded, “Sorry, I'm not at liberty to discuss.”
As Colorado Media Matters documented in a May 21 item, Newman's previous book, Minefields to Microphones: Global Asymmetric Warfare, the Radical Left, and Winning the War on Terror (Paladin Press), contains numerous distortions of sources' quotes. Colorado Media Matters also has documented numerous instances in which Newman on his program used misinformation or bigoted speech to criticize those with whom he disagreed.
Newman also was the subject of adverse national publicity in August, after Colorado Media Matters noted that on his July 31 broadcast Newman falsely asserted that during an MSNBC interview, retired Army General and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark “claim[ed] that former NFL player-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman may have been murdered on orders from the president of the United States." In fact, while appearing on the July 26 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Clark suggested that “someone approved ... all the way to the top” the decision to avoid a full investigation into Tillman's death, leaving unanswered questions as to exactly how he died. Clark further stated that “the responsible thing for the Pentagon to do and for the Congress to do is to demand that the investigation be reopened and people all the way up the chain of command to the very top discuss what happened, when, why.”
Following the Colorado Media Matters item, Olbermann on the August 3 broadcast of Countdown named Newman his “Worst Person in the World” for mischaracterizing Clark's remarks.
