He thrived selling the Bush administration - the definition of tyranny disguised as patriotism and religion. My gift to him would be a quote from the King James Bible: For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

A holster cake?
Chocolate bullets?

Of course only the real thing would help if any of the many death threats he & his wife get actually actually decided to act.

Thanks
JK

My political viewpoints and personal approach to life are 180 degrees opposite of Lars Larson. He's a jerk, likes to hunt helpless animals and likes to play around with guns. He isn't me. That's O.K. though because opposing views like his are part of a democratic process which strengthens our society. Listening to Lars is a guilty pleasure I indulge in once in awhile when I need to laugh at something ridiculous. If you don't like it, change the channel...after all no one is holding a gun to your head.

HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY, LARS

my girlfriends and i listen to your show. Your right up there with Fox News ( Fox and Friends ) Glen Beck and Victoria Taft.

Because of you my friends and i are more involved and more knowledgable about our goverment. What a wake up call.

We also spread the word,Lars. My circle of friends are retired and ready to get out there and make a difference.

Keep up the good work

The kid from Spokane was one of the best radio news reporters when I introduced him to Goldschmidt's Portland. Now, at 50--like him or not--he is a very successful national entertainer.

LOVE YA LARS. LIGHT UP A OPUS FOR DADDY!

A one-way ticket to Australia.

To Mars.

Oh, sorry, I thought you said where would you like to send him.

If I would send Lars one thing, it would be that soul he left behind when he moved off KPTV and quit doing nice stuff like that Northwest Reports, and started cashing in by being Rush Limbaugh Jr.

A second brain cell, to keep the other one company.

Continued good health, and the confidence to continue the dialog.

As Usual Kevin hints, opposing views are necessary for progress.

I too don't always agree with Lars (or Thom, or for that matter any of the talking heads), but they all bring forward information that is worth considering and discussing.

Except maybe for those Michael Savage and Randi Rhodes characters!

What's interesting about Lars is I think he could argue black is white or white is black. He doesn't believe half the crap he peddles, but he gets great ratings and he loves to argue a point.

I remember one day he hard Mark Zussman from W Week on and he tried to play that "ask you a question" game.

"I'm not on here to debate you," Zussman said.

"Okay" said Lars.

And that was that.

"What's interesting about Lars is I think he could argue black is white or white is black. He doesn't believe half the crap he peddles, but he gets great ratings and he loves to argue a point."

FYI - Talk Radio is a business, not a public service. They aren't in that booth to "inform" the public, they are in that booth to sell advertising.

The greats of the format are great, because they find ways to increase Time Spent Listening (TSL - the holy grail of radio metrics), and get those ad dollars.

Talk Radio is the most expensive format that a radio station can have - you have the on-air talent, you have a board operator / producer, a call screener, and perhaps some other people behind the scenes. As a contrast, music radio usually has one person in the booth - the FCC licensed board operator who queues up music and occasionally talks.

In order to make it profitable, they need to keep people tuned in. This requires having engaging content that gets you to tune in over and over. On-air talent like Rush, Stern, and Leykis have been doing it for years, even if you disagree with every syllable they utter.

It's a business, and in business you have to have a competitive edge to do well.

I understand all that. In fact, I think it's valuable to hear someone like Lars selling a home improvement product with the same intense sincerity that he used to sell the Iraq War.
But at some point it's on him as a human being. And the way he carried water for the Bush administration was a disgrace. You couldn't pay me enough money to be involved with that.
These memos proved the whole thing was tyranny - something we already knew. So Lars was involved with the most un-American activity ever which is why he stressed his patriotism so often.
His Clone Master Rush is now trying to distance the Conservative Movement from the disastrous Bush years, but that does not change the historical record.
By the way, have you seen Rush lately? And I thought the federal budget was bloated. Rush is now so fat if you listen to his show your radio will get gravy on it.
Comedy is better than depleted uranium. Lars, you might be impressed with yourself, but there has to be a corner of your soul where you know you've done wrong. Repent, resign and spend the rest of your life helping these maimed soldiers from Iraq. You've still got time to be a success.

Tom,

Agreed. Unless JK wants to fall back on the defense that his sentence contains no misplaced modifiers, in which case he is calling for the threats (not the threateners) to decide to act, in which case he is advocating a logical impossibility and not the death of another human being.

Blows to hell everything (positive) I ever said about Pisces males! Maybe he was 6 weeks premature and was supposed to be born in that interesting April 20-23 period...

I must concur that he has been a boon to the far left. Many of us are bone lazy and his rhetoric is sure-fire fund/labor raising material. I would estimate fully 1/3 of the positive, lefty response I've seen in areas I volunteer, was motivated by listening to his broadcast or even a quote from it.

Lars, you're not conservative, you're not moral, and you're our best fund raiser. Hope you stay on the air for the next 50 years!

Lars, you might be impressed with yourself, but there has to be a corner of your soul where you know you've done wrong. Repent, resign and spend the rest of your life helping these maimed soldiers from Iraq. You've still got time to be a success.

I guess you told him, Bill.

I love it when you don your miter and judge - it's funnier than your jokes - I mean Joan Rivers' recycled jokes.

OK, the syntax threw me off. I now see the reference was to the cake. Thanks for interpreting.

"... he gets great ratings ...." LIARS? At least 10 others (including KPOJ Progressive radio) is greatER.

Latest Arbs: El Rey Is King, LynnS's blog, 08/04/2008.

The top ten stations:

KRYP-FM Regional Mexican 6.4
KWJJ-FM Country 5.5
KKCW-FM AC 5
KGON-FM Classic Rock 4.7
KUPL-FM Country 4.7
KEX-AM News/Talk 4.1
KINK-FM Triple A 3.6
KKRZ-FM CHR/Top 40 3.6
KPOJ-AM Talk 3.5
KUFO-FM Rock 3.4

Link to the thread includes comments by radio folks about LIARS cratering.

Bill, have you ever met Lars and had an in depth discussion, even if you were disagreeing? I know for me it is hard to say someone "doesn't believe in what he's saying", or to know someone's "soul" without a period of time with a person. I'm sure I've been judgemental towards a person without a lot of evidence, but measuring someones soul is hard for me.

lw,
Please don't pull the blog thing where I have to argue about my measurement of Lars' soul. The quote is a Biblical warning that I interpret to mean "Be careful what you have to do in exchange for your worldly riches. You may lose your soul."

I was not impressed with the Bush administration. Lars helped sell it, including going to the Oval Office with a group of other talk show hosts so President Bush could continue spreading his message to the People by using Lars and his colleagues.

I respect his radio chops. I respect his sense of humor - hidden though it often is. But I don't respect someone who carried water for the Bush administration.

It was a disaster for America, and it was a bigger disaster for those families who lost loved ones in Iraq and the tens of thousands of soldiers who were injured.

The Bush administration is an assault on the Constitution as their own memos have proven. Lars was in the PR wing of a real mess, and I don't think getting a national show and all the money was worth the price of participating.

We turned to these people for 8 long years and here we are. Maybe I should ask you: Have you measured America lately?

Tensky,
It appears you aren't even comparing radio shows. So what's up?

I remember Randi Rhodes declaring "Lars, you're done"

Hmmm? She's done and Lars'show remains.
All over Oregon and SW Washington.

You may want to adopt something other than Randi Rhodes approach.

Bill,

You're just making things up.
"Lars was involved"

He was a conservative Republican supporting Bush while hoping he would be more conservative than he ended up being.
Many conservatives trumpeted the call for a more conservative Bush administration for much of Bush's 2 terms.

Yet now you are saying,
"Rush is now trying to distance the Conservative Movement from the disastrous Bush years"?

Oh Hogwash. You made that up pure and simple.
Bush distanced conservatism from his administration all by himself.
On spending, entitlements, expanding government, immigration etc.

It's more than clear your position on the wars. But that appears to be clouding your perception on the rest of the Bush administration.

Robert Collins,

Lars believes all the "crap he peddles".

More often than not Lars is out in front opposing most of the nonsense around here and the State. Not unlike many Democrats here.

So those who want can find room to criticize Lars but at least criticize the real Lars instead of making one up.

Being a Bush water carrier would include almost the entire MSM, not just RW radio.

How about a Mr. Spock wish to "Live Long and Prosper".

I love the sensitivity. Sure, I'll go along....Dick Cheney's not a real conservative, either. Karl Rove. The Conservatives weren't in charge in Washington - didn't set foot in there - and let me guess...that was the problem, right?

Look, the Conservative Movement has always talked a different game then when they got in power. Ronald Reagan did the same thing. Are you saying he wasn't a Conservative now, too? Seems to me he's still revered in the Conservative movement and he didn't exactly shrink government. So get your standards of who you are straight and you'll make more sense.

Let's just look at Lars from the point of view of the 2 big wars he got involved in the last 8 years: The War on Terror and the War on Christmas.

While we're talking about being judgmental, let me take you back to the anti-war marches before Iraq. At one point, Lars Larson went on national TV to make the case that these Americans in the streets were actually terrorists. There's grandstanding but that was ridiculous. I felt Lars was trying to work himself into an active role in the War on Terror: "Hey fellas, I know what you're going through in the mountains of Afghanistan. I'm dealing with hundreds of terrorists right here in Portland!" It was aggravating, yes, but I remember feeling genuinely embarrassed for the guy. He seemed not unlike Dick Cheney and George Bush themselves: 2 guys with no military records who were trying to play soldier.

Remember the flight suit on the aircraft carrier? You could make a case that this whole last power-grabbing 8 years was just an attempt by a couple of immature wimps to try and compensate for their lack of genuine toughness.

Okay, back to Lars. Now for all I know Lars may have been a highly decorated Marine who bled for this country in far off hell zones around the world. But I really doubt it. This brings us to the time when I know I was deeply embarrassed for him - the War on Christmas that was supposed to be fought on the killing fields and far-off shores of Pioneer Square.

Now I have to give Lars credit: He was awarded the Order of the Candy Cane for his valor in this, even though he retreated from the initial invasion before a cross was mounted.

Wait, that might have hurt your feelings. I'm sorry. When did Conservatives become so sensitive? During all these years, anyone who raised a voice of genuine concern against the administration was branded as a terrorist-appeasing traitor, but today I'm the one being judgmental. So forgive me if I call Lars out on his 50th birthday for some of his BS over the years.

Lars supported President Bush's Doctrine of Preemptive Strikes in which we announced that we could attack anybody at any time for whatever reason we thought could come up in the future. This is as far from, "Thou shalt not kill" as you can get. Did Lars pause for a second to wonder how he could be putting Christ back in Christmas, when the administration he was supporting was so far from Christianity?

No, of course not. Lars was too busy playing soldier. Well, America salutes you Lars, and more important than that, Santa Claus salutes you.

The Conservative Movement had all 3 branches of government and a public ready to follow them after 9/11. They proceeded to blow it out their rears and now the only excuse I'm hearing is that they weren't really themselves. I was there. Try selling it to someone else.

mp,

huh?

ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT, LAT, MSNBC, CNN etc. carried Bush water?

Bill,

It would be better for you to not chasnge what is said or suggested.

It is not the point made that Bush Chaney or Rove are not conservsative.

It's that the Bush Administration swayed from conservatism in policy. Significanlty so.

For whatever reason that is waht happened and what disturbed conservatives like me.

And now as we move into hyper-liberal mode with Obama we are bothered by suggestions we are simply turning away from 30 years of failed conservatism.

We have not had 30 years of conservatism.
In any arena.

We've had a steady growth of liberal policies and government with very few and breif injections of conservative policy which were quickily overwhelemed by the big goverment march to total dysfunction.

Our goverment can't manage or provide genuine oversight for anything, not because conservatism has mucked up things, but because the behemouth is beyond anyone's guidance.

I don't where you detected the Conservative Movement when Bush had all 3 branches of government after 9/11.

Putting the war aside, (I now that's difficult), where was the Conservative movement actually moving forward?

Cause I missed it.

Can I still pick the highland wildernesses of New Guinea?

Ben,
It's a good approach to try and claim that the disaster we are now in, is because our leaders swayed away from conservatism. I wouldn't want this mess on my hands either.

Too bad the main reason for our current fiasco is that we did not regulate the financial markets. We allowed the banks to make bets they couldn't hope to cover. That is the central mistake that got us here, and lack of government regulation is a central tenet of conservatism.

So I'll agree that they swayed away from conservatism with the nation building and the big government. It is frustrating knowing that every conservative hero from Reagan on talked a great game on this and then did the opposite.

But the idea of conservatism was to shrink government to where - how did Grover Norquist put it - he could drown the baby in the bathtub? Something sick like that.

Well, you turned the economy over to the noble aspirations of Wall Street and the banks, instead of doing the job of keeping our national security safe by protecting the economy, and now that you are done applying the conservative principle of deregulation, the American economy appears to be in a death spiral.

So what do you do? Accept responsibility for anything? No, you blame it all on Obama's first month in office.

And now we're onto the next phase where we have to hear how it was all because we didn't put a conservative in office.

Your Conservative Movement has a stunning gift for avoiding reality.
But I was there, and your spin's not spinning with me.

Ben

For the war, hell yes they did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYQ3w53bq_s