The Onion has it summed up perfectly:

You Know What’s Stupid? Everything I Don’t Understand

Although I disagree with John McCain on several policy issues, and although I’m not convinced he’s really the squeaky clean straight talker he claims to be, I do find his willingness to challenge his supporters refreshing. Too bad Jay Severin has vowed he will never vote for McCain. I’d love to hear McCain’s reactions to some of the things Jay has to say about Obama.

As I mentioned in the last post, I was on the radio yesterday with Jay Severin (the talk show host formerly known as Jimmy Severino). I guess I got under his skin, because this is what he said to his listeners after the break (apologies for any transcription errors — my recording quality wasn’t very good this time). This monologue went on for a little over six minutes, longer even than our original dialogue.

(Chuckles) I love the power of our program, and I love that it turns people on, and I love that it provokes people. Can you imagine being — (laughs) — someone who — (laughs) — he’s staying home, hovering around the radio, waiting for me to say something controversial like “the poor don’t bathe as often we do and as a result they may not smell as nice.” Can you imagine, can you imagine like taking such great umbrage at that, that you call up and say “Let me quote you! Let me get this right about the poor and bathing! Whoa! An expose!” What is this? Some pathetic half-assed wanker from the local membership of Media Matters? “Let me get this right! Did you say the poor don’t smell well?” It’s really very sad. You know, and one thinks about bloggers, all the things they say about bloggers. This just reinforces it. Some friendless, underemployed, wanking dwarf sitting at home going “Did you say that the poor don’t bathe?” Well I’m happy to be of service to everyone. (Laughs) Six-one-seven, eight-two-two, one ninety-six nine, Verizon Wireless callers pound ninety-six nine. The thing is, I don’t doubt that this wanker in question could find an audience for the notion that people would be offended that I might say that the poor don’t smell nice. Because, don’t forget, these days the incipient fascism which rules in our land is that the true spirit of freedom of speech is gone, dead, and buried, and shame on you, because you’re allowing it to happen. I don’t mean to place this burden on you and me, but who else is going to protect it? Who else but we are going to protect this? That’s exactly what’s happening. Freedom of speech — the spirit of freedom of speech — is gone, dead, and buried. You know this from everyday life. And as I’ve written about and as I’ve said, the new standard is not whether what you said is true, and for many centuries truth has been the standard. In English common law, and down until today, in our own system of jurisprudence, in libel law, truth is an absolute defense. If you write about someone or say about someone something damaging, you can prevent any liability to yourself by having written it or said it if what you said is true. That’s it. End of the story. No matter how damaging or embarrassing it might be. If what you wrote or said is true, end of story. End of case. Truth is an absolute defense in libel law. That has guided our public discourse for many centuries. And now we live in a time in which the standard has passed from whether or not there’s an element of truth to what you’ve said or whether or not it can be established to be true, was it, you know, your personal opinion; now the standard is “did somebody’s feewings get huht?” Is somebody’s feewings huht? ‘Cause if you huht someone’s feewings …. What you do, when someone on the radio or someone at your dinner party or anywhere else says something that you regard as offensive, what you do is, you reach and you turn the dial. Or you don’t extend them an invitation to your next dinner party. What you don’t do is join a mass of imbeciles who want to deprive someone of their livelihood because they’re expressing their opinion. If you are so easily bruised that the expression of opinion damages you, then you need psychiatric help and quickly. Because big grown-up women and men are presumed in our society to be able to withstand the slings and arrows of conversation and of opinion, even if some of that opinion is a little bit out there. Truth is an absolute defense, and even when it’s not, opinion is opinion, and the most sacred of the amendments to our Constitution, of our Bill of Rights, the reason I believe the founding fathers chose it as the first one, is the freedom of speech. And with all we have to discuss, that some poor, friendless, unemployed wanker is sitting at home, trying to get my exact words about whether or not I said the poor smell … what can I say? Except I think he probably smells.

Allow me, if I may, a point-by-point rebuttal and commentary.

“he’s staying home, hovering around the radio, waiting for me to say something controversial” — Objection: assuming facts not in evidence. In fact, I heard Jay’s original comment on my car radio, got ticked off, got home, called in, and did a bunch of work while I was on hold.

“the local membership of Media Matters” — Objection: assuming facts not in evidence. I am not in fact a member of Media Matters. But I can see why Jay might think that. Go to their web site and search for Severin. They’re compiling a dossier of his most outrageous remarks.

“one thinks about bloggers, all the things they say about bloggers. This just reinforces it” — Psst, Jay … You’re a blogger!

“Some friendless, underemployed, wanking dwarf” — Objection: assuming facts not in evidence. Only some of these characterizations are true.

“the true spirit of freedom of speech is gone, dead, and buried” — Objection: relevance? Did I ever say anything to suggest that Jay should be prevented from saying stupid things or punished for doing so? No, I only asked him to consider whether he really wants to be on record as believing that the poor smell bad. By changing the subject to freedom of speech, Jay tries to escape an argument he’s bound to lose by turning it into one he’s bound to win.

“in libel law, truth is an absolute defense” — Objection: relevance? Did I accuse you of libel or slander? I don’t think so. Furthermore, what you said is demonstrably untrue. All I need to do is find one poor person who doesn’t smell bad. Do you really think that would be hard? What you are guilty of is not libel, it is prejudice and bigotry. And truth is not an absolute defense for that.

“when someone on the radio … says something that you regard as offensive, what you do is, you reach and you turn the dial” — Oh really? What happened to your marketplace of ideas philosophy, Jay? Are you actually saying that anyone who disagrees with you should just shut up? Do you really want to be on record with that position? Because it contradicts what you’ve said on the radio many times.

“a mass of imbeciles who want to deprive someone of their livelihood because they’re expressing their opinion” — If you lose your job, Jay, it will be because of poor ratings, not because I object to anything you say. Although I will admit that by exposing your weaknesses I do hope to have your listeners take you less seriously and ultimately choose to turn the dial themselves.

“big grown-up women and men are presumed in our society to be able to withstand the slings and arrows of conversation and of opinion” — That was the presumption I made about you, Jay, but you proved me wrong.

“I think he probably smells” — Ooh, that hurt. What would be an appropriate response? Something on the order of “it takes one to know one?”

I’d go on, but I have a wanking appointment in ten minutes.

Jay Severin is Boston’s local version of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, etc. How anyone takes him seriously, I don’t know. One of my guilty pleasures is listening to his show and, when I’m able to get through, berating him on the air. Here is a transcript of my call with him from February 25, 2008 at about 5:45 pm. The conversation lasted 5 minutes, 45 seconds. That’s a LONG time in talk radio.

David: Hey, Jay!

Jay: Hey, David.

David: I’m doing a little blogging, and I wanted to get you on the record about what you said previously about the poor. And I know you don’t like to be misquoted, so maybe you’d want to just repeat that about, exactly what you said about their hygienic habits.

Jay: Well, I don’t recall exactly. Would you like to ask me a question? I’ll be perfectly candid with you.

David: Well, what I thought you said was "I don’t have anything against the poor, except for the fact that they don’t bathe very often and don’t smell very good." Is that accurate?

Jay: I did say — The best of my recollection is I said that or words to that effect.

David: And you believe that?

Jay: Well, obviously there was some dark humor involved in what I had to say, but I — You’re asking me whether I said it, and so –

David: Well, because –

Jay: (inaudible) … words to that effect.

David: You’ve previously said something to the effect of "you don’t say anything on the air unless you honestly believe it."

Jay: OK, well, all right. If you wish a debate here, if you wish a parsing of words I’m certainly not reluctant to administer one. You know, the — Now again, this is not necessarily in relation to what we’re talking about, but if you’re asking me to speak to this, a smarter man than myself would just, you know, not pick this fight, but I’m here and what I say is fair game, therefore what I’m saying is that poor people, socio-economically speaking, poor people have different habits of every kind than do the affluent. That’s to say, by the way, people of different classes have different habits in every realm of their lives than people in other classes. And the fact is that if you were to say that there are some people who have better or not so good practices of personal hygiene, clearly the more affluent one happens to be, the better one’s practices of hygiene happen to be, by and large, and the poor tend, for one reason or another, not to have either access to or inclination toward hygiene the same as the middle, upper-middle, or upper classes. It seems to me that’s a straightforward socio-economic or sociological observation.

David: OK, but that’s not what you said. You didn’t say that wealthier people tend to bathe more often –

Jay: No, I didn’t say that. You’re saying that.

David: Right, you said, I think — and again, I don’t want to misquote you, this is why I’m on the phone — you, essentially you said that poor people smell bad.

Jay: I said, I said something like, very much like, in fact maybe even verbatim, I said something like "poor people are boring, and often smell."

David: OK, so they’re often smelly but they’re always boring.

Jay: I didn’t say always.

David: You just said that. Poor people are boring and they often small bad. So –

Jay: I don’t contest that.

David: OK, so can you define "poor" for me then? Because I just want to let these folks, you know, know who they are that you think are boring.

Jay: You know, I enjoy a good joust, but I’m not a fool. No, I think you can probably go on from here and identify the poor.

David: Well, I don’t know, I mean … anyone who makes less than you?

Jay: I think I’ll let you define the poor. The Democrats, of which you are clearly one, you define pretty well who the rich are, like anyone with a family income of $75,000 or more? So I’ll let you do what you’re so good at, because by the way, the Democrats practice every day the religion of class warfare –

David: Now now, now wait a minute –

Jay: I’ll let you define the poor.

David: No, no. You’re all about "words have meaning." You know, you’re very precise in terms of language.

Jay: Indeed I am.

David: And so if you’re going to use a word like poor, I assume you know what it means. It’s a relative term, so what does it mean to you?

Jay: "The poor" is not a relative term. The poor are the poor.

David: What do you mean it’s not a relative term?

Jay: I mean it’s not — I mean "the poor" is not open to interpretation. The poor are the poor.

David: Are you talking about the definition of the poverty line?

Jay: Look, my opinion of the poor is not different than your opinion. There’s a certain fact quotient here. The fact quotient is that either one is poor or one is not. One may disagree on the standards, but the fact is somewhere, somehow, there’s a definition of what it means to be rich, much as there’s a definition to be what it is to be poor.

David: Well, I would suggest then that you –

Jay: What are you after? What do you want me to tell you?

David: Basically, I want you to admit that you said something stupid for once. Why can’t you just do that? Why is it so hard for you to be confronted with something stupid that you said and say "you know, gee, that was a dumb thing to say. I take it back."

Jay: I don’t take it back. I was clearly — I was clearly trying to have fun with everyone when I said words to the effect that poor people are boring and they don’t bathe a lot. Now, if you can’t be — Is that something you might maybe hear on Saturday Night Live or someplace else?

David: You don’t hold yourself out as a comedian, Jay. You hold yourself out as one who offers social commentary and wisdom.

Jay: I’m asking you, is it reasonable that you might hear someone say that — Is it reasonable that you might hear, say, Eddie Murphy, or Chris Rock say that in the course of their performances?

David: It’s totally irrelevant whether they would say it or not. I’m not going to answer that question –

Jay: Totally irrelevant quickly is –

[At this point Jay hung up on me. I was unable to get to a radio in time to hear the final comments he made before going to commercial or the next caller.]

This is classic Severin:

• He ridicules callers who disagree with him if they don’t know the dictionary definition of words like racist, bigot, and discriminate. He lights into people when they things like "what I mean by sexist is…" But he refuses to define a word that he brought into the conversation, and even refuses to admit that "poor" is a relative term. Is someone with a $25,000 salary and $2,000 in the bank poor? In some places yes, in some places no. Jay, if I ever hear you roll out that "words have meaning" line again, I’m going to call you a hypocrite. And I’ll be right.
• When trapped, he tries to counter his opponent by changing the subject and demanding yes or no answers to irrelevant questions. The Saturday Night Live thing was typical. Fortunately, I didn’t take the bait.
• He will note that politicians’ true sentiments are conveyed in off-hand remarks, and he may have a point there. But in this case he tried to simultaneously stand by and distance himself from his own outrageous, off-hand remarks. You can’t have it both ways, Jay.
• He seems to pride himself on his debating skills, yet he makes fundamental errors that most of his listeners either can’t or won’t point out. He scoffs at the (conveniently unnamed) Democrats who define "rich" as anyone with household income over $75,000. By that logic, $75,000 is too low; one shouldn’t be considered rich unless one has household income of perhaps $100,000 or $200,000. And he seems to think there’s a pretty clear division between being rich and being poor. So in other words, Jay, you think that all people making less than $100,000 or $200,000 — that is to say, the vast, vast majority of Americans — are boring and smell bad. Is that right, Jay?

Jay could have taken it like a man and left it at that. But after the 6:00 news, he felt it necessary to further impugn my credibility, referring to me as an unemployed wanker. I’ll post the transcript of that bit when I get a chance. I’m actually NOT unemployed, so I may not get to it right away.

The pundits on CNN (including my former babysitter) are pretty good when they talk about the complexities of the presidential campaign. They talk about proportional voting, congressional districts, the difference between regular delegates and superdelegates, and so forth. But the visuals tell a completely different story. The largest graphics on the set are the national maps where the “winner’s” color gets spread over an entire state, regardless of the margin of victory. Even when the delegate counts are shown, there is rarely a clear distinction between regular and superdelegates.

The Republican race is over, so I don’t much care what they do about that. But the Democratic campaign is going to be the closest imaginable. The viewers deserve visual representations of the battle for delegates that don’t oversimplify and mislead.

We’ve all seen the red state / blue state maps. That’s essentially what CNN is using now. But how about something that shows not only final result but margin of victory. For example, take a look at this map of the 2004 presidential election from Electoral-Vote.com — the darker the color, the bigger the win:

Or maybe a true district-by-district map, like this one by Mark Newman that shows us the party affiliation of the current House of Representatives:

If CNN can assemble the best political team on television, they ought to be able to spring for some decent cartographers.