In the 1919 case Schenk v. The United States, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech doesn't permit someone to falsely yell "fire" in a crowded theater. That interpretation of our Constitutional rights was brought up to date today when the management of Air America Radio suspended talk show host Randi Rhodes for calling Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton "whores." Ms. Rhodes' live tirade was not broadcast on the Air America network. We know about it because it was captured on tape and made available for endless viewing on YouTube.
When our founding fathers added the First Amendment to the Constitution, they didn't anticipate two things: first, that there would someday be radio and radio talk shows, and second, that there would someday be YouTube. If they had, they would have included a clause like, "Freedom of speech shall not be abridged, except when talk show hosts use foul language when describing a political candidate and the whole thing is captured on video and shown on YouTube."
Surely the owners of liberal talk radio network Air America were thinking of this Constitutional omission when they suspended Ms. Rhodes. But let's be clear about the intent here. No one would argue that these prominent politicos, Ferraro and Clinton, are literally whores in the Eliot Spitzer sense of the term. If you go to YouTube and watch the video (14,907 views as of 2:40 on Thursday) it is clear that Ms. Rhodes was using the term to mean that these women will "sell" themselves to the highest bidder for political advantages. How else to explain Ms. Clinton's recent decision to appear before Richard Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board? I would argue that that appearance makes Ms. Clinton less of a whore and more of a hooker, but let's not quibble over technicalities.
It is okay to call Ms. Clinton a murderer, a fraud, and other foul names if you are writing for the Tribune-Review (see their coverage of the Vince Foster suicide). It is unacceptable for a radio talk show host to use pejorative language against Ms. Clinton before a small group of appreciative listeners if it is captured on tape and ends up on YouTube. So we have to assume that in this case the medium is truly the message.
Every society has its taboos. Our culture distinguishes "polite" language from "foul" language. The management of Air America Radio would have us believe that this modern taboo trumps any Constitutional rights or privileges we may think we have.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jon Sobel
Randi Rhodes trips over her own rhetoric all the time, but she's still one of my media heroes, and this is absurd. Shame on Air America.
2 - Kirsty
Randi is fearless and intelligent. She has the respect of many respectable people in government, academia, and the media and is all the more impressive as she is largely self taught and extremely well read. Air America does not deserve her. I will pray for her continued perseverance in the face of such transparent corporate hackery. Hang in there Randi. We love you.
3 - irv
the first amendment prohibits the government from censoring speech, it doesn't do anything to prevent your employer from suspending you. no police came on stage to arrest ms. rhodes, right? she is free to start a blog, carry a sign, get a soapbox and make a speech in her town square. she does not however, have a right to appear on someone else's radio station if they don't want her on it.
4 - Demo
Randi Rhodes is no progressive. No progressive would use that kind of language about a Democratic woman politician.
She needs to go back into rehab, she's back on the sauce, I guess. She would have been better off just falling down drunk again. She isn't helping the Obama campaign, either.
5 - mrogi
US Constitutional protections of free speech proscribe governmental attempts to curtail dissenting opinions of its citizens. It does not give Randi Rhodes the legal right to say anything she wants and keep her job at a radio network. A private company has the absolute right to terminate an employee who sullies the public image and reputation that company wants to maintain.
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Randi Rhodes is no progressive. No progressive would use that kind of language about a Democratic woman politician.
So much for freedom of speech in America, as viewed by the worhippers at the idol of political correctness. I suppose if Mrs. Clinton was a Republican woman politician, calling her a whore or worse would have been just fine.
I won't comment on Ms. Ferraro, but Hillary Clinton is worse than a plain old whore - she is a murderess as well. But I can say what I will: there is no liberal media asshole to fire me.
And Deano, just for your information, I'm not on the sauce - and never was. My assessment of the bitch is a cold and sober one. Clinton differs from Condaleezza Rice in that at least she is competent, both as a whore and as a murdereess.
7 - Arch Conservative
Since when do leftists believe in free speech?
Rhandi Rhodes is just one dumbas leftist, moonbat kook that got screwed by some other dumbass leftist, moonbat kooks of a different flavor.
Rhandi was right though, probably for the first time in her life. Hillary is a whore. But those of us who don't have subscribptions to Pravda have known this all along.
Many on the left who have latched onto Obama Bin Laden and abandoned the Clintons are now miraculously having an epiphany about Billary. "Oh well look at that..you know I never realized how self centered and underhanded those Clintons are. Gosh darn it I'm just going to have to vote for this Obama guy because he's such a great speaker and he's change I can believe in."
I just love watching one of my enemies fight another of my enemies.
8 - mrogi
Video clips of Randi's drunken obscenity laced tirade will be used by the Republicans in political ads as an example of what Obama supporters are like. Randi Rhodes is hurting Obama's chances of getting elected.
9 - Gina S
Randi Rhodes has never been progressive, except insomuch as people who hate George Bush are considered de facto "progressives" by other fauxgressives who don't give a damn about social progress. She's casually transphobic, homophobic, and misogynist as it suits her needs, though she purports to defend LGBTQ- and women's rights. And she's not fucking talented, either. I'm hard-pressed to imagine anything that could more thoroughly expose her as the uncreative, unclever, unfunny hack she is than calling Hillary Clinton a whore"which makes her not only offensive, but boring. That shtick is about as fresh as a pile of day-old puke.
10 - Dina
Randi is one of the worst pieces of low class trash I have ever had the displeasure of listening to. Let her crawl back in the gutter she crawled out of.
11 - Lisa
Randi got exactly what she deserved. As a person who knows her personally and professionally, I feel that she has been toeing the line for far too long.
Everyone has to understand... there IS freedom of speech, but the thing is, that part of the Constitution is open to so much interpretation, this is where these snags about people getting suspended or not come in because the Founding Fathers didn't anticipate what COULD happen.
I mean... if you are a public figure and you are on film or tape... there are things that you just should know better not to do:
1. Don't call gay people "fags"
2. Don't call black people "niggers"
3. Don't call women "cunts" or "twats"
If you're trying to imply that Hillary Clinton is willing to "sell" herself for special interests, then say so without saying "fucking whore", because Constitutionality aside, no one will listen to you, and lose the real message.
Say it to yourself over and over... fucking whore, fucking whore, Fucking Whore, FUCKING WHORE, FUCKING WHORE!!!!!
That phrase was said with such vitriol and hatred by Randi, and to be honest, if Bill O'Reilly said this at a public event, FOX would slap him on the wrist in the same fashion. Sure... Ann Coulter says things like this all the time, but she (probably smartly) does not have her own show on TV or the Radio so cannot be penalized, the b*tch.
This is exactly the same thing that happened to Don Imus, and although Randi didn't support him being penalized, they are both getting what they deserved.
We DO have free speech, but I personally don't think that gives ANYONE the right to abuse that right by calling people "nappy headed hos" or "fucking whore's" just because they CAN.
12 - KenH
Really, please -- stop insulting the First Amendment. As other have pointed out with 90% accuracy, the Amendment most often does not apply to employment relationships (although the spirit of the Amendment has ruled against things like forcing restaurant employees to wear anti-abortion pins, etc.), but clearly it does not apply here in terms of the public image of a public figure.
The Amendment, like the rest of the Constitution, does not guarantee life without consequence.
13 - KenH
Lisa writes: "We DO have free speech, but I personally don't think that gives ANYONE the right to abuse that right by calling people "nappy headed hos" or "fucking whore's" just because they CAN."
That's pretty much exactly what free speech does. People in America have the individual right to be complete assholes. We live in this coddled, consequence-free society where people believe that having the "right" to do something implies that doing it will have no consequence in their interactions with other individuals. Nope.
14 - Marie
Rhodes right to free speech is still in tact. The company had every right to suspend or fire her. A point can be made without vulgarity. People who can't discuss anything without delving into name calling, vulgarity, and obscenities demonstrate a limited vocabulary.
15 - Robert K. Blechman
I agree that we would be perfectly fine trusting our civil liberties to corporations like Exxon-Mobile, Citigroup or AT&T and the feudal chieftains who run them.
However, Air America Radio operates over public airwaves. They hired Randi Rhodes because she is outspoken and controversial because that improves ratings and increases profits. They knew what they were getting. They have the absolute right to publish a statement condemning Rhodes' use of foul language, but when they include job suspension or any other penalty they are inhibiting free speech and setting a really bad example for other would-be censors would may not be quite so liberal.
Randi is a public commentator riffing on public figures.
Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton are big girls and can take care of themselves. They don't need protection from Charlie Kireker.
16 - Jay
Watching the video it is clear she is doing a performance piece and speaking in hyperbole for entertainment value. Whether she was successful is debatable.
From reading comments from people who were actually in the audience it is clear that the majority of the audience was not offended.
Randy being suspended from Air America has more to do with offending Mark Green who is a devout Clinton supporter than with offending the Air America audience.
If she had spoken ill of Barrack Obama this would not be an issue.
17 - Dina
Air America has ratings? They can hardly stay afloat. I listened it it a few times and felt my IQ drop to the single digits, It's just as bad as reading the writings of the KosKidz. No wonder so many of these moonbats are in therapy. Ugghhh!
18 - beebop
Randi Rhodes was paid by the Obama campaign...
She's an alcohol abusing potty mouthed nasty little girl who needs some serious help. Lenny Bruce would wipe the floor with her.
Her "routine" was hate speech turned on her own sex. If she had done an ugly gay or brown or disabled riff she'd be fired and not suspended and my God, if she had been talking about Barack Obama and his wife, she'd be under armed protection.
19 - bbold2
Just because someone is "doing it as a performance piece in hyperbole for entertainment value" makes it okay?
Just ask Seinfeld's Michael Richards....
As for Randi...Fire the @#$%!
20 - Tuxcat
This is almost too obvious a point to make, but evidently it needs saying.
A private employer suspending an employee for her remarks has nothing whatever to do with the First Amendment. The Constitution forbids the government, and only the government, from placing restrictions on speech.
And there is no guarantee anywhere that any speech will be without consequences. If you say it, your employer and others are free to respond in any legal manner they choose. That's the part of "free speech" that so many people seem to have trouble grasping.
21 - Robert K. Blechman
I may not agree with all that you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
22 - harkin
Why is it that so few liberals understand the concept of 'freedom of speech'?
If she was arrested by the government for her ridiculous, hateful rant, you'd have a point.
That her employer held her to a standard (yes, even I was surprised AA has standards) has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
Let me put it in language that even liberals may understand:
If you wear a t-shirt of George Bush's head with a penis going in his mouth and the words 'Eat Me, Ape Man!', and you wear it while you're sitting on your lawn, no big deal.
But if you wear it to McDonald's for your evening shift in lieu of a uniform shirt, you can be fired.
23 - Robert K. Blechman
To Harkin: Thank you for your condescension. It helps keep me humble.
I believe that there is a difference between the corporate responsibility toward the expressions of a public commentator, like Randi Rhodes, and McDonald's "responsibility" to dress its employees in uniforms. Your example isn't appropriate. Air America Radio's reaction could be interpreted as censorship or suppression of inconvenient opinion. McDonald's reaction could be interpreted as "good taste," an appropriate response from a food vendor.
We are not talking about corporate rights (corporations have rights?) but the right thing for the corporation to do.
24 - Adny
Last time I check Free Speech was protection from the Government not a private company. Just because she can say anything she likes does not meant that the company she represents has to allow the content. Again this is not the government but a private company.
25 - RDP
The First Amendment doesn't cover your job. If you say something your boss doesn't like he can fire you. To say otherwise is to attempt to gain rights that are not covered anywhere, US Constitution or otherwise. You can't force Person A to like or agree or subsidize the statements of Person B. I don't know anyone who would want to live in a society that forced people to agree with every statement ever made by any person. R Rhodes had a big mouth, and I bet this won't be the last time she suffers for it.