Among those exercised (and exorcized) about Chavez? name-calling were some of the loudest name-callers in American media today — including Rush Limbaugh and other rightwing talk hosts. Limbaugh tried to equate Chavez? remarks with the alleged Bush-bashing that comes from top U.S. Democrats. In case you?ve forgotten, it was Limbaugh who ridiculed Chelsea Clinton, then 13, as the ?White House dog.?

Bellowed Limbaugh in July 2001: ?Just yesterday, as Bush winged his way to Europe on a crucial mission to lead our allies into the 21st century?up pops ?El Diablo,? Tom Daschle, and his devilish deviltry, claiming that George Bush is incompetent.? (Months later, Limbaugh started describing Daschle more as a traitor than a devil, who?d decided to ?align himself with Iran, North Korea and Hussein.?)

In my new book Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097606216X/sr=8-1/qid=1155918473/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5555251-3591055?ie=UTF8 I dissect the hypocrisy of a TV news business that has long catered to hateful rightists like Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter. In TV land, vicious epithet-hurlers get to define and denounce outnumbered or silenced progressives as the name-callers.

With Donahue terminated on the eve of war, MSNBC brass turned to hosts like Scarborough and talk radio bigot Michael Savage, known for his declarations that developing countries like Venezuela were ?turd world nations?; that Latinos ?breed like rabbits?; and that women ?should have been denied the vote.? In a TV industry bent on placating the far right, Donahue was ?a difficult public face for NBC.? But Savage was deemed an acceptable face.

Let me be clear: Those of us who use facts instead of rant; reason and argument instead of name-calling and personal attacks; evidence instead of intimidation and accusations of disloyalty — we have the moral authority to tell Hugo Chavez that his comments were out of line.

Nor, for that matter, is Team Bush — whose strategy has been to demonize and intimidate critics and other members of the ?reality-based community.? – –