Bohannon Refutes Ideological Guest

I was at work on my graveyard shift last night, which gave me some opportunities on late-night talk radio listening that I formerly wouldn't have availed myself of.  One show, Jim Bohannon, was on and he had as a guest a Republican anti-union businessman.  I mean, this dude was REALLY anti-union, above all else.  Bohannon, for his part, went along with his guest's rants, not necessarily agreeing with them...but I sensed that they both had a similar political philosophy during the interview.  Until something happened that brought me new-found respect for Mr. Bohannon.

The GOP losers in last year's elections have put out just about any reason they could as to why they lost...especially Mitt Romney to Barack Obama in the presidential contest.  Any reason, that is, except the obvious one: the American people rejected the Republicans' ideas in favor of the Democrats.  This show's guest was naturally also in denial.  He claimed that Obama won not just because they had a better "ground game" on election day.  The oh-so-evil labor unions were apparently intimidating voters to vote Democrat.  When Bohannon pressed him on this, he gave an example of a woman who was given a ride to the polling station by local union workers and given a sheet of paper describing how they thought she ought to vote.  After the election, this woman publicly came out and claimed to feel intimidated by the union's actions. So what, Bohannon posited: she could still vote any way she wanted after getting into the voting booth.  As a matter of fact, he continued, anyone who really felt pressured in a negative way like that would be more likely to vote AGAINST the prescribed ballot handed to them...and how would anyone really know for sure how they voted anyway.  The biased, union-hating guest said no, that didn't apply here...but couldn't refute Bohannon's argument.  In closing, Jim Bohannon laid out the closing kick to his argument.  How could this woman, who supposedly "felt" intimidated by imagined reprisals from the union if she voted wrong, then boldly go public in the media about it?  No answer from the guest.

From this point in the interview, it became apparent that this guest and Jim Bohannon had diverged.  Not in the sense of their similar general outlook, but rather in the sense that the latter was fair and reasonable about analyzing things while the former was completely ideology-driven.

Sadly, too many folks in the media don't practice the common-sense, decent type of fair, reasoned analysis of the news that typify Jim Bohannon's approach.  He truly does stand out alone in this respect, at least on the radio.  Find me someone else like this in this medium, I challenge you. I often disagree with Bohannon, and sometimes he is rude to callers.  But he does operate with a clear mind and doesn't seem a slave to an ideology.  How refreshing...