Oh, this is rich, really rich.
The Audio Via Real Clear Politics:
The Story via Salon:
After a Salon report depicting Ed Schultz’s handling of a dispute between a group of NBC workers and the network led to criticism of the host, he took to the airwaves Thursday to address the backlash. As Salon reported Thursday morning, workers at Peacock Productions have attempted to land meetings with MSNBC’s top hosts in an effort to win their support — and successfully managed to meet with Chris Hayes, while Schultz gave Salon a comment that elicited some negativereactions.
In response, Schultz addressed the matter in the first segments of his radio show Thursday afternoon, professing his vocal support for organized labor and slamming Salon’s reporting, but not specifically addressing alleged union-busting by the NBC Universal-owned company Peacock Productions.
“Are they that freaking stupid that they don’t know where I stand?” Schultz asked listeners. “Wow.” Schultz also suggested he wasn’t necessarily “able to influence” someone “of authority,” and asked “why should I put myself in jeopardy through an email?”
As Salon reported Thursday morning, workers at Peacock Productions charge that after they started organizing with the Writers Guild of America–East, the company held mandatory group and one-on-one anti-union meetings; suggested that unionization could lead to the company being dissolved; discouraged employees from talking to pro-union co-workers; discriminated against pro-union workers in assigning work; and used a spurious legal argument to get the results of a union election impounded by the National Labor Relations Board. (NBC has not provided comment on those allegations, following a series of inquiries since Tuesday.) In response, the AFL-CIO posted a petition, hosted by MoveOn Civic Action, asking for public support from five prime-time MSNBC hosts: Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Al Sharpton and Schultz.
You can very well imagine this did not go over good with the progressive blogosphere. Digby over at Hullabaloo, who has been blogging longer than me and whom I used to read quite a bit, when I was on the left — said the following:
I know when people get angry they often say things they don’t really mean. But this man is a professional and to let fly in public with comments like these is fairly damning. He is supposed to be the average Joe, salt of the earth, everyman. Saying your critics have “income envy” and using the word “minions” to describe them is revealing. And not in a good way.
I do believe what you are seeing here is one the biggest reasons why I left “The Left.” Because it is just rife full of absolute hypocrisy. This is a perfect example of that. This is the sort of stuff that drove Morton Downey Jr. to rage; as he, like myself, had a hatred of the limousine liberal crowd. I am thinking that this just might be the end of Ed Schultz’s career on TV, or, at least his credibility. Because when you express contempt in public, for those under you; that happen to be on your side of the political street — you are in deep trouble.
Others: Mediaite, NewsBusters, Hullabaloo and susiemadrak.com