Too bad Ted Webb, co-host of WFLA-AM 970’s AM Tampa Bay show, can’t be satisfied with being Glenn Beck light.
But last week’s incident with Ron Reagan Jr., the youngest son of former President Ronald Reagan, was beyond politically-incorrect shtick. Webb was ostensibly appalled that Reagan Jr. had intimated in his book (“My Father at 100: A Memoir”) that his dad–while still early in his presidency–may have been manifesting possible signs of Alzheimer’s.
Webb, a staunch conservative with folk-hero reverence for the late president, took visceral exception to such intimations. As part of the extended Reagan ideological family, Webb took Junior’s take personally. So much so that he called his on-air guest, the late president’s son, an “a–hole.” His explanation: Reagan Jr. is a “spoiled Hollywood brat” (read: liberal) with a knack for “making his father look bad.” Moreover, such observations “hit a nerve,” said Webb.
Two points.
First, such rude treatment of a guest is beyond unacceptable. While such classless behavior certainly wasn’t condoned, neither did it result in any discipline meted out to Webb. Probably stoked his politically-incorrect bona fides. May even have helped already impressive, market-leading ratings–at the risk of making Tampa Bay look like some yahoo, Tea Party market.
Second, the Reagan Jr. memoir is hardly ground-breaking. Anyone who was paying attention in the 1980s gets it. Anyone who was a media insider–and penetrated beyond the Reagan gatekeepers–saw unsettling signs first hand.
Here’s a comment, one of many, from the 1999 memoir, “Reporting Live,” by CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl. It comes in Reagan’s first term–after he had mistaken his housing secretary for one of the big-city mayors at a presidential reception and after some exasperating press conferences that had left the media flummoxed and concerned. “There were quiet little suspicions among the reporters that Reagan, the course setter, was sinking into senility,” wrote Stahl. And much more.
Stahl is hardly alone. Reagan Jr. is simply giving a family insider’s perspective to what others have voiced. Perhaps that’s still telling tales out of school. But that’s his call. To blindside him on air for that is to act like, well, an a–hole.