No, M5, it is not just self-righteous conservatism, but a sound observation of the mannerisms of the two men, albeit not of how they behave in every instance. Like the Libertarian Alan Keyes, Phil would cut in, flail his arms and, at times preach. But more important than his annoying physical gestures were the nature of his guests, and also of importance is what his onscreen graphics would show. His guests were many times, and once or twice is far too many, of an extreme nature, at times they were racist, or bordered on being so. This is highly inappropriate if your goal as host of a debate program is to allow for intelligent debate. Granted, you can argue that he cannot predict exactly what will be said, nor should we risk the slippery slope of censoring anyone. But what cannot be denied is that the choice of guests, which I seriously doubt Donahue had no say in, had the potential to make him look really good. And as for the the "Angry White Men" tag his show had for the more right wing/ conservative opinions discussed on his program, I hope the belief was that the tag was in the general and not the whole. If it was the whole, I am sorry to break it to Phil or whoever was responsible for the use of the term "Angry White Men," but there are minorities that have conservative opinons, which include those labelled as the view of "Angry White Men." I think I will cut Moore some slack.
But Phil deserves criticism, though why he was taken off the air, I can only speculate on. But I did hear that his ratings were improving. I admit that his show did grow on me some, so it was disappointing to find out he lost his show.
What makes Alan and Colmes and Bill Moyers so much better is their greater effort at fairness and continues, civil dialogue than what Phil attempted.
