Such a rude obnoxious , jerk. Interrupting. Cut HIS Mike. What a absolute travesty. The Religious Right needs to decide if they really need this guy, who can’t be civil, to be a spokesperson. What a complete JERK. Listen, if you can stand it. I wanted to hear Wallis. That was hard to do because never failed once to interrupt ANY of Wallis’ answers, after Wallis waited patiently through all of Falwell’s bit. The very fact that The Republicans don’t cut him off from representing them shows how truly devoted they are to civil dscourse.
NPR : Morality and the Presidential Election
NPR’s Tavis Smiley discusses values and politics with Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the conservative Moral Majority, and Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace and author The Soul of Politics.
Travis, you need to have Walllis back without the big mouth in the studio. What an embarassment he should be. For God’s sake Jerry, shut up! That’s the last time I listen to anything where he is present for comment.
I didn’t get to listen to this when it was first broadcast. The webcast was very usefull and interesting.
One thing that stood out very strongly was that Falwell needs to shut up once in a while. NPR operates on the principle of thoughtful discourse. Excessively interrupting and pushing others out of their chance to speak is about the surest thing one can do to make sure that you never get invited to speak again.
Tavis should have been more forceful about telling Falwell to let Wallis have his turn. Falwell’s opinion is useful, but It should not have been allowed to dominate in the way it did. The rudeness was more like what goes on in standard talkshows by large broadcasters like Clear Channel or the trash shows on daytime TV.
The baiting that Falwell did regarding slavery was also unnecessary. I think he must have had a little bit of racism behind that (since Tavis is black). The slavery reference was unhelpful too. Gay “marriage” is not a civil rights issue, and Falwell made a major error by pointing the discussion in that direction.