The Leonard Lopate Show

Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way – to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it’s merely a guess.

- B.F. Skinner, Walden Two, 1948

Liberals have good intentions. But the devil is in the details and how these 'details' move us toward totalitarian control by the few over the many. Cuba is a good example of how everyone is poor.

Phil Ochs satirized "liberals" in his song "Love Me, I'm A Liberal". What definition was he working from?

hey leonard,

what's with the sexist comment about the "l word" .....taking off their clothes. I'm sure there are men who watch the show to see "girl on girl' action but thank God they are not who the base of the show. As a lesbian it's nice to have a show which shows day to day life, be it perfect in L.A., of lesbians.

What exactly did you mean by your comment that both liberals and lesbians remove their clothes at inappropriate times? Because the way I interpreted it was very offensive.

So move to Alaska Mr Alterman!

John Edwards is not a liberal. He was NOT the most progressive. Dennis Kuccinich is. John Edwards is not for single payer health care.

Liberals believe in shared risk. Whether we're talking about the military, police and fire protection, garbage collection, public schools, social security/medicare or national health care, we believe that the economy is better served when resources are pooled to cushion large and generally more vulnerable segments of the population from the fluctuations of markets. Liberalism should not be viewed as trying to make the world a fair place -- that approach will never succeed. Instead, Liberalism should be viewed as a way to add stability to an economy.

This is dumb or at the very least anecdotal. How can Mr. Altermen say the nation is “liberal” but his Democratic Party is moving to the center or right yet he is on record going on against Ralph Nader? Yes Ralph Nader, Mr. Environment, Mr. Product Safety, Mr. Consumer Rights, Mr. Healthcare.

This guy rocks.

I agree judicial wins for personal rights is not as favorable as a democratic win, but honestly, these are the cases where majority-rule democracy would be un-American. We are a country that values and protects INDIVIDUAL rights, and to do that, we must accept that others will have the right to live their lives outside the majority-chosen style.

I would like to see fully democratic elections, though. Electoral College takes away the individual's vote in a way I find INCREDIBLY unAmerican.

Does this make me a liberal? :) I believe so.

Your apology for the joke referring to liberals and lesbians both removing their clothing at inappropriate times was weak! Further, your assumption that the characters on the show remove their clothes for the gratification of men is just ignorant! A show produced, written and directed by lesbians (mainly), with some lesbian actors on the show... did you ever stop to think that the characters take off their clothes for the gratification of other lesbians? Now that the show will be ending after one more season, perhaps you should have Rose Troche on the show to discuss!!!

In July 1997, The Village Voice published an article by Ken Silverstein, in which he called Mr. Alterman's ascension to the punditocracy "hypocritical," accusing him of such sins as summering in the Hamptons and fawning over Melanie Griffith in a piece he wrote for Vanity Fair .

"He is incredibly rude and arrogant," one intern who had worked for Mr. Alterman told The Voice . "He constantly wants to remind you that he's Eric Alterman, that he knows a lot of important people, and that you're a lowly intern."

I wonder how Alterman feels about MoveOn and George Lakoff's brand of activism, specifically the "Betray Us" ad in the NYT. Do liberals need to "get tough" and play by the same nasty tactics that conservatives have been perfecting for the last 20 years or so?

This guy is insane Nader caused the election and re-election of Bush.

NUTS!

L-Word has nudity to appeal to women who want to see women nude and men who want to see women nude!

Liberal Patriotism.

Any way to figure out how to intelligently praise America from a liberal perspective?

Seems like an important thing to do.

Why do liberals love America? Because it's a beautiful and diverse place to live. It produced Walt Whitman and John Coltrane.

Until we liberals learn to praise America, the praise will be left to conservatives. And they will say foolish things and determine what patriotism is.

I'm a little confused by the statement that many people are calling themselves progressives instead of liberals because of the way conservatives use the word "liberal." I've been calling myself progressive because I think of it as being *left* of liberal.

EVERYONE concerned with the environment did NOT VOTE for GORE. 97,488 in Florida didn't.

While that book Liberal Fascism practically makes me foam at the mouth in anger, Mussolini WAS initially a socialist! Until the Socialist Party in Italy kicked him out for supporting Italy's entry into World War I which the party opposed.

Leonard,

Your comment about the L Word, lesbians, and liberals was in poor taste at best and I'm surprised you continue to reference it. You and Brian have a tendency to throw in off-color humor into otherwise serious interviews doing nothing more than embarrassing your guest and discrediting yourself. Please stop!

ellen --

liberals having benn nasty for quite some time

just google bush and chimp

Ralph Nader might be all of those things but he is also a megalomaniac whose own agenda is more important to him than the good of teh whole so he is no liberal!

'Liberals' have been in disfavor with many Americans for many years because of their failure to address problems which the public had a right to expect solutions to: urban crime, education system collapse & welfare dependency. Voters abandoned 'liberals' because they rightly understood them to be incapable of solving such problems. No amount of whining will alter the fact that we expect the people we elect to solve such problems & we turn them out if & when they can't, won't & don't.

And as a poltical philosophy, 'liberalism' has a long & complex intellectual & real-world political history which the author seems only modestly aware of. It sounds like the book is limited to a superficial discussion of American politics during the author's relatively brief adult lifetime, i.e. the very recent American past & consequently oblivious to the global & historic dimensions of a hugely complex subject. The author is an exponent of the uniquely American version of 'liberalism' which is actually a derivative form of statism that retains only a tenuous & limited connection to the foundational philosophy which it lays claim to.

I thought your and your guest's jokes were all perfectly OK. It is actually the mentality of the people who would criticise you for "sexism" for that, that makes me cringe.

Liberal people and conservative people have much more in common than they do with liberal and conservative politicians of the same persuasion. I think we should throw all those bums out. But thank you for your eloquent guest who spoke a lot of sense.

His many, many fine qualities aside, I do think we need to send Leonard back to finishing school to learn about many things female.

And Paul, it looks like you need to go with him (back to finishing school.)

It's not so much about the sexism of the comment (re the lesbian/Liberal comment) as it is thinking a listener taking offense to a rather ribald remark is somehow being overly sensitive. Should the subject of the comment (either the Liberal or the lesbian) be replaced with a Jew (or other religion), someone with autism (or other disease), or a Black guy (hey, I'm a Black guy) the comment would have been strictly off limits. Especially from the "moral authority" of and "socially superior" WNYC.

If the comment was about a Catholic priest, a toe tapping senator, or congressional pages... maybe it would have just been a Liberal being a Liberal.

I guess if enough people were offended, someone would have file a report with WNYC's ombudsman, or typed up a letter to the show's producer, the PR department, or the company's president/CEO, Laura Walker

Grow up! You can not tell me jokes regarding the "L word" are sacrilegious. I think you are valuing your soft porn too much.

You're right Josh. In the grand scheme of daytime radio talk, the comment was rather sedate; it wasn't quite Stern or Coulter. So, you make a comment about lesbians throwing caution and their clothes to the wind, I'll go find some nappy headed hoes and neither one of us can pretend to be above the fray.

Thank a liberal

If no woman you know has died or been maimed in a back-alley Abortion, thank a liberal.

If you have ever used Medicare, thank a liberal.

If you've ever driven on an interstate highway, thank a liberal.

If your family benefited from the GI Bill of Rights, FHA Mortgages, and so forth, thank a liberal.

If you are not a land-owning white male, but have voted, thank a liberal.

If your workplace is safe and you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights without being lynched, thank a liberal.

If you have never suffered from an economy of massive deflation, and have never even heard of an economic phenomenon called a "panic", thank a liberal.

If you kind of like freedom of speech, and don't want the state government to be able to censor you - (you think the 14th amendment is a good idea) - thank a liberal.

In short, if you've ever enjoyed anything of the post-stone-age world, thank a liberal.

...And if not, become a conservative.

"Liberal policies made America the freest, wealthiest, most successful and most powerful nation in human history. Conservatism in power always threatens to undo that national progress, and is almost always frustrated by the innate decency and democratic instincts of the American people..." - Joe Conason