Quinn & Rose made baseless claim

So what else is new? Quinn and Rose are on a local Clear Channel Radio station as well as XM Radio. Yes folks, they are coming to you over the air waves from Pittsburgh, PA. I can't say I listen all the time but if your an old time reader of this blog you know I've written about them. In a few of my posts I've referred to Jim and Radio Rosie as those right wingnuts that spout a lot of hate. I have taken them to task three times over an e-mail I wrote - Wolf vs Quinn - that Jim answered on the air - Quinn vs Wolf - calling it hate mail. In Quinn vs Wolfe Part 2, I remind Quinn to do better research before he accuses some one of being a communist. Now it seems Quinn and Rosie have made the big time at last. Not on their own show The Warroom but on Sean Hannity's show.
I was very surprised this morning when I read the following story on Media Matters - XM Radio's Quinn and Rose make baseless claim that Dem leaders behind Sebelius links between war, Kansas Guard shortages. I'm not listening to the Warroom while I write this but I know Quinn is trashing Media Matters. However, I was listening earlier this week when I heard both of them with their usual anti-muslim rant as well as making jokes about Islam and ham sandwiches.
Stop ranting Wolf and post the article....

On the May 10 broadcast of Sean Hannity's nationally syndicated radio show, radio hosts Jim Quinn and Rose Tennent repeated baseless allegations that they had reportedly made on their own XM Radio show that Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean was behind Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' assertion that equipment shortages due to the war in Iraq had impaired the Kansas National Guard's ability to respond quickly after a tornado leveled the town of Greensburg, Kansas. Quinn told host Sean Hannity that, according to his source, Sebelius called Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) after she had publicly made her complaint about the Guard shortages "to apologize for the statement she had made and she explained that she did not believe those statements really to be true -- that they actually had more than enough National Guardsmen showing up." Sebelius, Quinn continued, then said that " 'Howard Dean called me around 5 o'clock' -- we [Quinn and, presumably, Tennent] assume that's 5 o'clock in the morning -- 'and told me not to ask the White House for any help or make any statements until I heard back. Dick' -- and we don't know who that is; my source assumes it's [Assistant Senate Majority Leader] Dick Durbin [D-IL], but I can't, I don't know -- 'Dick called me an hour or two later, and that's when he told me that we needed to use this and talk about the Guard all being at war.' "

Quinn said that, according to his source, Sebelius had justified her actions as a political necessity. "You know how political everything is right now," Sebelius supposedly told Brownback, "and we're not allowed to let an opportunity like this pass." Tennent later continued on this theme, saying that Sebelius "then went on to explain and she said that the Speaker [Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)] and Harry -- we're assuming [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] -- are feeling the heat from both sides over the war and that they need to get the press on something else. She said she didn't think it was right to use this but she didn't have much choice, she said, considering the climate she was in." Tennent then claimed that Sebelius "promised" Brownback that she would "try to move away from the comment when she and Brownback were to meet up later ... but she had to do so without disappointing Dean and Pelosi, and those were her words, supposedly."

Quinn later told Hannity, that "[t]hey're all going to deny it, because Brownback doesn't want to screw up his relationship with the governor. ... [W]e're prepared for that. Our source absolutely stands by her or his story." As support for his assertion, Quinn said that Sebelius, appearing on television with Brownback to look over the damage in Greensburg, "look[ed] like a woman who's really embarrassed about being there. ... This is a woman whose body language is just screaming out that she just feels awful about something."

The DNC has issued a cease-and-desist letter to XM Radio stating that the allegations are "false and defamatory [and] libelous and slanderous" and demanding that Quinn and Tennent broadcast "an express and specific retraction of these statements" on their show.

Moreover, Quinn's claim that Dean and other national Democratic leaders instigated Sebelius' statements about Guard resources being depleted because of the war in Iraq is undermined by Sebelius' numerous past statements of concern about the impact on the Kansas Guard of the war in Iraq. As Media Matters for America has documented, Sebelius has -- on several occasions well before the Greensburg tornado -- highlighted the need for additional National Guard funding and equipment because of deployments for the Iraq war

Check out Media Matters for the rest of the story and listen to the mp3 file. If you want to start your mornings in anger listen to Quinn and Rose on their morning show in The Warroom.