Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Now You Know

If you know anything at all about me, you probably know how much I adore Paul Harvey News and Comment, the daily dose of idiosyncratic, reactionary and downright weird radio reportage heard on good old-fashioned terrestrial AM radio stations throughout this great land of ours. Paul Harvey's wife of 58 years, Angel, passed in May, at a time when her widower was also taking time off due to his own case of pneumonia, and Harvey has yet to return to his regular duties. He will turn ninety at the end of the summer, on the same day as my mother's own birthday. I suspect he may be gone for good.

Filling in today for Mr. Harvey was none other than Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and erstwhile Republican presidential candidate. While other Harvey fill-ins attempt to go for that Al Gore-hating Fox style, Huckabee was more moderate, harking back to Harvey's original gentle populism. Huckabee described a foreign-policy speech by Barack Obama with neither rancor or snideness. I don't think Gil Gross would have ben able to pull that off.

Yet somehow I am not surprised.

4 comments:

Gavin said...

Has Gil Gross gone hard right? Or was he always there? I only interacted with him when he was hosting me on his show, and we never talked politics, only mondegreens.

Tom Nawrocki said...

I've only heard Gil Gross filling in for Paul Harvey, and he's pretty Foxy there.

Pike said...

Is either one of you speaking English?

"Mondegreens"? "Foxy"?

I'm grateful to wake up on Planet Tommy, but is there a Berlitz here?

Anonymous said...

I heard Fred Thompson fill in for PH some time back, when he was still relevent and it was pretty good. I like it when Bill Kurtis takes the helm, but Huck is such an all around nice guy, I'll have to start tuning in again.