Brokaw cuts through the talk radio spin zone

Veteran NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw put conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham on the defensive earlier this week when he appeared on her radio talk show to plug his new book, "Boom!"
isn’t a huge fan of talk radio, saying it has a “mob mentality.” He said talk radio inevitably has “a lot of wannabes” and that, eventually, “you don’t have civil discourse, you don’t have a forum, then, for this country to come together and make decisions and hear each other. ... My big issue in 2008: We all have to re-enlist as citizens. ... In 100 years when they look back on it, what are they going to say about the role of citizens in this country?”
The conversation turned to Rush Limbaugh.
“A lot of people, Tom, make a lot of money trashing [President] Bush or trashing faith. I just resent the whole — you mention Rush Limbaugh in the book, but you kind of have a throwaway line about Limbaugh and it’s in the drug section, and without a doubt Rush Limbaugh is the most influential [baby] boomer, I think, in the media today. There is no person who has had more of a profound impact on the way people think about politics than Limbaugh, and he gets a line in the drug thing, which I thought was ... I don’t think that’s right,” Ingraham said.
“My problem with the whole spectrum is, you know what Rush’s whole deal is. He doesn’t want to hear another point of view except his,” Brokaw replied.
Ingraham said, “I disagree. He talks to all sorts of people. He doesn’t interview people like I do ...”
“He doesn’t interview people. And he mocks people,” Brokaw retorted.
“He’s not an objective person; he doesn’t say he is. That’s the difference between him and anchors on some of our networks who have a political agenda but then pretend that they’re objective,” Ingraham crowed back.
Brokaw, finally put a lid on the debate, saying, “Oh, Laura, we’re never going to resolve this — you have your point of view and I have mine. ... My problem with talk radio is they mock anybody else’s point of view, and they do it often in a mindless fashion.”
Brokaw hit the nail on the head. The majority of talk radio, especially conservative talk radio, is a rooting section. There's little or no dialog taking place.
And people wonder why the political divide is getting wider.