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ATLANTA - Conservative talk radio hosts licked their collective wounds as they took to the airwaves after Republicans lost control of Congress, arguing the party should use the defeat to return to right-wing principles.
"Don't let your hearts be troubled," conservative syndicated host Sean Hannity told callers outraged and dismayed by results showing the Democrats won control of the US House of Representatives and may also win the Senate.
"The key here, if the Republican Party is going to learn the lesson, is don't abandon your roots," said Hannity, who regularly tells those who agree with him, "You're a great American."
Millions of US conservatives look to conservative talk radio because they mistrust what they see as bias in mainstream newspapers and other broadcast media.
Senior Republicans use the shows to speak directly to voters. During the campaign, Republican leaders reached out to the conservative hosts, who have a devoted following across the country, in hopes of hanging onto Congress it won control of in 1994.
Hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Neal Boortz and Hannity argue America is at war with radical Islamists bent on destroying the American way of life and Democrats cannot be trusted to wage that war because they are too soft.
Those talk-show hosts maintain any mistakes made by President Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld since September 11 were far outweighed by the justice of the cause and that Democrats and others who criticized them were short-sighted.
Boortz said the announcement on Wednesday that Rumsfeld would step down was a concession by the president after the electoral defeat.
"That is George Bush saying: 'OK, You've kicked us in the butt. We've been beaten. You can have it your way,'" he said.
TRUE AGENDA
Savage and others also say the Republican Party is guilty of deserting its principles and did not fully deserve victory.
For Boortz, a libertarian, defeat came almost as a relief.
"I am happy about it (the defeat). It's the only way to get these Republicans to wake themselves up and say, 'You have abandoned what you were put in office for,'" Boortz told one disgruntled caller.
The hosts attack Democrats in much sharper language than most Republican politicians and keep their party on its toes by staking positions to the right of the Republican mainstream.
Boortz described victorious Democrats on Wednesday as the "Democratic Socialist Party" and read one email saying Nancy Pelosi, the likely House speaker, would be "bad and dangerous for the country."
Hannity and Limbaugh said that now Democrats were in power in the House, and possibly the Senate, their true agenda would be revealed, inevitably presenting an opportunity for Republicans before presidential elections in 2008.
"Democrats aren't going to go conservative, not the way they govern. Don't fall for that. They are libs," Limbaugh told one caller, adding, "(The problem is) Republicans can't make up their minds to be conservatives."
Despite efforts by the talk-show hosts to rally the base, many callers were angered that Boortz and others did not unequivocally support the Republican Party.
"The party of lies, hate and defeat will have control of the government for the next several years. I doubt that Iraq will survive with any hope of freedom thanks to this victory," said one email read out by Boortz.
"Looks like you got what you wanted," the email said.
- REUTERS
