July 8, 2002 (TNFS/APJ) -- If you were to take AM radio talk show hosts at their word, you would think that the alleged mis-dealings of corporate giants at WorldCom, Enron, Adelphia, Xerox, and the reat were capitalism working at its best.

The lockstep argument for the radio right is the laws on the books and the business's self-regulations were enough to expose the wrong-doing and so everything is working just fine.

It's an "If it's broke don't fix it" mentality. Talk about "Emperor's Clothes."

Nowhere in their "everything is working well" coverage of the corporate downfalls do the talk shows speak to the hundreds of thousands of investors who have lost their life savings, or the hundreds of thousands more who lost their jobs and pensions. Needless to say, the creditors of the fallen corporations have also had their revenues and employment infected as the corporate termites continue to chew up the houses of the innocent. Capitalism at its best, I'm sure.

Rush Limbaugh had an alleged ex-Enron employee caller who said "things weren't that bad." With severance and a new job, he was right back on his feet, none the worse for wear. Of course, y'gotta give it to the guy for his perseverance, but why does Rush et al need to hold a call like this up to his listeners as a rationale that things ain't so bad? It's long been a tactic of these shows to use a single, supposed truthful, uncorroborated anecdotal story to support their point, but why do the conservative talk shows and their political allies see it necessary to go easy on these thieves of Wall Street? Sure they denounce each new report of corporate criminality as evil, but why are they so fast to ignore the overwhelming pain these new age billionaire felons inflict and instead perpetuate a blind eye to what's befalling our investments, let alone the continual mistrust of Wall Street?

It always seems that each new scandal acknowledgment is greeted as an anomaly. That once we knock off this one the problem is gone. I'd love to see these guys treating termites in their house. "Don't worry, Ma. Got that dang one. No way them dern others will try and mess with us now." Why are they afraid of admitting to some systemic problem?

One of brighter conservative hosts alleged the crimes to be a problem of the younger companies, ones who haven't been around that long and their misfeasances were unearthed quickly.

I'm guessing that Xerox and Tyco are part of the young'uns they speak of.

The audience for talk radio is made up of workers, small business owners, retirees and stay-at-home moms...the real Americans. The same Americans whose investments are being hammered by these almost daily news reports of market atrocities. My question really isn't so much "why do these hosts continue head-in-the-sand, protect the greedy speak." I'm more curious as to why the listeners give these shows a pass when they are so obviously protective of the very industries that seriously threaten the listeners' very livelihoods and once secure nest eggs.

With consistent calls by this White House and the Republican House and Senate members to privatize social security, investing retirement money into the stock market, it would seem the radio talk show hosts have much more interest in pounding home the Republican agenda and shielding CEO's from further examination than they are in protecting their listeners' crumbling 401(k)s.

This isn't to say that fans should stop listening or paying homage to Rush and his confederates. While it feels good to have someone touting your team, it wouldn't hurt for devotees to not accept the party line so readily. If they test the gods of AM, perhaps it will cause them to test the CEOs a wee bit more. And just to show we're all trying, I'll try to blame Clinton for something that happened today.

Steve Young, columnist at newsandopinion.com, is contributing editor for the WGA's "Written By" magazine and is a Prism Award winner and Humanitas nominee for his television writing. He is also author of the forthcoming "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (coming this September from Tallfellow Press).