We read:
"Air America radio host Randi Rhodes is temporarily off the air, but claims she was brutally attacked near her Manhattan apartment are bogus, her lawyer and a police source said today.
Fellow host Jon Elliott claimed on the liberal radio network that Rhodes had been mugged while walking her dog, Simon, on Sunday night. Elliot, who said Rhodes lost several teeth in the attack, waxed about a possible conspiracy. "Is this an attempt by the right-wing, hate machine to silence one of our own?" he asked on the air, according to Talking Radio, a blog. "Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we're winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?"
A police source said Rhodes never filed a report and never claimed to be the victim of a mugging. Cops from Manhattan's 17th Precinct called her attorney, who told them Rhodes was not a victim of a crime, the source said.
Rhodes' lawyer told the Daily News she was injured in a fall while walking her dog. He said she's not sure what happened, and only knows that she fell down and is in a lot of pain. The lawyer said Rhodes expects to be back on the air Thursday. He stressed there is no indication she was targeted or that she was the victim of a "hate crime."
Still, the tale lived on in the blogosphere.... Another blogger shot back, "I very seriously doubt if this unfortunate woman was mugged by a conservative. To jump to the conclusion that she was mugged by someone on the right is bigotry of another kind."
Source
Ms Rhodes (nee Bueten) is of New York Jewish background and is a sort of Ann Coulter of the Left except that, being a Leftist, she has a very shaky relationship with the facts. A sample of her wit and wisdom: "The difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected". So she is unbalanced in more ways than one.
For those who are interested in history, Bush narrowly won power as the result of an election conducted according to the applicable American laws. Hitler did not gain power as the result of an election. He decisively lost the 1933 German federal election. He gained power as a result of post-election negotiations with other political parties.
The distortion of those facts by Ms Rhodes has a certain superficial cleverness but is nonetheless deliberately inaccurate and dishonest.
