We’ll get to the answers to the question shortly, but meanwhile, the Media Research Center has put together a plea for some balance in media coverage of outrageous talk-radio and cable-shouter outrage.  In a new report titled “The Real Radio Hatemongers,” MRC notes that the media that never hesitates to put a spotlight on Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh somehow missed some “vile and vicious rhetoric” from liberal broadcasters like Ed Schultz, Mike Malloy, and others:

Since late 2007, the Media Research Center has collected numerous examples of the outrageousness of left-wing radio hosts. And, unlike the Left — which attempted to smear Rush Limbaugh with phony quotes — readers can find an audio or video of every one of these quotes posted at our Web site: www.MRC.org.

This report includes examples of over-the-top rhetoric from left-wing hosts Mike Malloy, Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Ron Reagan, Jr., Ed Schultz and Montel Williams, all of whom currently or at one time broadcast to a national audience on either the Air America network or via XM and/or Sirius satellite radio. Among the lowlights:

■ Conservatives Want to Kill Barack Obama: “I really think there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out.” (Ed Schultz)

■ Conservatives Are Terrorists: “Do you not understand that the people you hold up as heroes bombed your goddamn country? Do you not understand that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are as complicit of the September 11, 2001 terror attack as any one of the dumbass 15 who came from Saudi Arabia?” (Mike Malloy)

■ Conservatives Want You to Die: “If, in fact, the GOP doesn’t like any form of health care reform, what do we do with those 40 to 60 million uninsured?…When they show up in the emergency room, just shoot ‘em! Kill them!…Do we have enough body bags? I don’t know.” (Montel Williams)

■ Conservative Congresswoman Would Have Liked the Holocaust: “[Representative Michele Bachmann is] a hatemonger. She’s the type of person that would have gladly rounded up the Jews in Germany and shipped them off to death camps….This is an evil bitch from Hell.” (Mike Malloy)

■ Dick Cheney Eats Babies: “Cheney, by the way, looks very ruddy. I couldn’t get over that. Like, he must have feasted on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby. He must have sent his people out to get one and bring it back so he could drink its blood.” (Mike Malloy)

■ Dick Cheney Should Die: “He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion. Dick Cheney is an enemy of the country….Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you? See, I don’t even wish the guy goes to Hell, I just want to get him the hell out of here.” (Ed Schultz)

■ Rush Limbaugh Should Die: “I’m waiting for the day when I pick up the newspaper or click on the Internet and find that he’s choked to death on his own throat fat, or a great big wad of saliva or something, whatever. Go away, Limbaugh, you make me sick.” (Mike Malloy)

■ Michele Bachmann Should Die: “So, Michele, slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to — or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone.” (Montel Williams)

If the establishment media were really interested in cleansing the airwaves of hateful rhetoric, they would not confine their criticism to conservative hosts. Instead, they would — and they must — make an equal effort to expose the nastiness that runs rampant on left-wing talk radio. Unless and until they do, they are participating in an act of journalistic hypocrisy.

Of course they are.  Despite the ravings of Schultz, Malloy, and others detailed on conservative websites for years — especially MRC and Newsbusters — the national media only takes an interest when they perceive something outrageous from Limbaugh, Beck, Mark Levin, and so on.  Why?  The MRC feels that it’s a case of bias, and that’s certainly a part of it, but it’s more than that.  The libtalkers highlighted in this report have almost no impact on politics, while the impact of Limbaugh is massive, especially in comparison.  Most people wouldn’t know these names at all, especially Malloy, who gets about half of the quotes in the report.

Hardly anyone listens to the libtalkers.  The combined radio audience of Malloy, Schultz, and Williams would not equal a fifth of Limbaugh’s reach, if that.  Montel Williams can get away with telling a mother of 23 to kill herself because the only people listening are Williams’ family and the MRC.