Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast live from Music Row on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Leahy was joined in studio by the all-star panelist Crom Carmichael.
During the third hour, Leahy and Crom discussed author Jon Meacham’s recent comments about how the Coronavirus outbreak was increasing xenophobia in the United States.
In a television appearance earlier in the week, Meacham said, “Seems to me that my greatest anxiety, aside from the impact of the virus itself, is we’re living in an age of xenophobia. And it is not impossible to imagine a scenario where blame is cast.”
Carmichael and Leahy were concerned for Meacham’s well being, citing his current lack of logical thinking evidenced in that comment, and extended a friendly Nashville gesture to help him recover from it.
Leahy: Crom?
Carmichael: I mean…
Leahy: That’s our friend Jon Meacham.
Carmichael: You know he was raised or born in Tennessee. He went to Sewanee. He’s a great historian. As I have said in the past, I’ve read a number of his books. He is a brilliant historian. But he went to Sewanee. I believe that’s true.
Leahy: Yep.
Carmichael: Then he moved to the east coast. And I don’t know what happened?
Leahy: What happened?
Carmichael: I don’t know what happened. (Leahy laughs) Maybe there is a gland or something in your brain that applies to logic.
Leahy: Yeah.
Carmichael: And apparently when he got up in New York or someplace he was impacted. His logic gland was impacted.
Leahy: He lost it.
Carmichael: Yeah, he lost it.
Leahy: It’s not there anymore. But Crom here is the good news for Jon Meacham. I’m sure he’s listening to us because he’s moved back to Nashville.
Carmichael: Yes. He lives here now.
Leahy: Maybe, just maybe Crom through your influence we might be able to introduce logic back into the mind of Jon Meacham.
Carmichael: We certainly want to help. We want to help every person in Nashville. And he now qualifies as a person who we can help. (Leahy laughs) Here is what is so interesting about what he said. He said we live in an age of xenophobia as if in the past there was never xenophobia.
Leahy: Never xenophobia in the world!
Carmichael: Now here’s a world-renown historian who apparently is unaware of xenophobia in the past. And also I don’t see that this is xenophobic at all to say if you are trying to travel to the United States from an area where there is a high incidence of coronavirus, I’m sorry you can’t come for a while. I don’t see that as xenophobic. I see that as logical.
Leahy: Well here’s the problem. Apparently, according to esteemed historian Jon Meacham who now lives in Nashville. There never was xenophobia in the world until Donald Trump became president. And then boom! Xenophobia everywhere! (Chuckles)
Carmichael: That seems to be. And it’s certainly has impacted the people at MSNBC and CNN because if there are any two groups of people that are more xenophobic I don’t know who they are. Because they think everybody that doesn’t agree with them is a terrible person. I mean they are morally terrible.
Leahy: Morally terrible.
Carmichael: So it’s not possible to disagree with the silliness that CNN and MSNBC unless you are terrible.
Leahy: But as a public service of The Tennessee Star Report, Crom, you are volunteering to assist with Jon Meacham’s apparent loss of logic capabilities.
Carmichael: The gland. Yeah. We’ll ask Dr. Manny what gland that might be in the brain. And Jon Meacham has a large brain. There is no question about that.
Leahy: How, as a public service…
Carmichael: I don’t know…
Leahy: How do we help Jon Meacham recover his logic capabilities?
Carmichael: Well, the only thing that I can think of Michael how we can help is when he does contribute to CNN and MSNBC in ways that we can call attention to the lack of logic to this person who has written great history books. We’ll just bring it up. And if it filters back to him, maybe it helps to correct the impairment.
Leahy: You know I’m always impressed Crom at how kind and charitable you are. Because you know it really is above and beyond the call of duty to assist author Jon Meacham.
Carmichael: We are Nashvillians. We reach out and we want to help. So (Chuckles) we are there for Jon.
Leahy: Bless his heart. (Laughs)
Carmichael: Bless his heart.
Leahy: If you want to leave a message for Jon Meacham who’s afraid that the coronavirus will expose the age of xenophobia you can call the Bless Your Heart Line for Jon himself at 615-744-4730.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Jon Meacham” by Larry D. Moore. CC BY-SA 4.0. Background Photo “CNN Studio” by DieselDemon. CC BY 2.0.
