Danger on the right: former conservative journalist and current media watchdog David Brock talks about his new book documenting the right wing's grip on the airwaves.

If ever there was an easy target for the rants of Rush Lambaugh, Ann Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly, it's David Brock. The openly gay author used to be part of conservative America's fold--he cut his teeth as a journalist by trashing the likes of Anita Hill and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

But in a much-reported mea culpa in 1998, Brock apologized to President Clinton for introducing the world to Paula Jones, and in 2001 he apologized to Hill for spreading lies about her. What's more, he became a Democrat and wrote a best-selling book about his experience, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Censervative.

This spring Brock started a watchdog group, Media Matters for America, to monitor conservative bias. Now he has written a new book: The Republican Noise Machine: Right-wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy (Crown, $25.95). In provides a fascinating look at how the Right insinuates its message into the mainstream media while crying foul about news organizations' supposed liberal bias.

Speaking by phone with Brock at his Washington office, The Advocate had a few questions.

We've finished reading the book and are sufficiently scared of the Republican noise machine. They have built this incredibly strong media infrastructure that no one's talking about. With the exception of Air America Radio, why are Democrats being such weenies about creating their own noise machine?

I think for the [past] 20 years, definitely the Right understood--in a way that Democrats did not the structural changes in the media: how information moves much more quickly and that one had to communicate in a different wad more effective way.

I think a lot of it started in the late 1980s with nationally syndicated rightwing talk ratio, with Limbaugh and the growth of cable and the Internet. All of those things have substantially changed the playing field of the media, so there's a structural problem for Democrats and liberals. People are starting to fashion responses, but we're at the very beginning. People have to understand that the right wing worked for three decades on this--and they were patient and strategic and they put a lot of money into it--and nothing is going to change overnight.

The news has been dominated by weddings in Massachusetts. From your perspective, why do so many right-wingers hate the idea of marriage for gay men and lesbians?

I think they oppose anything that seems to give legitimacy to gay people--it's not particular to marriage. They're pretty much hostile to any progress for gay people. You can tell what the base of the Republican Party is all about these days by looking at the media it consumes. It is based on racism, homophobia, and prejudice against women. Look at the content of the media that these people are consuming; you'll see that those are the themes and that's how they feed their audience. Gay marriage is just another issue to energize people who have prejudice.

What motivates gay Republicans to continue supporting President George Bush, who has come out against same-sex marriage?

I just don't want to accuse people of having motives they may not have. But clearly, part of it is how you grow up; part, of it is where your career is. If you're in a political type of job and you are in a party--doesn't matter which party it is--it's difficult to leave. On a more fundamental level, for some, it may be that they're uncomfortable--even if they're openly gay--they're still uncomfortable with being gay. Somehow they see the Republican Party as representing something more mainstream or normal than the Democratic Party.

Is there a particular media outlet that pisses you off the most?

There really isn't. In the new media sectors--cable, radio, and the Internet--there is disproportionate conservative influence in all of those areas, to the point that liberal voices are hardly heard. It's not one particular thing. Each is problematic in its own way.

Has your book caught the attention of Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh?

Michael Savage [the ultraconservative radio host based in San Francisco] attacked me. I was on the Today show for the book, and he played the audio of me on his show. Then he talked about how I lisped and how you can't trust anyone with a lisp.

[Brock reads what Savage said on May 18]: "Turn it off, I don't like his voice, I don't like the lisp.... I don't like guys who sound like that. They give me the creeps.... Your voice sucks. People don't listen to guys with voices like that no matter what their politics are. You've got to have a pair of balls." And then Savage makes this odd [remark], where he says, "I don't know who this guy is ... David Broken or David Brockstein." That's kind of odd, because he has a history of singling out progressives with Jewish-sounding names and ridiculing them with this exaggerated Brooklyn accent.

The Advocate doesn't think you have a lisp. We'd tell you if you did.

It's just some way of gay-baiting me with his audience.

For the most part, Democrats have completely welcomed you into their fold. Why do they trust you?

Had I not written a book about [my conversion], where I had a chance to explain the whole thing and try to make it understandable, it might have been more difficult. There has been some skepticism, and I think that's normal with any kind of ideological convert.

What I wanted to do is make a contribution in a better direction. Probably there's some value in having someone working against the conservative movement who's experienced in the operations of the conservative movement.

What are your thoughts on John Kerry? Although he's supported many aspects of gay rights, he does not support marriage for gay men and lesbians.

That is the mainstream Democratic position, right?

Right--there have been fewer than 10 lawmakers on Capitol Hill who've publicly supported same-sex marriage.

You know, the culture moves, and then the elected leaders move. What the Right has been so effective at doing is moving the culture in their direction. Often the Right does not look first to its political leaders for leadership; they go out and do it. Then they bring people in.

You can provide the opportunity for more vigorous leadership among Democrats by trying to change the dynamic in which they're operating. It's very hard to be a Democratic leader in this climate. You make a strong statement in terms of views and beliefs, and the way the media treats it, you have your head handed to you in one news cycle. We don't have the systems in place. The Republicans have all these surrogates funded in these think tanks, and they're all over cable. I feel that when a Democrat goes out on a limb, they're out there alone.

What do you hope average Americans, who aren't part of the media, will get out of your book?

I think it does have a lot of information about how various pundits, many of whom are household names, got their start. You have these hugely right-wing influential figures, and I feel like no one knows where they came from and who they are. Like, who is Sean Hannity? You go back and look, and you can see that he got his start with some gay baiting and with some racist commentary.

Do people know that Rush Limbaugh got fired from several jobs before he caught hold and caught an audience? I think these details are interesting. All these people with huge audiences are never covered. [Editor's note: The Advocate interviewed Bill O'Reilly in its September 17, 2002, issue.] And what they say tends to exist only in the right-wing netherworld. People are watching but don't know really what they're watching.

Now for the frivolous questions. Who makes a better boyfriend, a gay Republican or a gay Democrat, and why?

I'm trying to think if I ever had a gay Republican boyfriend. I don't think I did.

Do you currently have a partner?

Yes. We've been together for a little more than three years. He owns a restaurant and art gallery in Washington. He was the roommate of a friend of mine who worked in the last administration, and there was a going-away party for my friend because he was going on a fellowship out of the country after the Republicans stole the election, and that's how I met James [Alefantis].

Any plans to get married?

We've talked about it. It's just a question of where it's legal to do it, but we've contemplated it.