Saying that Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I.) “[doesn’t] think it is appropriate to use taxpayer resources” for state officials to appear on and thereby “support for-profit, ratings-driven programming,” a spokesman for the governor said he will institute a ban on talk radio appearances for all state employees.
Naturally, NPR will be excepted from the ban (I’m not kidding).
Lord help me, I love Buddy Cianci’s response:
“Chafee is – I don’t want to be critical – but he’s not exactly Demosthenes,” says Buddy Cianci, who hosts the afternoon drive program on WPRO-AM. “The fact is that he’s got some issues that he maybe doesn’t have the answer to [on the air].”
“But how do I take it? I take it as a total slap in the face to the public of the state of Rhode Island. There are thousands of people who listen to our radio shows. For him to ban all these people from coming on talk radio is certainly an affront to open government, and certainly is an affront to transparency,” Cianci tells ABC News.
More here.