In all, the six-hour show offered its fair share of inane, knee-jerk political takes to pair with its steady flow of war-ready, pro-America rhetoric. It’s a perfect time capsule of an unthinkably terrible time. Listening to it was a swift reminder of just how it was that Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” shot up the Billboard charts. But Mike and the Mad Dog neither called for loyalty tests on 9/12, nor did they question the loyalty of all Jewish-Americans—just of Ellie in Brooklyn.
But did they ever? (We shared our findings with Phil Mushnick, who told us, “What I heard—and it was several days after the attacks—was just Russo and Francesa free-forming.”) We would need to listen to about 40 more hours of
Mike and the Mad Dog from the ensuing week to know for sure, and those tapes aren’t held by the Paley Center. If you have those tapes or know where they can be found,
please let us know. We would also appreciate if you had a transcript; listening to six hours of Mike and the Mad Dog cosplay as national security commentators was more than enough for one lifetime.