WHO-AM radio host Steve Deace

Deace first discussed the Ft. Hood shooting Monday on his show. In a blog post published Wednesday, Deace expanded on his ideas and offered solutions to avoid similar acts being committed in the future.

Major Nidal Hasan allegedly shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas and wounded 29 more. While his motives are still under scrutiny, he allegedly yelled ”Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” before opening fire.

Deace said news of Hasan’s religious beliefs proves that while America has “sold out our religious traditions for a secular enlightenment,” the same cannot be said of the Muslim world.

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, Hasan may have done America a favor if we heed the warnings after the fact that we ignored beforehand, which sadly cost 13 brave and loyal Americans at Ft. Hood their lives,” Deace said. “If we stop lying to ourselves and accept the grave determination of the religious ideology that allegedly drove Hasan, then those 13 Americans didn’t perish in vain.”

The first step is Christian churches in American must begin to clearly define the differences between the teachings of the Bible and the Koran.

“We are at war with an ideology that has an aberrant view of God and what he demands of his people, so why wouldn’t the church use this as perhaps the greatest evangelistic and apologetic opportunity of the age?” Deace said. “We can’t expect our politicians to know the truth if the people in the pews who vote for them aren’t hearing it from the pulpit.”

Step two is to recognize that “Islam is not a religion of peace.”

Third, there is a difference between private citizen and public servant, so while Muslims are allowed to believe whatever the wish in America, being a part of the military means swearing loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.

“Since this is a nation largely founded on the Judeo-Christian value system, following the U.S. Constitution doesn’t provide too many roadblocks for me as a Christian, but it obviously does for those who follow the Koran,” Deace said. “Soldiers and public servants should be held to a higher standard than a private citizen, regardless of their belief system.”

Islam is an ideology opposed to the American ideal “every bit as much as communism or Nazism,” Deace said. The war against “radical Islam” has been taking place for more than a decade, and there is a simple reason why it won’t end any time soon.

“Because we began this war on a faulty premise, the premise that we’re all the same and truth is just a matter of perspective,” Deace said.  “Our Islamic enemy doesn’t believe this, but is exploiting our belief in it, and is winning as a result.”

In the aftermath of Major Nidal Hasan’s killing spree at Fort Hood in Texas, questions of whether his actions were inspired by religious fervor are still unanswered. But because Hasan reportedly yelled “”Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” before opening fire, Deace believes it is a clear example of political correctness getting in the way of protecting American lives.

“I haven’t said we should purge the military of every single Muslim, but I do think we should start asking ourselves a real key question: If someone has sworn a public loyalty to the ideology that brave men and women are fighting against, why are we giving them uniforms and guns?” he said.

Deace compared allowing Muslims to serve to allowing someone to serve in the colonial army who had pledged loyalty to the British crown or to a Nazi sympathizer during World War II.

The problem, he said, is that society is so worried about offending anyone that they are putting everyone at risk.

“This is the problem with political correctness,” Deace said. “I do not believe Islam is a peaceful religion. But I also don’t believe all Muslims are warmongers. I just think if you look at this history and tradition of Islam, to come to the conclusion that it’s a peaceful religion is laughable on its face. “

Deace was particularly upset with two audio clips he played for his listeners. The first was former President George W. Bush saying Christians and Muslims will both go to heaven, “we just have a different routes of getting there.” Deace said this was absolutely untrue, and that Bush was either lying or uninformed of how incompatible the two religions are.

He then played an interview with Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey who said he’s worried that rumors and speculation surrounding Hasan’s motives could result in a backlash against Muslim soldiers.

“His concern is that we won’t be fair to people who have declared their loyalty to a theology that we are currently at war against. I don’t understand this,” Deace said, later adding: “My concern is that we know who the enemy is and we kill them before they kill us. That would be my concern. Not diversity.”

The problem is that “diversity training and gobbledygook and psychobabble and gay rights and tolerance” have taught society that people who disagree with them are hateful.

“We assume that if I think you marrying another guy is not a good idea for you and that other guy and the children you might adopt, that must mean I hate you,” Deace said. “If I think that the police, instead of interrogating child sex offenders ought to shoot them, that means I hate the sex offenders. If I think it’s not a good idea to have someone who screams out ‘Allah akbar’ to serve in the military, I must hate him. There’s no delineation between the inherent value of human beings created in the image of God and whatever phony, evil things they either believe in or engage in.”

Controversial Christian radio personality Steve Deace slammed Grassley in a blog post Monday morning, calling his speech “a long, rambling, incoherent embarrassment of something which may have resembled a speech that not only killed the event but continued on well into the body’s decomposition process.”

Deace pointed to the elements of the speech and of Grassley’s record in the Senate that most upset him, including his vote last year for a bank bailout and his support for Earthpartk, an indoor rain forest at one time expected to be built in Iowa.

He then criticized several amendments offered by Grassley to health care reform legislation, in particular, an amendment that would clarify  “reporting requirements for tax-exempt organizations.” Deace fears that the language of the amendment opens the door to discrimination against churches that refuse to hire homosexuals or to consider women applicants for pastoral positions.

Perhaps in the future some Democrat will come along and decide these ministries need to be investigated because they think homosexuality is a sin, so government needs to intervene and look at their finances, too?

Grassley is helping to grease the skids for that to happen in the future because when you’ve been in Washington too long you see everything as a problem for Washington to handle.  Yet another reason why the slogan of our nation’s capital ought to be “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Potomac Fever is a deadlier disease than H1N1 and HIV put together.

Grassley has a long record of  going after nonprofit organizations, specifically Christian ministries, that he believes are engaging in financial misconduct. In 2007, Grassley announced the Senate Finance Committee would investigate six prominent televangelist ministries who were believed to be improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles.

Deace’s afternoon radio program has been the platform for sevearl calls for a social conservative to primary to Grassley in 2010.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)

Speaking with controversial radio host Steve Deace about a recent letter criticizing Grassley penned by GOP state Rep. Kent Sorenson of Indianola, Salier said it is not surprising political observers believed it was the first shot of a coming primary challenge.

“If this were 8 to 10 years ago, then yes, I would have been surprised by that reaction because Grassley was the dominant force in Iowa politics, in both parties,” he said. “Grassley was the dominant force and had an enormous amount of loyalty. That has so eroded out from underneath him. There is so much talk of primarying Chuck Grassley now that I think he had to respond very quickly to somebody like Kent Sorenson to try to head that off if that was indeed what Sorenson was thinking.”

After the letter was made public, Grassley apparently had dinner with Sorenson to discuss his concerns, which included past statements on same-sex marriage and his vote for the $700 million bank bailout.

Earlier in the day, Sorenson told Deace he has no interest in running for the U.S. Senate. However, he said he has been contacted by two different county central committees urging him to challenge Grassley in a primary.

If Grassley doesn’t take Sorenson’s complaints to heart, a primary challenger will emerge and Salier will work hard to make sure Iowa’s senior senator does not return to Washington, D.C.

“If he doesn’t right his ship on this, he very well may face a primary,” he said. “And if it’s someone who thinks like me on these issues or someone who thinks like Kent Sorenson does, I’ll take everything I’ve got to try to propel them forward.”

Grassley’s seniority in the Senate should not be a reason to support his candidacy, Salier said, since something like his position of power on the Senate Finance Committee means “absolutely bupkis if what you do with that power is work with [Montana Democratic Sen.] Max Baucus to try to advance socialized medicine.”

Deace said several times that if Salier were to enter the race, he would defeat Grassley.

“People are that frustrated,” Deace said.

This isn’t the first time Salier has discussed Grassley’s political vulnerablity. He blasted Grassley’s response to the April Supreme Court ruling overturning Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying he “isn’t even close to the same conservative” he was when he was first elected.

Salier is the founding member of the conservative group Everyday America. In 2002 he became a hero of sorts to Iowa’s social conservative movement when he ran a surprisingly close U.S. Senate primary race against Congressman Greg Ganske.

Deace discussed the issue with Drew Zahn, editor of the conspiracy theory Web site World Net Daily, who said that while his cohorts have been “ridiculed and mocked” for continuing to follow the story, it simply won’t go away.

“We’re catching heat from almost every direction,” Zahn said.

Zahn and Deace started off blasting the “mainstream media” for not fully investigating an issue that deals with whether “we’re going to follow the Constitution at its most basic level.”

The pair then attempted to debunk any evidence produced that may contradict their theory — including a certificate of live birth and newspapers accounts at the time — ultimately concluding all materials could be easily obtained fraudulently or easily fabricated.

And even if that evidence was proven real, Zahn said the questions would remain.

“Even if we know he was born in Hawaii or not, we still have questions of whether he is a natural-born citizen,” he said. “On his own Web site, he admitted he was born of a father of Kenyan nationality… a dual citizen. Is that or is that not a natural born citizen? We don’t know.”

“Birthers,” as the believers of this particular conspiracy theory are known, believe that either Obama’s mother gave birth to the future president in Kenya in 1961 or that because Obama’s father was Kenyan and Obama has dual citizenship he ineligible to sit in the White House.

Of course, the birthers theories have been thoroughly discredited, and the U.S. Supreme Court last year dismissed a legal challenge to Obama’s citizenship. Despite this, the issue has gained several high-profile supporters, including CNN’s Lou Dobbs and conservative talker Rush Limbaugh.

This is not the first time Iowa’s largest radio station has dedicated large segments to birthers. Afternoon host Jan Mickelson has repeatedly discussed the conspiracy theory, interviewing numerous proponents who have brought lawsuits in regards to the issue.

Deace discussed the issue once before in January, when he interviewed the birther movement’s most high profile advocate, Orly Taitz, a woman news site Politico describes as “the Russian-born attorney/dentist who has become a kind of ringleader for the movement.” Among other things, Taitz has become famous of late for encouraging soldiers to disobey orders from a president who is “ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of U.S Armed Forces.”

Fong told Cedar Rapids ABC affiliate KCRG that while Iowans deserve the right to vote on a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as one man and one woman, he does not condemn those who disagree with him.

“I’m not embarrassed about where I stand on that issue,” Fong said. “But at the same time I don’t look across at anybody that has a different view. I don’t condemn them for what they hold so deeply.  And I invite everyone to the table.”

Brian Dumas, a political consultant with the firm Victory Enterprises and an adviser to Fong’s campaign, anticipated the answer would upset Deace and e-mailed him a transcript of the interview with the hopes of heading off any angry reaction.

Deace was not impressed, and responded quickly on his blog.

First of all, the idea “that I don’t condemn people that have a different view” is a ridiculous statement for a person that serves as essentially an elder at a Christian church to make.  The Bible constantly condemns people who advance evil, and isn’t shy about doing it.  It also condemns those who claim they know right from wrong but won’t take a stand, you know, kind of like Fong does in the [KCRG] transcript.

God says homosexuality is evil, Deace wrote, so Fong should have no problem condemning evil.

Why would Christians respect the views of those who want to advance evil?  Would Fong say the same thing about Islamic radicalism?  He’d have to, unless he doesn’t really believe homosexuality is evil and that’s why he’s saying such soft-headed psychobabble — trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

Deace then attacks Fong for not agreeing with another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, Bob Vander Plaats, that the governor can issue an executive order stopping same-sex marriage. Fong told KCRG that he “wouldn’t waste time signing an order that my legal staff said was unenforceable anyway.”

Constitutional scholars, as well as Vander Plaats’ other rivals for the Republican nomination in 2010, agree with Fong that the governor does not have the authority under Iowa’s Constitution to issue such an order.

Appearing on the show of controversial Christian radio host Steve Deace, Vander Plaats once again said if elected governor in 2010 he would issue an executive order stopping same-sex marriage until the legislature either passes a law legalizing it or passes a constitutional amendment banning it.

“I can’t give the people the right to vote on this, but I think I can mobilize people like [Senate Majority Leader Mike] Gronstal and [House Speaker Pat] Murphy by saying no more same-sex marriages until you step up and vote to make this law,” Vander Plaats said.

After doing so, he said he fully expects Democrats to try to remove him from office for “promoting lawlessness.”

“I would like to have that debate, because then Pat Murphy has to go back to his people in Dubuque and tell them we’re going to impeach Vander Plaats because he wants the legislature to do its job in the constitution and he also wants to give you the right to vote,” he said.  “I don’t think that would play very well.”

Mark Kende, director of Drake University’s Constitutional Law Center, said the governor lacks the authority to issue an executive order freezing a decision by the Iowa Supreme Court. And while they disagree on many things, that is “pretty well accepted constitutional law by scholars who are both conservative and liberal.”

If Vander Plaats were to issue such an order, it could result in a constitutional crisis the likes of which the country hasn’t seen since desegregation cases in the Deep South, Kende said. Local officials, who are responsible for issuing marriage licenses, would be stuck between the governor’s executive order and an earlier order from the Iowa Attorney General’s office explaining to county recorders that they have no authority to ignore the court’s ruling.

Ultimately, desegregation cases were settled in the south by the federal government using troops to support the court, an option that is unlikely in Iowa.

“Courts do depend on the executive branch for enforcement, and regular executive disobedience would result in numerous crises,” Kende said. “This is what has happened in some other countries where the executive ignores the judiciary, such as Zimbabwe to give just one example.”

Vander Plaats said the Iowa Supreme Court overstepped its authority when on April 3 it issued an order striking down the state’s Defense of Marriage Act and legalizing same-sex marriage.

“If the Supreme Court goes out of bounds, who holds them in check?” he said. “I believe that’s where the executive branch comes in, to hold them in check. “

How to oppose same-sex marriage has been a focal point of a debate raging within the Republican Party of Iowa. Last month, Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King of Kiron publicly criticized those calling on elected officials to ignore the court’s ruling, saying the only method available to Iowans to stop same-sex marriage is a constitutional amendment.

King’s opinion, which he shared in a guest column for The Des Moines Register, drew harsh criticism from Deace and conservative activist Bill Salier, who said elected officials must be willing to confront the judicial branch, as well as ignore decisions they disagree with.

More recently, Vander Plaats attacked another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, Christopher Rants, for saying the governor does not have the authority to issue such an order.

WHO-AM host Steve Deace, right, and blogger Craig Robinson

The pair has already winnowed the possible field down to four candidates – former state Sen. Jeff Lamberti, Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, former state House Speaker Christopher Rants and Sioux City businessman Bob Vander Plaats – and is asking their readers and listeners to vote by text message this Thursday. Results will be announced on Deace’s WHO-AM program that night.

Of the group of candidates included in the unscientific poll, only Vander Plaats has officially thrown his hat in the ring, and even he has not made his candidacy “official.” The roster does not include potential candidates like state Rep. Rob Roberts and state Sen. Jerry Behn, who have indicated in recent weeks they are considering entering the race. Robinson said he intentionally left them off the list because he only wanted to include candidates who he believes “have a better than 50 percent shot of being on the ballot on June 8, 2010.” He did not specify the criteria for his assessment.

Deace has hosted a drive-time show on Iowa’s largest radio station since 2006. His show centers on evangelical Christianity and how it shapes his politics. No stranger to controversy, Deace has upped the ante of late, spending time questioning the authenticity of a state senator’s faith, attacking TV personality Oprah Winfrey for being the “high priestess of American paganism,” and most recently for celebrating the death of Kansas doctor George Tiller.

The Tiller comments landed Deace a prominent spot on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show in a segment on the country’s radical anti-abortion movement.

Deace has also been an outspoken critic of leading figures in the state’s Republican Party, including two of the poll’s candidates:  McKinley and Rants.

Robinson’s blog, The Iowa Republican, is focused on conservative politics and religion. Other than Robinson, who served as political director for the Republican Party of Iowa in 2007 and who runs his own campaign consulting and fundraising firm, the blog is entirely made up of anonymous bloggers who offer commentary on the day’s news. The site’s team of anonymous writers have been particularly tough on so-called “moderates” within the party, especially 2002 GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross.

Robinson is also a regular commentator on Deace’s show.

Last week, WHO-AM radio host Steve Deace and his pastor, Bob Deever of Grace West Church in West Des Moines, said McCoy could not be a Christian because he is gay. Deace also called for a return to the days when gays and lesbians could not “live this way without any sort of societal retribution for them.”

McCoy, an active member of Plymouth Congregational Church in Des Moines and the first openly gay member of the Iowa legislature, said he had not heard the full program but had been contacted by several constituents who expressed outrage.

“As an elected official I have always tried to be accepting and appreciative of all religious and spiritual beliefs and practices that makes our country diverse,” McCoy said in a statement to the Iowa Independent. “Steve Deace chooses to use his radio platform at 1040 WHO to spread hate and lies on behalf of his version of Christianity. I feel that he crossed the line of decency by attacking me and my family in such an outrageous manner. Steve Deace does not know me or my heart and his attacks will not harm me.”

Chris Bradshaw's show airs from 1 to 4 p.m. weekdays on 98.3 WOW-FM

“I’m so outrageous,” he said. “I actually believe torture is a bad thing. Ooooh.”

Just another day for Des Moines talk radio’s token liberal.

Weekdays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on 98.3 WOW-FM, Bradshaw shares his take on the world with his listeners, and most couldn’t disagree more. His lead-in is Glenn Beck. Sean Hannity is up after he signs off, with Michael Savage after that.

“Des Moines is not exactly a dynamic radio market,” said Bradshaw, 32. “When it comes to liberals on talk radio, I’m pretty much it. I’m a stranger in a strange land.”

It’s not always politics. Sometimes it’s religion. Sometimes it’s pop culture. Once, it was whether intelligent women enjoy sex more than “bimbos.”

Whatever interests him that day is fodder for the show, and it attracts an audience ready to debate.

“The people like a good gladiator bout from time to time,” he said. “But my goal, the Holy Grail that I shoot for every day, is ‘I never agree with you, but…’ If I can get that, my day is made. And I get that more and more often.”

He hates it when people say they’re “independents,” calling it the “wussy way out.” He’s a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union and isn’t afraid of telling people he’s an atheist.

“Who else is going to go on the air with the juevos to say ‘Yeah, I’m an atheist. What about it?’ ” he said. “When you look at the polls of who would you like to see your daughter marry, I think atheists come in behind gay Muslim terrorists. But I assure you, I eat far fewer babies than Dick Cheney does on any given day.”

He insists he’s not putting on a show. For three hours, he’s simply being himself, for better or worse.

“Everyone has different reasons for being in this business,” he said. “You have some guys who really, really like being rich. Some are true believers. Some are just bat-crap insane and believe people are trying to poison their drinking water. I’m just myself.”

‘I don’t know how to do anything else.’

Bradshaw grew up in West Des Moines and became smitten with radio while attending Valley High School.

“I was 15 years old and my buddy at Valley said: ‘Hey, you’d be great on the campus radio station.’ So what did I say? ‘No.’ But he finally got me in there and I was hooked. I was spinning Soundgarden records on KWDM.”

He graduated from the University of Missouri, worked for the local radio station, and eventually ended up doing a morning show in South Bend, Ind.

“I was working at this classic rock station,” he said. “Eddie Money, Foghat, a friend and me.”

It was the 2000 presidential election that first got him interested in politics, but it wasn’t until the U.S. invaded Iraq that he finally let his inner pundit run free.

“The news reports just didn’t pass the sniff test,” he said. “It was all about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam being part of Sept. 11. So I go on the air and ask if this is such a good idea. You weren’t supposed to do that, though. At that point, we were all still supposed to be having parades and be hyper-patriotic.”

He eventually “got asked to leave Indiana,” and he ended up back in Des Moines and at WOW-FM, co-hosting “Mac’s World” with conservative J. Michael McCoy in 2005. The two hosted the afternoon show together until 2008, when McCoy was let go from the station.

“We had a long slog together to make the show into what it was,” he said. “When I started doing the show alone, well, let’s just say it wasn’t an easy transition. I was walking into an immediately hostile crowd.”

While the two haven’t spoken since the split, Bradshaw said he sent a note telling McCoy to “kick ass and have good, but not too good, luck” when he launched his new online talk show earlier this year.

The underdog

For Bradshaw, it’s all about the conversation. Agree with him or not, as long as you’re willing to debate, he’s willing to give you airtime.

“It’s not a soapbox for me to preach down to the unwashed masses,” he said. “As long as callers come in with good intentions. Disagree and intelligently state it and you’ll get to the front of the line.”

He’s always looking for common ground, and a way to get people out of the “I’m right, you’re wrong” mentality, he said. Everyone agrees on the outcome in politics, “we just have different ways of getting there.”

But he’s the first to say his show is the underdog in a market dominated by conservative talkers like the ones on Iowa’s largest radio station, WHO-AM. And it doesn’t help that his competition during the 1 to 4 p.m. shift is conservative icon Rush Limbaugh.

But he’s not afraid of a little competition.

“Hey, I’m up against the most successful radio personality in history,” he said. “What do I have to lose?”

In addition to hosting his show, Bradshaw also serves as program director for WOW-FM and its sport’s talk sister station, 1700 The Champ. The last Arbitron ratings show his station in 10th place overall, but second behind WHO for talk-only stations.

“I’m programming two stations, doing technical support, working through the weekend. It’s a 24/7 job,” he said. “I can usually get Christmas off.”

So will he be booking some fellow liberals any time soon?

“I don’t know if any of us will live long enough, even with stem cell treatment, to see liberals all across the dial,” he said. “I certainly think there’s a market for it, but radio is slow to change. The model has been working for so long, stations are hesitant to change. Nobody is going to lose their job putting a conservative on the air.”

So for the time being at least, Bradshaw carries the liberal flag on Des Moines’ airwaves all alone, and gets back to debating the virtues of torture with his callers.

“Hey, I had a conversation about torture that didn’t make me want to waterboard myself,” he said. “It was a good day.”