There are only two things that can interrupt the torrent of rhetoric - raucous words, right-wing words - from Sean Hannity, morning man on WGST radio, the station that calls itself "The News Monster":
1. Commercials.2. Being fired.
Otherwise, he talks on and on and on, raining opinion across northern Georgia.
Hard-core criminals? "Maggots . . . scum." President Clinton? "Disingenuous, dishonest." Homosexuality? "Unnatural . . . weird." And Newt Gingrich? "An absolute genius."
It is a great time in America to be young, conservative and have your own talk show. In a time of downsizing, talk radio seems to be an area of unlimited job growth; at a time of public cynicism, loudmouths of the airwaves serve as icons.
"Omnipotent power," proclaims Hannity, grinning before adding: "I let others judge how much so-called power we have."
Others are doing just that.
Talk show-triggered barrages of faxes and phone calls have been credited, or discredited, with derailing legislation and with having significant impact in last November's elections. Exit polling indicated that more than half the voters listened to talk radio part of the time, and that three of four frequent listeners voted Republican.
President Clinton has heard the voices.
He's repeatedly gone on the New York show of syndicated host Don Imus, and called St. Louis station KMOX last year from Air Force One to rail against Rush Limbaugh and other critical conservative hosts.
House Speaker Gingrich has given talk radio shows special space in the Capitol and plans GOP leadership discussion meetings with hosts from around the country. He even put off taking Clinton's post-election congratulation call because he was busy talking to . . . Sean Hannity.
Hannity does not have Rush Limbaugh's 20 million listeners each week on 660 stations. He does not have the clout that has made Limbaugh an honorary member of the current Congress and mentor to freshman Republican members who call him the "majority-maker" and themselves "the ditto-head caucus."
But Hannity is representative of the proliferating talk-show hosts in markets big and small, friends of "Charlie, calling on the car phone" and enemies of all things liberal.
"It certainly has changed. In the beginning, it was just a little blip," said WABC's Bob Grant, a 31-year veteran of New York talk radio. "Now, it's all been feeding on itself."
Talk radio as a format goes back at least four decades, but began taking on steam behind a series of events - the music-friendly FM band made AM disc jockeys a threatened species, on-air political controversy became more convenient with repeal of the Fairness Doctrine requiring time for opposing viewpoints, satellite technology allowed wider airing of radio shows, the advent of car and cellular phones widened participation, and, in 1988, the aforementioned Mr. Limbaugh went into syndication.
Combining humor, exaggerated pomposity and a smooth style, Limbaugh demonstrated that there was a much larger audience for call-in shows about political topics than had been widely believed. Limbaugh, who declined AP requests for comment, has become a superstar, complete with best-selling books, a television show and "Rush Is Right" bumper stickers.
And politically oriented talk shows, often written off as the isolated province of ranters and ravers preaching to a fringe choir, now are increasingly popular - and even powerful.
"It has become more opinionated and less inhibited on the one hand," said Grant. "On the other hand, it has become almost a national obsession."
Hannity, 33, grew up on Long Island listening to Grant and other New York City talk shows. He was a construction contractor in California, but then he started calling talk shows, and . . . well, this is how a star is born in a business in which hot air rises:
Guy gets own show in Santa Barbara; loses show after insulting a lesbian; gets show in northern Alabama; is dubbed "The Talk Show Personality From Hell" by newspaper columnist who accuses him of race-baiting and gay-bashing; gets guest shot at WGST; causes stir by criticizing black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan ("Screwy Louie"); gets permanent job; becomes major-market star.
"We created a storm everywhere we went," he reflects with some satisfaction, slowly calming down in his studio after a typically frenetic show.
Storms can be exciting; they can also be destructive. Some warn that talk radio may be a threat - that it simplistically plays to prejudice and fear, short-circuiting democracy by stirring up public uproars that send politicians scurrying to react.
"It's very cultish, but it's terribly underestimated," said Paul Kattenburg, professor emeritus of government and international studies at the University of South Carolina.
During the fall elections, "I decided that we were witnessing a masterful act of propaganda on an enormously powerful new medium," said Kattenburg, a former State Department officer credited with sounding an early warning against U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
He thinks Limbaugh, syndicated host G. Gordon Liddy and other hosts carried out a strategy to undermine Clinton specifically and liberal ideals in general with ridicule, character attacks and exaggeration.
Talk-show audiences, he said, are not "a bunch of sheep. But if you do propaganda systematically and carefully, you can actually bring about a kind of sheep-like effect. I'm not wholly opposed to talk radio. But we must be on guard against demagoguery and propaganda."
While the hosts insist that they only reflect the views of their audiences, many a losing Democrat has complained that they are unfairly one-sided.
Ben Jones, a former actor ("Cooter" on TV's "Dukes of Hazzard") and former two-term Democratic congressman beaten by Gingrich last year, is a frequent talk-radio guest.
"It's an American tradition for people to get together and kick issues around. I think talk radio is a good thing because it gets people involved," Jones said. "But there's a great imbalance in it.
"It seems the right wing in the Republican Party has exploited this in a very sophisticated way. I would be on shows from Tennessee, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Alabama, and be asked the exact same questions. They had been faxed the Republican message of the day. They're pimping - and please use that word - for Newt Gingrich," Jones said.
Democrats have been expanding ties to talk radio in recent months, the hosts say. There are a handful of syndicated liberal hosts, and there's been a determined effort to find well-known counterweights to conservatives.
Ex-Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, a favorite target of conservative hosts, may start a show. Former Sen. Gary Hart recently began a Sunday evening program at KOA radio in Denver, which claims to reach listeners in up to 38 states.
But Hart's producer, Laurie Parsons, says he wants serious, thoughtful discussions: "He does not want to be the token liberal of the airwaves."
Conservative hosts say they are attack dogs, not lap dogs, and that they are as willing to attack the right as they are the left, if necessary.
"I think people want us to hold Newt and the boys' feet to the fire," said Mike McConnell of WLW in Cincinnati. "They don't like the idea that they might be waffling."
In Gingrich's backyard, self-styled libertarian Neal Boortz says to maintain its newly recognized clout, which he calls "nerve-wracking," talk radio should maintain a critical distance from both sides.
"I think the best role talk radio can play, if it can play it with intellectual honesty, is the loyal opposition," said Boortz, a 25-year talk veteran whose WSB show battles Hannity's for morning talk domination of Atlanta. "If the Republicans blow this opportunity, I would be much harsher on them for blowing it. It's put up or shut up time."
Aside from questions of fairness, the talk show hosts are dogged by accusations that they stoke intolerance.
In February, San Francisco's KSFO fired the leadoff host in its new, all-conservative lineup after his rabid attacks on gays and suggestions that AIDS patients be quarantined spurred protests and an advertising boycott in his six weeks there. The host, J. Paul Emerson, had been fired by another station last year after making anti-Japanese comments.
In New Jersey, Bob Grant became an issue in last year's Senate campaign when Democratic incumbent Frank Lautenberg and some black ministers demanded that Republican Chuck Haytaian denounce him for racist-sounding comments such as referring to rioters in Los Angeles as "savages" and the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as "a scumbag."
Grant denied racism, but association with him may have contributed to Haytaian's defeat.
"I felt awful about it, because a good man who should have been elected wasn't," said Grant, whose reaction sounded like something some of his targets might say: "It was not a pleasant experience because of the constant, perpetual, hammering away."
In Atlanta, Hannity indignantly rejects suggestions of bigotry. He is, he says, an "equal-opportunity basher" who goes after white "rednecks" as vigorously as he does black "Farrakhan supporters."
"I still want to ride that razor's edge. I want to be outrageous. I want to catch people and get them to listen . . . but there are certain lines I wouldn't want to cross."
On a recent day, the dominant topic is Rep. Barney Frank, the openly gay Masschusetts congressman, and the gay lifestyle in general.
Hannity notes to his audience that he lost his first radio show for criticizing a lesbian over artificial insemination pregnancy.
Credentials established, he adds: "It's unnatural and I still believe that . . . but the bottom line is I just think we ought to leave people alone and I don't think conservatives ought to be coming on the radio and making statements that, well, if you're gay and lesbian, you can't be in Congress.
"This is America," Hannity says, slapping papers on his desk as he warmed the microphone. "This is where we applaud and celebrate freedom of speech."
But this is also right-wing radioland.
Hannity answers the phone to hear an angry caller with two points:
1) Gays should be lined up against a wall, and
2) Hannity's comments to the contrary show he's getting soft.