Leading up to the Super Tuesday primaries, many conservative talk radio listeners, like me, looked in the mirror and found the enemy is us. Not exactly us, but our conservative talk radio personalities—the radio folks with which we identify. And we are sad for what we are hearing.

Almost 100 years ago (March of 1914 to be exact), H. L. Mencken opined adroitly about “Newspaper Morals” in the Atlantic Monthly. Mencken remembered the advice he received from his mentor:

Knock somebody in the head every day—if not an actor, then the author, and if not the author, then the manager. And if the play and the performance are perfect, then excoriate someone who doesn't think so—a fellow critic, a rival manager, the unappreciative public. But make it hearty; make it hot!

Mencken continued by applying this principle to “the man of politics”:

The primary aim of all of them (the media) … was to please the crowd, to give a good show; and the way they set about giving that good show was by first selecting a deserving victim, and then putting him magnificently to the torture. … Always their first aim was to find a concrete target, to visualize their cause in some definite and defiant opponent. And always their second aim was to shell that opponent until he dropped his arms and took to ignominious flight. It was not enough to maintain and to prove; it was necessary also to pursue and overcome, to lay a specific somebody low, to give the good show … They are always ready for a man-hunt, and their favorite quarry is the man of politics.

Well, some things never change, do they? Although they claim to despise the “drive-by media,” Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and friends have resorted to using the age-old drive-by media “tool”—vilification of a chosen target, in this case Senator John McCain.

Mencken also said something to the effect that it is curious that even when the media want to glorify a person or cause (such as Mitt Romney), they are like a mechanic with only one tool with which to work: to excoriate someone or something, in this case John McCain.

I sense that Mencken would be proud of his prophecy and chortle a bit at how right he was. More importantly, this bluster by Rush and friends is not lost on most Republicans and thinking conservatives, like me.

There is a growing backlash of Republicans beginning to see the attack on “anything McCain” for what it is. You see, what we’ve learned over the years of listening to talk radio is to be critical, to dissect the issues, to be skeptical. And now we are of you Rush, Laura, Sean and friends.

Mencken also pointed out in his Atlantic Monthly article that the methods and motivations for attacks by newspapermen were several:

This was their method when they were performing for their own profit only, when their one motive was to make the public read their paper; but it was still their method when they were battling bravely and unselfishly for the public good, and so discharging the highest duty of their profession.

Whether the recent rants are purely for profit (Big Radio), or to increase listenership (Rush and Laura “high on their own supply”) or, ostensibly, for the conservative “cause,” the effect on a whole lot of listeners like me is the same: the sick feeling that our talk radio hosts are plain old newspaper men and women of the Mencken mold. A sad lesson indeed.

Today’s talk radio frenzy, including the recent contemptible attack on Bob Dole, remind me of Lincoln’s admonition that “little men” cannot become “big men” by tearing “big men” down.