Jeff Kuhner

Jeffrey Thomas "Jeff" Kuhner (born September 1, 1969) is a Canadian-American radio host, commentator, and the former editor of Insight on the News. He was also a regular contributor to the commentary pages of The Washington Times, and his articles have appeared in Human Events, National Review Online and Investor's Business Daily.^[1] He was president of the Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal, a dormant Washington D.C. think tank devoted to integrating minorities into the conservative movement. Until January 2012, the Burke Institute produced an online monthly magazine, Reflections, to which he regularly contributed. He is also a radio personality, serving as midday (noon to three) talk show host at WRKO AM 680 in Boston.^[2]

Life and career

Kuhner was born in Montreal, Canada, to Croatian immigrant parents.^[3] He is a graduate of Queen's University and did doctoral coursework at Ohio University.^[3][4] Kuhner taught Modern US History at McGill University in Montreal from 1998 to 2000, when he was offered a one-year rather than the two-year extension he wanted. According to his website, Kuhner left the university, "disgusted with the political correctness and sterile intellectual environment prevalent in academia", and accepted a position with the Washington Times.^[3][5] Kuhner worked from 2000 through 2003 as an assistant national editor at the Washington Times. After leaving the Washington Times, he worked for the Republican policy group the Ripon Society as communications director of the Ripon Forum. He was the editor of the US news magazine website Insight on the News from October 2005 until its closing in May 2008. Simultaneously, Kuhner worked at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education-policy organization, as its communications director.^[3] In 2007, Insight on the News attracted much controversy over an article that used anonymous sources to claim that the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton planned to accuse rival Barack Obama of attending a madrasa.^[6]

Insight's story focused on Obama's character as contrasted with Hillary Clinton. Kuhner wrote: "Indeed, Barack Obama has exceptional qualities and deserves kudos for his achievement. He is genteel, articulate, poised and charming. He is a Harvard-educated lawyer, yet he remains accessible to the common man. He has been married since 1992, has two lovely daughters and is by all accounts a devoted family man. He is a pious Christian and a member of the United Church of Christ."^[7] Five years later, however, Kuhner's assessment of Obama was very different. He wrote in the Washington Times: "President Obama's re-election was more than a victory for liberalism. It represented America's collective suicide—a national push into a fiscal, cultural and moral abyss. We are sliding toward Greece."^[8]

In October 2008, Kuhner wrote: "Moscow's main aim is to wrest the Crimean Peninsula from Kiev’s control. A majority of the Crimea’s inhabitants are ethnic Russians. ... But Ukraine is not Georgia; it is a large, militarily powerful country with long memories of Russian domination. Any attempt at partition by Moscow would be met by fierce resistance. It would spark a bloody Russo-Ukrainian war. This would inevitably drag in Poland and the Baltic States – all of which are members of NATO. Mr. Putin’s bellicose nationalism threatens to ignite a European conflagration."^[9]

In May 2012, Kuhner wrote: "The center of world fascism is no longer Berlin, but Tehran. Iran's theocratic regime not only denies the Holocaust, it seeks to complete Hitler's Final Solution: the annihilation of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, Israel. This is why it is desperate to attain the bomb."^[10]

Kuhner began his weekly column at the Washington Times in June 2008.^[11] In 2010, the paper published an op-ed by Kutner in which he described Julian Assange as a terrorist threat and called for his targeted killing.^[12][13][14] In September 2013, Kuhner criticized Barack Obama's support for Syrian rebels fighting government troops: "Mr. Obama’s decision ... to arm the rebels has created a dangerous security threat to America — and the Middle East. The reason is simple: U.S. weapons will inevitably fall into the hands of jihadist groups."^[15]

Radio career

In November 2009, Kuhner became the host of The Kuhner Show, on Washington, D. C. station 570 WTNT. The show was canceled after WTNT became a sports station in September 2010. Unable to find radio work in the DC, Maryland or Virginia area, Kuhner began a feature on Boston's WRKO called The Kuhner Report. Kuhner would regularly call into the WRKO Morning Show with reports on DC politics. In 2012 he began hosting a two-hour late morning program on WRKO. Initially Kuhner would be on from 9:00 to 10:00 am. A financial infomercial aired from 10:00 to 11:00am. Kuhner would then return for a second hour from 11:00 am to noon.^[16] On October 31, 2012, The Kuhner Report expanded to the morning drive time slot (6 to 10 am) on WRKO, replacing the previous morning show hosted by Todd Feinburg and Michele McPhee.^[17] In July 2015, Kuhner was shifted from the four-hour morning show^[18] to a three-hour midday show from noon to 3 pm. Although Kuhner claimed the move was part of a plan to syndicate his program nationally, as of July 1, 2016, he is only heard on WRKO. In September 2015, Kuhner's executive producer Bill Cooksey, who was instrumental in the hiring of Kuhner, left the station and the broadcasting industry. Cooksey now works as a ranger for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

In addition to his own shows, Kuhner has guest hosted The Mark Levin Show, The Savage Nation, and The Howie Carr Show.

References

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