The new liberal radio network Air America blasted off today, and quite frankly it did not get very far. I listened to the two headline shows today, "The O'Franken Factor"(Another of Al Franken's satirical jabs at Bill O'Reilly), and "The Majority Report", with host Janeane Garofalo.
Franken's show was listenable, but certainly not pleasureable, and if I didn't have such a strong desire to see this liberal radio thing work then I would have shut him off ten minutes into the program.
Janeane's show was better, but only because she laid low on the talking. She let her guests and her co-host do most of the work, which was good because inevitably when she did say something, it was something annoying, like "It's o.k. to be partisan when you're on the good side."
Now, to give these guys a little bit of a pass they have never done radio before, and it is, after all, their first day. Nevertheless, neither show was very impressive. In fact the two most exciting people on either show were guests Michael Moore and Dave Chapelle. In fact, the guests in general were the best part of either program. The hosts were totally seconday, and in fact I kind of wished they would go away and just let the guests talk.
I heard that Sean Hannity said today, and I am paraphrasing here, that the liberal network wouldn't work because they are too dull. The fact is, for Hannity's listeners they are too dull. In order to make this liberal radio network work you have to have moron listeners that just like to shake their head up and down, or as Rush likes to call them, "dittoheads". Liberals are often far too enlightened to sit and listen to ad hominum attacks and just shake their head, they want premises with their conclusions.
Unfortunately this means that liberal radio probably won't be as big as I had hoped. We liberals just don't want partisan banter for the sake of the partisanship. No, Janeane it is not o.k. to be partisan when you are on the good side. It is not that easy. Liberals don't see things as easily as that. Things are not generally simply put in terms of good/bad, black/white. Liberals like the nuances, and quite frankly the morons that listen to Rush and Hannity would have to look up nuances. Buit for that they would need to own a dictionary.
I'll always have NPR, which is only accused of being liberal because it is so damn smart.