Dirty Air

The reviews are in on “Air America”, the liberal radio network. It doesn’t sound good. From the Washington Post:

Al Franken set a lofty standard on his new radio show yesterday, casting it as “a battle for truth, a battle for justice, a battle for America itself.”

“Not to be grandiose about it,” he added.

… A good radio show has strong pacing and a deft mixture of ideology, confrontation and humor. Franken’s “Factor” was meandering and discursive, almost NPR-like, sounding more like someone shooting the breeze at a dinner party than trying to persuade listeners. The “bumpers” between segments were soft and Muzak-like. With Franken speaking in a relatively low voice, the self-proclaimed “Zero Spin Zone” sometimes sounded like a zero energy zone.

A surprise call from Al Gore was frittered away as Moore offered an apology (for supporting Ralph Nader in 2000) so convoluted that the former Democratic nominee asked: “What are you saying?” Gore said he was making an exception to his no-interview policy because “your show is a really important show” and promised to return. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is slated for today.

… Franken got off a good rant now and then, such as when he talked about Bush’s television ads: “They can’t show the carrier footage with him in front of ‘Mission Accomplished’ — it just looked stupid. Now I think they can’t do 9/11. The only thing they’re going to be able to do is ads of him clearing brush.”

But a mock news interview with an Arab man at the London airport who seemed to suggest he was bringing on board a dog who had swallowed box cutters seemed insensitive as well as unfunny.

It sounds like the main problem is a lack of a slick, high-energy tempo. The idea that something was insensitive or unfunny just means they’re doing it like the right wing guys.

Meanwhile, the right-wing pundits say:

O’Reilly said on his Fox News show that “this whole liberal network scheme is just plain stupid. . . . These pinheads backing the venture will lose millions of dollars because the propaganda network is simply tedious and tedious doesn’t sell.”

Conservative radio host Jay Severin mocked the venture in the Boston Globe: “Yes, we know you believe with utmost sincerity that we are monstrous Neanderthals, but do you really believe your left-wing/pacifist/United Nations/French worldview will win a big middle-class audience? In America?”
O’Reilly calling something propaganda is so hypocritical that it would make a sci-fi movie robot boggle and smoke pour from it’s ears.
And it’s funny to hear a right-winger spew forth almost all of the approved fascist buzzwords from their list — when did things like “pacifist,” “United Nations” and “French” become such bad things?