The author is missing the point -- Air America is not intended to be a longtime radio mainstay. It exists for exactly one reason: to get Bush out of office. It's an easy way for Democrats to funnel money to that effort without worrying about campaign finance laws.
There is already a loophole in CFR which liberals are, will, and always have been driving a truck through - it's called journalism. If you are a journalist you can report the news right up to election day, "so people know what's going on." But "what is going on" is only to be seen in retrospect; making that call in real time is an ink-blot test.Journalism is politics. By the freedom journalists have to decide what is and what is not news, journalists express their politics - and vice versa. The rules of what makes a "great story" are anticonservative in nature; the business of reporting consists of looking for the hole in the conservative donut.
Journalism calls itself "the press," as if the particular genre of nonfiction publishing which is published periodically on a fixed schedule with short deadlines were the only thing the First Amendment freedom to publish was talking about. In reality, of course, books ain't chopped liver. Even fiction (e.g., Uncle Tom's Cabin) can have a powerful political effect.
The true motive of the push for "a liberal Rush Limbaugh" is to provide cover for the liberalism of journalism. It is to help in the ongoing propaganda campaign to "position" journalism as being something other than the liberalism that is so obviously is.
I think you’re right. This author doesn’t bring up the possibility that the subject of his analysis is simply a misdirection. Looks like he took the bait and ran.