Air America: Al Franken is no Rush Limbaugh

Men's News Daily ^ | April 2, 2004 | Bernard Chapin

[cubreporter]

if little al f. had any real guts or real courage he would truly invite Ann on his show for a debate instead of PRETENDING she was there in the green room. However, the little weasel knows Ann would wipe the floor with his arrogant little face.

Are these people laughable or what? It's amazing.

What little al f. doesn't realize is you CAN'T PRETEND to have talent and then go on a radio show. You must be BORN with it like Rush and Sean and be able to have facts not fiction and debate not hate.

He'll be off the air before we know it.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I listened to Randi Rhodes yesterday. Once I found out that Hannity was a liberal, I figured I might as well see how other liberals do talk radio.

Turns out Hannity played the part of a liberal better than any of the yabbos doing the show on WLIB for real.

It was obnoxious to say the least.

I listened again today to see if maybe, just maybe they got a clue and actually had an agenda. Turns out the libs do not have an agenda(suprise). Well just a hate Bush agenda.

I figure these idiots actually believe that there is a very large populace of lefties out there willing to listen to this swill. Talking to an NPR listerner today this is what she had to say.

"It is embarrassing. John F'ing Kerry embarrassing. Lieberman would have been the best choice to take the presidency from Bush. It sucks being a Democrat these days."

I sort of chuckled and asked how she liked her new Suburban.

[petercooper]

franken is about as entertaining as a piece of wood

[My2Cents]

and many of the skits and personas he created were priceless

More like worthless.

[BurbankKarl]

Air America debut sends a weak signal


By Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune arts critic, 4.2

If talk radio in America has become scorched-earth political warfare, Al Franken has joined the battle armed with a squirt gun.

The formidable comedian-satirist may have been brilliant in the pages of his best-selling books, but his debut Wednesday as standard-bearer for a self-proclaimed liberal radio network signals that the man has no clue why Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity rule the air waves.

Moreover, the first day of Air America Radio-- the emerging conglomerate of AM stations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland--offered vast stretches of earnest but bumbling, semi-pro broadcasting interrupted by occasional periods of bona fide radio.

As the official face of the new liberal network, which aims to counterbalance radio's right-wing flame-throwers, Franken stands as its great bright hope (Air America is heard in Chicago on WNTD-AM 950). He launched the network at 11 a.m. CST on a deliciously wicked note, announcing that he was "broadcasting from an underground bunker 3,500 feet below Dick Cheney's bunker."

But it was all downhill from there.

For starters, the lackadaisical pace of Franken's chit-chat with co-host Katherine Lanpher suggested they were sipping espressos and munching on scones at a Starbucks, rather than taking on Limbaugh, Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Giddily chuckling over missed cues, headphone glitches and other first-day mishaps, Franken and Lanpher sounded as if they were having a grand old time, relentlessly giggling at each other's chatter.

Have they listened--really listened--to Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and the like? Whether you love or loathe the politics of those angry white men, there's no mistaking their ardor for the most minuscule details of public policy. They can rattle off the details of California's Proposition 57 or the recent federal budget proposals the way most of us recite our favorite haute cuisine meal. The sheer zeal they bring to the battlefield makes the listener believe--if only momentarily--that the fate of the world hangs on these issues.

No such urgency could be detected in "The O'Franken Factor," which was titled to spoof "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News Channel but didn't approach the fireworks of its namesake.

And then there were the guests. Reasonable people might disagree over whether Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore was an ideal, debut-show visitor, his tendency toward extreme hyperbole perhaps doing as much to damage the left-wing cause as promote it. But Franken's overwrought genuflections to the man recalled "The Sammy Maudlin Show" on the old SCTV program.

Even convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy, an arch-conservative who happens to be a longtime Franken friend, received a wet kiss from the host. The appearance represented the last hope that Franken had any idea about how to hook a radio audience in today's tumultuous political climate.

Not that absolutely everything about "The O'Franken Factor" fizzled. When former Vice President Al Gore phoned in, Moore slyly quipped, "Hi Al--or should I say, Mr. President," referring, clearly, to that messy national election and Supreme Court decision of 2000.

The tempo picked up dramatically when veteran talk-radio host Randi Rhodes took to the airwaves for the afternoon shift, though her initial griping about the lack of promotion she had received from Air America seemed to set the stage for another wipeout. But that very biliousness turned to her advantage once she set her sights on her real enemies, which included independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who phoned in.

"I'm angry at you," she told the Florida election spoiler. "We can't afford you this year, Ralph."

Whenever Nader protested, Rhodes ran over him like a truck.

"Is this the way you want to start Air America?" Nader protested. "You want it to be Hot Air America? ... You've got a very bad interviewing technique."

Rhodes instantly shot back.

"I am not interviewing you," she said. "I am angry at you. Can't you tell the difference? ... You screwed up the last election."

Nader slammed down the phone, and it was clear that Air America Radio had at least one host who understood that the medium is hot, not cool, fiery not dispassionate.

As the broadcast day unfolded, however, it became sadly clear that Rhodes was the only personality on the upstart network who knew what she was doing.

Whoever decided to air a media-ethics show hosted by a communications professor during afternoon drive time had to be working for the opposition.

Finally, Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder proved on the evening shift that effective agitprop is harder to deliver than it might seem.

In the end, Wednesday turned out to be a great day for right-wing talk radio.

[TexasCajun]

Al O'Franken is a persona of Stuart Smalley!

[My2Cents]

You can't say Gore won the popular vote in 2000, nobody knows and the facts make it look doubtful.

...Considering all of the vote fraud the Dems were engaged in around the country, it is extremely doubtful.

[Vision]

I'm not talking about that.

When a state is counting votes and one candidate is leading by more votes then they have left to count, the state stops counting.

There were a few million uncounted votes in the last election. Absentee votes are not counted. And what party does well in absentee votes?

[ChadGore]

[Joe_October]

.... As a writer for Saturday Night Live he accomplished truly great things for fifteen seasons, and many of the skits and personas he created were priceless....

SNL has been crap for a long time. What was Franken's genius contributions?

[Lizavetta]

franken is about as entertaining as a piece of wood

Al Gore thanks you.

[jwalsh07]

Anybody that listens to FrankenNonsense needs to get their squash examined.

[small voice in the wilderness]

He has no fire, no thunder and no clarity of thought

Because he, like all liberals, refuses to acknowledge the importance of his soul. They live and react from the flesh. His five senses rule his life and as long as he ignores the proddings of his soul, he will never have fire, thunder, or clarity of thought.

[Qwinn]

Wow. It's REALLY sad that that reviewer is so negative overall, when he found room to compliment this:

"He launched the network at 11 a.m. CST on a deliciously wicked note, announcing that he was "broadcasting from an underground bunker 3,500 feet below Dick Cheney's bunker."

Huh? This is comedy? Am I missing something, that I do not remotely understand how this is supposed to be "deliciously wicked"?

"But it was all downhill from there".

THIS is just frightening. I didn't listen to even a minute of the show, but if that lame Cheney line was the HIGHLIGHT, I can only imagine the truly awful awfulness of it all.

Qwinn

[Pelham]

At least Garafalo has a face made for radio.
For that matter, so does Franken.
Imagine the kids they'd produce....
Scary.

[Pelham]

SNL has been crap for a long time. What was Franken's genius contributions?

The crap part.

[BushisTheMan]

Maybe we can organize a call-in. Say we are Republicans voting for Kerry this time because we are tired of ______________ fill in the blank with a positive for Bush.

Example:
...because we are tired of an improved economy!
...because we are sick and tired of such a lovely First Lady!
...because we are sick of Bush killing or capturing terrorists.

We should all pick the same day and hour.

[zip]

What or who is an Al franken

Haven't you seen all of the movies? You know, the monster is built from spare parts of corpses and then lightening strikes and the monster arises and scares the crap out of everyone. I can't believe you don't remember alfrankenstein.

[Libloather]

His radio shtick cannot be rehearsed for an entire week and then smoothly performed because he has to respond to the statements of callers and guests.

I saw a clip of Al Frankenfraud reading his lackluster punch lines. Not everyone is cut out for radio. Plenty of leftists will have to learn the hard way. NEXT!

[Liz]

I caution FReepers not to aid and abet Franken and (gag) Liberal Radio by tuning in, even for research purposes. We know he's a bum, so why tune in?