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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.

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

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."

If that's what the reviewer thinks is "deliciously wicked," the rest of the show must have been even worse than he describes.