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the most experienced radio personality in Air America's lineup is Randi Rhodes, who for the past 10 years has been stinging conservatives and delighting liberals at WJNO-AM 1290 in West Palm Beach. Rhodes, a native New Yorker, talked with the St. Petersburg Times about the mistaken notion that liberals can't succeed on talk radio, the pleasure of humiliating Oliver North and the one thing about her hometown that she can't stand.

We asked Rhodes the origin of her purely political format:

Rhodes: When I got (to WJNO in 1994), O.J. (Simpson) had just started, and it was just a natural fit. My first day there, I showed up to work in a white Bronco with a police escort.

It was also an election year. I was a Democrat. Radio was still pretty conservative. I was expressing my point of view. I never really knew how the politics of AM went, then all of a sudden I found out that being a Democrat is an odd thing. I replaced G. Gordon Liddy. I inherited his audience, and they are real militant conservatives. I was on against Rush.

Times: You thrived down there.

Rhodes: Because they were wrong and I was right and I could show that over and over. Then the Monica thing came along. I totally defended Clinton. In retrospect, I think everybody sees how stupid it was to go after him about sex when we're at war because of lies. I was proven right every time I would say something.

Times: Other stations in other parts of the country have put on liberal shows that failed, and my question would be . . .

Rhodes: (Interrupting) Who? Who? Name me one.

Times: People mention Alan Dershowitz; they mention Mario Cuomo.

Rhodes: I'm going to give you the facts here. Dershowitz was on Friday nights. Cuomo was on Saturday nights. They were on one day a week on the weekends. They did interview shows. It wasn't personality-driven. That's not the same. These guys are constantly thrown in my face as being huge failures. You know what? They were one night a week. . . . The only (liberal talk show) that exists is mine, and it's wildly successful.

Times: During your show, you're as likely to quote from Eisenhower's "military industrial complex" speech as you are to talk about something lighthearted, like the shoes you wore to visit the senators in Washington. Can you describe your style?

Rhodes: It's real. If my shoes hurt, I'll tell you. When I introduced Bill Clinton, part of it was how great it was to get a hug from Bill Clinton, but the other part of it was the two hours I spent downstairs with the Secret Service not letting me pee. It's all part of the same story. I choose to tell the whole story.

Times: You like to be prepared for your interviews. The one I'm thinking of is the Oliver North interview. Can you tell me what happened when he thought he was coming in for a friendly chat?

Rhodes: I never thought he was coming in for a friendly chat. I was armed to the teeth. I had his indictment, I had his convictions, I had Firewall, the book written by the independent counsel Lawrence Walsh.

I was ready to confront him because I knew he would never admit there was a day in his life that he had been convicted for crimes against the United States and for lying to Congress. He was a convicted felon. (The convictions were later vacated.) This guy says what a great American he is, but yet he betrayed his country eight ways from Sunday. He laundered money for the Saudis, he did horrible, horrible things. He sold missiles to Iran, then took money and laundered it through a drug ring, and the money ended up supporting the Nicaraguan Contras in a secret war that was strictly prohibited by Congress by the Boland Amendment.

I wanted him to admit that one fact, and he wouldn't do it. He started screaming, "I've been shot. Who are you? I've been shot." He didn't know I've served in the military, too. I said, "What makes you think you're the only person who has ever put on a uniform? What's your problem? I put on the uniform, too, but I was never convicted of lying to Congress." He was furious because I had him dead to rights, and he walked off the show.

Times: How long did it take before he walked out?

Rhodes: Twelve minutes. I was hoping for 10, I got 12.

Times: What is the balance between entertainment and dissemination of information in talk radio?

Rhodes: Radio is the most personal medium there is. It's a real family thing. Who do you talk politics with? You talk politics with your friends and family. If something happened to me that's funny, I'll talk about it. My mother sends me these horrible cards all the time. She says, "It's okay, I'll eat by myself. Love, Mom." She'll always call me and she'll say, "I don't know how it came up, but they found out you were my daughter." You know what it is, it's my mother going, "Do you know who my daughter is? Do you?"

Times: One thing that has struck me about nationally syndicated shows is the name-calling. Conservatives call liberals "fat, stupid and lazy," and liberals call conservatives "jackbooted Nazis." Do you have to do that to make a show successful?

Rhodes: Conservatives call me a "femi-Nazi," but I haven't done anything except express my opinion. When I call someone a jackbooted Nazi, he's wearing jackboots. My attacks are fact-based. I call Rush the "three-hour hatemonger" because that's what he preaches: hatred for women, hatred for blacks.

He was sitting on the air the other day saying the families of 9/11 were Democrats and that's why they're upset (at President Bush's campaign ads). They're not really grieving. He actually said that. Kristen Breitweiser, who's the head of the group of families, wrote him a letter and said, "I'm a Republican. My husband was a Republican. He died in the Trade Center. He voted for Bush. I'm waiting for your apology." Which will never come.

Times: Conservative talk radio, some say, took hold in reaction to Clinton. I'm wondering to what extent the success of liberal talk radio depends on having an adversary in the White House.

Rhodes: You know the answer to that. I was on the air for eight years with Clinton, and I did great. That's just another bogus argument. Rush doesn't do all that well, by the way, and most of these conservatives don't. I was just on CNN the other night with this guy Michael Smerconish (Philadelphia talk show host), who's saying for the millionth time no one wants to listen to liberal talk. I had my ratings with me. I had his ratings with me. He's 18th in the market, and I'm No. 1. He's telling me no one wants to listen to me?

Times: But then how does conservative talk radio become so prevalent?

Rhodes: It's a copycat thing. TV's the same way. If something is successful, everyone copies it. If Roseanne is successful, then everyone wants to do a situation comedy starring a standup comedian. People are so reluctant to break the mold, to do something new.

Times: Why weren't you copied?

Rhodes: Because nobody knew about me. I was in West Palm Beach. It was the 47th largest market.

Times: Rush started in Sacramento.

Rhodes: But Rush had a money guy that syndicated him, a man who poured millions of dollars into (the show). I didn't have that until now.

Times: Is your show going to change now that it's going national?

Rhodes: Maybe it will get better because I'm surrounded by so much talent. I'm hoping the atmosphere, once we get up and running, will be really creative instead of all business all the time, like it is at Clear Channel.

Times: Let me ask you about your syndication. I heard a story that Rush forbade Clear Channel to syndicate you.

Rhodes: Last year, I asked for a meeting to get the definitive answer (about syndication). That meeting lasted 21/2 hours, and during those 21/2 hours all I did was cry, because I was told that I would never, ever be syndicated by Clear Channel. It was suggested I go outside the company because it wasn't going to risk all the guaranteed money Rush brings in for someone who was untried.

I got real serious, and I said I need a new contract, because I need to be able to go to other people and tell them I'm free. They wrote a new contract that said I could go outside the company for syndication.

Times: Do you think there's any chance the pendulum may be swinging away from conservative talk?

Rhodes: Absolutely. I've said that in every meeting I've gone to. Physics being what it is, the pendulum has swung all the way to the right and now it's got to swing back.

Times: So it's physics-driven? It has nothing to do with the political landscape?

Rhodes: I think that everybody's heard what (conservative talk show hosts) have to say for 10 years. People want to go back the other way. Eight years of peace and prosperity is kind of hard to deny. The idea that (Bush) has been president for three years and millions of jobs have been lost and we've been attacked, we had the biggest intelligence failure in the history of our country on his watch . . .

Times: I have to jump in here. There's blame being laid at the feet of the Clinton administration as well for that failure.

Rhodes: On Sept. 11, 2001, Bush was president. If they want to blame Clinton, let them do so at their own peril.

Times: But the 9/11 Commission has just said there was too much emphasis placed on diplomacy. I know you read the same things I read.

Rhodes: Clinton did try to hit Osama bin Laden with (Tomahawk) missile strikes. These same Republicans who are screaming about patriotism and national security were saying then, "No war for Monica." You can't have it both ways.

Times: Last question: How are you handling New York's antismoking laws?

Rhodes: I can't wait to get on the air and start screaming about that. This is Sin City. You can buy anything you want 24 hours a day, including a woman, but you can't smoke a cigarette in a bar? I can drink alcohol and get in a car, but I can't smoke a cigarette. Okay. It's wrong. This whole antismoking thing is wrong.