Radio: America Still on the Air

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The Randi Rhodes Show. The network's one true radio veteran, Rhodes is also the most belligerent of the hosts, and the closest in tone to the Hannity-O'Reilly-Savage crowd (which partly explains her popularity in the talk-radio jungle). She bugged me big time on her Air America debut show, when she played it cozy with the reactionary Pat Buchanan because he had opposed the Iraq invasion, then hectored ideological soul-mate Ralph Nader because he planned to run for the White House again. She was so rude and interruptive to Nader that he hung up. I nearly did too. Rhodes sounded ready to sacrifice most of her (and my) liberal principles to elect John Kerry — and way too eager to play the all-too-familiar role of radio bully.

As the campaign season wore on, as the Bush camp scored points attacking Kerry's heroic war record and he challenger was revealed as a lame campaigner, I grew to value Rhodes. Off with the gloves, I figured, on with the brass knuckles. No question, Rhodes is a savvy radio professional — preternaturally articulate, as William F. Buckley Jr. once described Limbaugh — who can fill four hours of air time on any political topic. (Last week she did most of a whole show on Operation Rescue mischief-maker and Schiavo adviser Randall Terry. Why? Because she could.)

A bumper ad for Rhodes' show calls it "Radio, only smarter." And she is scary smart. If she gets on my nerves by telling everybody, especially callers with a contrary take, that's she's always right, she earns my respect by being mostly always right. ("You're the best," said a caller she actually let finish his comments today. "I know," she answered.) In the documentary you can see Randi in action on the air, where during a mega-rant she'll flashes a smile that doesn't transmit aurally. Seeing that, I'm readier to believe that she's having fun playing the Bitch from Brooklyn — as Limbaugh (more clearly) radiates the pleasure he takes and gives as the preeminent conservative blowhard.

The Majority Report. "I get very, very inarticulate when somebody asks me a direct question," Garofalo admits. But at times, she's way too articulate. Voluble, anyway. I wish that, during an interview, she'd give some air time to the guest instead of cramming in all her talking points. Garofalo attacks "the right-wing radiocracy" that is "used to lull the dullards." But she can't always control her stand-up instinct to get the first and last words in. Most of the time, though, she and Seder show good rapport and keep the left-wing motor purring through the evening.

The Mike Malloy Show. This Atlanta-based host, who now occupies the 10 P.M. to 1 A.M. slot, has a cool shtick. He begins his opening monologue in the soft, cuddling tones of liberal gentility, then rapidly escalates in volume and urgency, until by the end of the segment he's a raving looney, railing against "the Bush crime family" and shouting, "I hate this country!" He's like the Peter Finch character in "Network," and I always wish I were a teamster, driving through the night, propelled by Malloy's berserk bromides.


NOW WHAT?

In the despair of Nov. 3, the morning after the election, program director Carl Ginsberg considered the upside: "Easy programming decisions, though." As Bill Clinton's election in 1992 gave Limbaugh eight years of Democratic rule at which he could aim his bombs and bombast, so Bush's election guaranteed Air America four years of something big to pick at. The network has been doing just that, with increasing proficiency, the past five months. Now it needs to be come a full-service, 24-hour network. How about an overnight show? At the moment the milkman shift belongs to ESPN's Todd Wright, to the paranormal "Coast to Coast" (with George Nouri on weeknights and Art Bell on the weekends) and, on many public stations, BBC World News. Late-night is too vast a slot to bequeath to Brits, jocks and UFOs. A sassy host ready to take on callers of all opinions could bring liberal dominance to the one segment of the talk-broadcast day not owned by the political right.

Air America also has to fill its weekend slots with original programming. Granted, Kaplan's show is on Saturdays now. Robert Kennedy Jr. and lawyer Mike Papantonio energetically pick over corporate malfeasance. Pacifica veteran Laura Flanders can make a strong point while breaking a talk-radio taboo by acknowledging the occasional doubt. Cult rocker Steve Earle and Chuck D. colleague Kyle Jason have shows that play music and talk a little revolution. That leaves most of the weekend filled with reruns of Maron's, Franken's and Rhodes' weekday stints of Maron, Rhodes. I suppose it's a cheap way to introduce Air America's stars to dial drifters. But it's too cheap. News happens on the weekend; Americana don't run out of opinions on their days off. The network should fill some of that Saturday and Sunday airtime with young, hungry liberals.

Or it could buy, at low cost, shows from good leftie broadcasters not on its own slate. A decade ago, when WABC had already gone into the right-wing rant biz, it used the weekends for a feeble stab at equal time by picking up syndicated lefties Bernie Ward and Jim Hightower. They're still around, as are other hosts. One rising star of liberal radio is Ed Schultz, a Dakotan whose views are leftish but whose every intonation is so Rush-like that Limbaugh might be able to sue him for voice theft.

I know, I ask too much of a network that is still a year or more from breaking even financially. I should be grateful, and I am, that there's an intelligent, entertaining half of the country that didn't vote for Bush. I hope that those on the other side of the great ideological divide tune in too. I was a fan of Rush the radio spellbinder (not Rush the political pundit), and fans of pinwheeling polemics should give it a shot, even if their on (but not in) the right. I asked my cousin Mert Nason, an encyclopedically informed, sharply pugnacious conservative, if he had ever listened to Air America. Yes, he replied, the day after the election. My first response was, Ouch. My second: If Mert did, he heard the hosts speak through their gloom with a surprising resilience. They promised, threatened, that the left isn't going down without another four-year fight.

And I'm glad that the hosts still proudly parade their neuroses: Franken in his "Oy, Oy, Oy Show" guise of a harried married elderly Jew; Rhodes blithely discussing her history of plastic surgeries and her recent hysterectomy; Maron checking himself after uncharacteristically saying something nice about the Pope and musing, "Am I being too giving?"; Garofalo replaying, on her anniversary show, the clip of a segment where she broke into great heaving sobs, miserable that some bloggers had called her fat. It's not for everyone, this use of radio as a wailing wall. But the combination of pugnacious politics and primal screams has people listening. Often, it makes for excellent radio.

Keep at it, Air America. Have a terrific Terrible Twos.

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