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Aol hbo executives fund liberal corporate talk show { April 1 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40719-2004Mar31.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40719-2004Mar31.html
Liberal Radio Network Hits Air With Left Jab
Programming Debuts With Al Franken
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A01
Al Franken set a lofty standard on his new radio show yesterday, casting it as "a battle for truth, a battle for justice, a battle for America itself."
"Not to be grandiose about it," he added.
Air America Radio didn't have a grandiose debut -- the signal was elusive in Los Angeles, its San Francisco station didn't materialize and its Internet feed kept breaking off -- but the fledgling liberal network managed to plant its flag in what has been overwhelmingly conservative turf.
With a preaching-to-the-converted tone, Franken ripped President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter ("a walking horror show," he called her), the target of several parodies in which the conservative commentator was portrayed -- in rather mean fashion -- as an ill-tempered, cursing, borderline racist.
A parade of liberal guests scored their partisan points on "The O'Franken Factor." But perhaps the most entertaining moment came when conservative talker and onetime Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy called in from his radio show.
"I know if someone comes after me, you'll kill them," Franken said.
"And not quickly," Liddy noted. "Slowly and painfully."
A comedian who made a name on "Saturday Night Live" and later wrote a book attacking Rush Limbaugh, Franken is the marquee draw for Air America, which launched on stations in New York, Chicago, L.A., Portland, Ore., and suburban southern California and on XM Satellite Radio. A station in Minneapolis, Franken's home town, is picking up his show. Air America is seeking a Washington station, but area listeners can access the network online at www.airamericaradio.com.
The venture was rushed on the air by Chevy Chase businessman Mark Walsh, a former executive at HBO and America Online who worked for John Kerry's presidential campaign last year, and Manhattan financier Evan Cohen. Walsh, the company's chief executive, says he expects the firm, which has fewer than 100 employees, to lose $30 million in the coming years but hopes to gain a foothold among liberal and independent listeners hungry for a left-leaning alternative on the radio.
Mindful that such liberal politicians as Mario Cuomo and Jerry Brown have flopped as radio hosts, Walsh has assembled a lineup that leans heavily on entertainers, from comedian Janeane Garofalo to rapper Chuck D to Lizz Winstead, co-creator of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."
Conservative pundits have been dismissive. O'Reilly said on his Fox News show that "this whole liberal network scheme is just plain stupid. . . . These pinheads backing the venture will lose millions of dollars because the propaganda network is simply tedious and tedious doesn't sell."
Conservative radio host Jay Severin mocked the venture in the Boston Globe: "Yes, we know you believe with utmost sincerity that we are monstrous Neanderthals, but do you really believe your left-wing/pacifist/United Nations/French worldview will win a big middle-class audience? In America?"
Katherine Lanpher, formerly of Minnesota Public Radio, proved a useful foil as Franken's co-host on the noon program, chiding him for promoting his latest book and at one point telling him to "zip it." She did much of the heavy lifting during an interview with former senator Bob Kerrey, a member of the 9/11 commission, although Franken displayed detailed knowledge of the terrorism issue as well. When Franken referred to "Gorelick," Lanpher had to explain that he meant former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, also a member of the Sept. 11 commission.
A conspiratorial caller asked about rumors that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had warned then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown not to fly on Sept. 11, 2001, which Kerrey dismissed as unsubstantiated. Franken made sure to add that "I don't believe for a second that they knew this was going to happen. . . . I do believe they were asleep at the wheel."
A good radio show has strong pacing and a deft mixture of ideology, confrontation and humor. Franken's "Factor" was meandering and discursive, almost NPR-like, sounding more like someone shooting the breeze at a dinner party than trying to persuade listeners. The "bumpers" between segments were soft and Muzak-like. With Franken speaking in a relatively low voice, the self-proclaimed "Zero Spin Zone" sometimes sounded like a zero energy zone.
An interview with liberal author and filmmaker Michael Moore wandered from the writing of his two-year-old book "Stupid White Men" to joking about connections between the Bush family and the Saudi royal clan to Moore reading letters from soldiers who don't like the president.
Half an hour into the interview, it was Lanpher who pressed Moore on why, while endorsing Wesley Clark for president, he called Bush a "deserter." Moore insisted it was an accurate description of Bush's allegedly spotty National Guard service.
Unlike Moore, Franken declined to engage a New Jersey caller named Eric who said that the war in Iraq would save thousands of lives over time.
A surprise call from Al Gore was frittered away as Moore offered an apology (for supporting Ralph Nader in 2000) so convoluted that the former Democratic nominee asked: "What are you saying?" Gore said he was making an exception to his no-interview policy because "your show is a really important show" and promised to return. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is slated for today.
Franken got off a good rant now and then, such as when he talked about Bush's television ads: "They can't show the carrier footage with him in front of 'Mission Accomplished' -- it just looked stupid. Now I think they can't do 9/11. The only thing they're going to be able to do is ads of him clearing brush."
But a mock news interview with an Arab man at the London airport who seemed to suggest he was bringing on board a dog who had swallowed box cutters seemed insensitive as well as unfunny.
The bombast level quadrupled with a burst of rock music when Randi Rhodes, a brassy Brooklynite and longtime Florida radio host, took over at 3 p.m. She served up red meat by the slab.
"We're here because you're smarter than George W. Bush," Rhodes declared. "The Bush family is just like the Corleones. . . . Jeb fixed his brother's election." Within 15 minutes she had worked in the word "penis," and after that "girls' panties."
Rhodes defended the former attorney general's response to terrorism, compared with her successor, John Ashcroft: "I know Janet Reno. . . . She's more man than he is."
Seeming to embody liberal anger, Rhodes launched into an extraordinary diatribe about why the president continued to speak to a second-grade class after two planes hit the World Trade Center, and said he then flew to Nebraska because he was "scared . . . Republicans have been drinking this Kool-Aid for a really stinking long time."
At 7 p.m. media analyst Marty Kaplan provided some comic relief by interviewing actor Larry David, who described how he was kissing an actress on his show for HBO, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." But even this had a political point: David abruptly stopped when he saw that the woman had a photo of Bush.
Garofalo, who emerged as an anti-Iraq war spokeswoman last year, engaged in stream-of-consciousness bar banter with her sidekick, actor Sam Seder. The 8 p.m. host slammed what she called "closet-bigot, homophobe, misogynist people who masquerade as Republicans," saying they practice "the politics of extreme belligerence, elastic ethics and very malleable and bendable truths." And she was just warming up.
Garofalo also groused about Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume and his "Special Report" panelists -- "his Algonquin table of apologists" -- whom Seder half-jokingly characterized as "extreme right, far extreme right and very, very far extreme fascist right."
HBO talk show host Bill Maher told Garofalo it was inappropriate for conservatives to talk about putting Ronald Reagan's image on currency and even Mount Rushmore while he is still alive. Garofalo responded: "They want to put his name on everything -- airports, park benches, bidets."
Garofalo later complained about the "very vulgar things" said about Bill Clinton when he was trying to battle al Qaeda during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Maher, taking a swipe at the "lazy" and "stupid" press, offered Garofalo and her network words of encouragement. "There is not a liberal media," he said. "That's why I'm glad you guys are there."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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