Boviosity!

XM Radio is carrying Air America so I thought I would give it a listen. I refuse to listen to that tool, Ed Schultz, whose entire schtick consists of reading conservative writings in a real sarcastic voice and then saying, "Unbelievable!" and then breaking for commercial. In my view, Air America's first really smart move was not to let him anywhere near drive time. So I got to listen to "Morning Sedition," the network's kooky morning show.

First off, that stupid title: "Morning Sedition." This kind of in-your-face, "ooo, look at us we're speaking truth to power" vibe is almost as lame as Al Franken's show title, "The O'Franken Factor." It gives the show a hole to dig itself out of right from the start, sounding like nothing more than a spotty adolescent who's just figuring out some of his ideas might be unsound and so has to preempt criticism by saying, "I know I'm just a spotty adolescent," implying thereby that any dissent is spot-based and not factual.

The hosts are a hard-to-listen to bunch; I hope they're beautiful to look at because they certainly don't have voices made for radio. One guy sounds like he's gargling and the woman's ready-for-BBC accent made me want to check whether I was actually listening to NPR. I'll stop there, because I'm not going to address the various rough edges on the show (the too-loud segue tapes, etc.) I'm not a radio professional so I'll just assume they're going to work this stuff out. More experienced folk can pipe up if they find that inexcusable.

First guest I heard was Michael Stipe, whose group REM, we are informed, is well-known for the political bent of their songs. Well, maybe. I know they occasionally mention world hot spots in their songs, but mostly they seem to be about a curious mixture of world-weariness and nostalgia, and they've always appealed to me. I learned something I didn't know: Stipe lives a few blocks from the WTC site and was at this home when the attacks occurred. He avoided any mention of the war on terror but said that touring in Canada is interesting because he's still in North America and yet outside the influence of the big, powerful United States. He was saying something about how the people there just sort of ignore us and was interrupted by one of the personalities who said, "So it's a codependent relationship then? Hah ha." I would have been interested in hearing an exploration of that, but Stipe just immediately assented and then the conversation moved on.

I've described this at such length because this and other incidents during the broadcast made me think I'm listening to people with an utterly different worldview than most of the people you hear on the radio. These people have a certain set of cultural and intellectual touchpoints beyond which no exploration is necessary. I'm sure Hannity and Boortz et. al. do, too, but perhaps since I'm, theoretically, immersed in it I don't notice it. Like the fish said, "Water? What water?" However, I think that if they hope to illuminate this worldview they'll need to move beyond mouthing these silly code words and actually talk about the meaning behind them. I know that right-wing talkers are just as guilty - Rush Limbaugh's near-pornographic relish whenever he uses the word "producers," for instance, is just button-pushing. Ho-hum.

I wish I could remember the first alleged joke of the broadcast. I was listening and thinking, "My, my, what a humorless bunch" when one guy, apparently the designated lightener-upper, cracked the most obvious, cringe-inducing gag - so bad that not even the people around him laughed. There was some okay humor later as the guy read the Liberals' supposed marching orders from Barbra Streisand, supposedly ripped right off the fax machine. Mostly of the "Hey, you can't accuse us of being anti-American, because we're making jokes about our supposed anti-Americanism!" stripe. Har-de-har-har.

A fawning interview with Wesley Clark, in which he actually sounded quite sane, was interesting. How do I know it was interesting? Because the in-depth and hilarious commentary after he hung up (all interviews were by phone) consisted of the hosts saying, "Interesting!" to one another for about 30 interminable seconds, followed by discussions of his mid-campaign wardrobe change. To be fair, though, Clark was a good interview and seemed pretty rational about the situation in Falluja and Baghdad, pointing out what this says about Baathist strategy, and the dangers of running away like we did after Black Hawk Down.

By contrast, an interview with Pat Buchanan was hardball after hardball, usually wide of the mark and tendentious in the extreme...except when Buchanan (as is his wont) listed support for Israel as the chief sin of the neoconservatives. (I was waiting for him to say something about Da Jews and unfortunately wasn't surprised when this reference was permitted to just sit there unchallenged.) But the interviewer (who I will call Mar[c|k] because Marc and Mark are the names of the male hosts) had bigger fish to fry. As soon as Buchanan made his (uninterrupted and unfollowed-up-on) case against the neoconservatives, Mar[c|k] launched into a series of challenges based on old comments of Buchanan's that life in the US and Washington DC in particular was better in the 1950's and 1960's; as surely as the night follows the day, Mar[c|k] pointed out that segregation and other institutionalized forms of racism were present in the 50's and 60's and why does such "racialist" considerations inform Buchanan's opinion? Yeah, Mar[c|k], that's the only difference between then and now, bub. (Oops, sorry, this is a review, not a fisking) To his credit, Mar[c|k] did not interrupt Buchanan when Buchanan replied, "That's just silly." I don't know if Buchanan is a racist or not, mind you, but he pointed out actual differences: in the murder rates of then and now, in the illegitimacy rate then and now, in school achievement then and now. It shows that, underneath any discussion of the past is a "racialist" accusation ready to be flung once somebody doesn't like the way the discussion is going. Buchanan's parting shot, that people had better manners then than to throw around accusations of racism, fascism, hatred, and homophobia also was permitted to stand. A good performance, which led to Buchanan being described as "warm and fuzzy" by the female host.

Look. Life in America was crap for Blacks in the 50's and 60's. It was a blot on our national character and many, many people have a lot of atoning to do for it. But to twist every nostalgic reference to those times into pining for Jim Crow is in fact, "just silly."

OK, sorry.

Oh, I remembered, the first gag was a "business report" in which the "funny" Mar[c|k] read a "story" about the launch of Air America and how the morning show needed to be funny and interesting if there was to be a future for the network. I give it about 6 months. I'll be surprised if they make it to the election.

UPDATE: I just remembered the first rant I heard on the show. Mar[c|k] was talking about Tivo and Fox News, and just ranting about how with Tivo he would never have to listen to Peggy Noonan. I hope to find a transcript, because pretty soon it sounded like he was saying he could use Tivo in order not to have to listen to any ideas he didn't agree with. And not in a funny way, either.