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Politics : Err America: They Report, They Decide -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (21)	6/23/2004 12:14:17 PM
From: Neeka	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1513

The only corporation "valid" enough to make a profit in America as far at liberals are concerned is Air America. The rest are just greedy fascist money grubbers tying up all that money that deny the people their right to government programs....wise up. -gg- Posted on Wed, Jun. 23, 2004 Air America — the pride of southeastern Canada? MARK STEYN Remember Air America? The brilliant pre-publicity campaign marred only by an ill-advised decision to actually launch the product? The hype was coast to coast, but the station was only in a handful of markets, and a couple of those dumped the station after a bounced check, and most of the senior executives departed after a couple of weeks, which, according to whom you believe, was either part of the original business plan or extremely necessary because one of them was a "former Republican activist from Guam" and thus likely a double-agent for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Many decades ago, Richard Mellon Scaife planted scores of deep sleepers in Guam on the off chance it might get statehood in the next century. So I was amazed to discover the other week that Air America is still out there. I divide my time, as the book jackets like to say, between New Hampshire and Quebec, and motoring 'tween the two on the northern side of the border I've taken to listening to the Big 1070 WTWK Plattsburgh, serving not just the burgeoning twin-state market of remote northeastern New York and remote northwestern Vermont but also much of southern Quebec. I'm proud to be an Air America listener, even if I have to go to Canada to do it. You might not be able to listen to Al and Janeane in Chicago or Los Angeles, but once you leave the country they come booming in loud and clear, in the same way that Michael Moore always looms larger in Cannes, in every sense. What's wrong with Air America? Well, the trick for Democrats is to be like WTWK's reception in Vermont — distorted and fuzzy. Distorted and fuzzy are the twin pillars of effective leftie strategy. Remember that favorite statistic of Bill Clinton, that 12 "kids" a day are killed by guns. When you examine the data, it turns out five-sixths of those 11.569 grade-school moppets are young adults between 15 and 19, many of whom are engaged in convenience-store hold-ups, drug deals and other activities, which, though potentially lucrative, have a tendency to go awry. But fuzziness (the inevitable invocation of "the children") makes the distortion difficult to question. And that's how the left advances its agenda — muffling ruthless partisanship in fluffy talk. Air America is distorted, but it's not fuzzy. Take Randi Rhodes, whom I hear more of than anybody else. She's on from 2 to 6 p.m. That's a big chunk of the broadcast day. When you've got a four-hour show, you need to be able to nudge the story along — you can't be making the same complaint about Rumsfeld at 7 o'clock that you were making at 3. But Miss Rhodes doesn't seem to know enough to be able to advance the narrative. One fellow who called in compared what America was doing in Iraq with the bombing of Dresden, and Miss Rhodes then explained that the Allies had bombed Dresden after the end of World War II, which suggests she may have been reading the grade-school history primer back to front. The caller then went on to compare Bush and 9/11 with Hitler and the burning of the Reichstag. "Kinda sorta," said Randi. Kinda sorta. What did she mean? Was she really lending credence to the idea that Bush was behind Sept. 11? Or was she bluffing, stalling for time till her assistant could find a reference book with this Reichstag thingy in it? It's a good thing Air America is such a flop or it would cause serious problems for the Democratic Party. Miss Rhodes, for example, has been urging those called up for Iraq to refuse to go — to desert, in other words — which, if I understand his nuances, isn't exactly on message with John Kerry. Perhaps one notices this more tootling along the autoroute in a province that's still home to many graying pony-tailed draft dodgers from last time round. Indeed, in its combination of whiney victim complex and smug Bush moron jokes, Air America sounds far more Canadian than the CBC. I appreciate that "Air America! Nobody covers southwestern Quebec like we do!" is probably not what their promotions guys foresaw in the original marketing strategy, but I offer it in a friendly spirit, and in hopes that they'll extend the benefits of their toll-free number to my fellow Quebeckers. I heard the same guy from Long Island calling on successive days in May, so it couldn't hurt to vary the diet with Yvan from Trois-Rivieres. Allons-y, Air America! twincities.com