'O'Franken Factor' kicks off Air America

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Registered: 03-18-2000
'O'Franken Factor' kicks off Air America
34
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 6:39pm

The gloves are coming off on talk radio. Boxer 


http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/03/31/media.radio.reut/index.html


Comedian-provocateur Al Franken is anchoring Wednesday's launch of a new liberal radio network -- Air America -- that promises irreverent voices from the opposite end of the political spectrum to conservatives like Rush Limbaugh who dominate talk radio.


"We're going to listen to (Limbaugh's) show and hold him up to scorn and ridicule," Franken said in a telephone interview.


The debut is auspiciously timed: the presidential candidates have come out swinging and liberal anger at Republican President Bush is at a fever pitch.


Network chief executive Mark Walsh said the goal was to skewer "pomposity" in high places regardless of political affiliation. "We're not in regime change radio," he said.


Walsh said his most recent job was as "the Internet guy" for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Franken also knows Kerry, who along with filmmaker Michael Moore is a likely Air America guest.


The network will also feature other radio neophytes such as actress Janeane Garofalo, rapper Chuck D and activist Robert Kennedy Jr. Each will be paired with a radio veteran.


Franken has kicked off with a three-hour midday show, "The O'Franken Factor," a mocking tribute to his broadcasting foe Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox News.


A former writer on NBC-TV's "Saturday Night Live", Franken wrote the best-selling comic diatribes "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" and last year's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." The latter triggered a short-lived lawsuit from Fox News.


Wine and cheese, or red meat?

A onetime high school wrestler, the 52-year-old Franken's recent antics have earned him the label of comic brawler: he tackled a heckler at a political event and offered to fight a magazine editor who said Democrats had "sissified" politics.


Franken turns serious when discussing Bush.


"This is a president who ran as a uniter not a divider and he's the most divisive president that I can remember," Franken said. "He had an opportunity to lead us in a new American century united in purpose and sacrifice and blew it completely. He wanted for some reason very, very, very badly to attack Iraq ... (which) I think has damaged the war on terror."


Limbaugh and other conservative radio figures such as Sean Hannity and Michael Savage -- whose dominance of talk radio balances what some see as mainstream media's liberal bias -- have already begun mocking the upstart network.


"They're saying we're a bunch of wine-swilling cheese-eating liberal idiots; that it'll never work; that liberals don't listen to the radio; that all we did was hire a bunch of comics and not anybody that knows anything about radio," Walsh said.


Franken admitted he drinks wine occasionally but doesn't know the difference between labels. "I do eat cheese; they're more accurate than usual there."


Observers are unsure about Air America's chances of success but it has drawn an avalanche of publicity as the first liberal-minded radio network.


In truth, the serious-minded Pacifica network and segments of National Public Radio have already staked out liberal positions.


"If these guys succeed, you know who's going to be banging down their doors to get them on? All the guys running conservative talk radio. Radio's not a political business. Politics is just a product ... a prop," said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a magazine that covers the industry.


Air America is armed with $30 million in investor cash and a $30 million credit line being used to lease AM stations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, with more stations promised.

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Don't you remember "Day # XXX of America Held Hostage" by the Clinton Administration? That wasn't funny to me or to others who found that Presidency to be better than the several that preceded it.

I find nothing funny about that dried up old addict!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
I resent being labeled a "Feminazi" because I believe women and men should be equal in rights and responsibilities. That seems pretty hateful to me.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
You're under the misapprehension that Rush refers to individuals who believe in equality between the sexes as Feminazis. Nothing could be further from the truth. Like most conservatives, he believes in equality between women & men.

Feminazis are the left wing NOW wackos, and he uses the term in a mocking humorous way, which could even be described as lighthearted, and is not the least bit hateful. If you want to hear what hate sounds like on the radio, you should catch some of the NOW audio he occasionally plays.


Edited 4/5/2004 8:09 pm ET ET by wrhen

Renee

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Registered: 04-16-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 10:08am
<>

I agree it is hateful. Most name calling is hateful, and intended to be so.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 10:11am
<>

Only if you agree with him. That is precisely the point, to shame people into agreeing with his point of view. Who wants to be called a Feminazi? By replicating his verbage you are doing the same thing.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 11:47am
I agree.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
You're under the misapprehension that Rush refers to individuals who believe in equality between the sexes as Feminazis. Nothing could be further from the truth. Like most conservatives, he believes in equality between women & men.

Feminazis are the left wing NOW wackos, and he uses the term in a mocking humorous way, which could even be described as lighthearted, and is not the least bit hateful. If you want to hear what hate sounds like on the radio, you should catch some of the NOW audio he occasionally plays.

The fact is that Rush Limbaugh considers anyone who doesn't agree with him a wacko and has ways making fun of everyone of them.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
My undergraduate degree and most of my graduate work is in English, and I am fully aware of language, it's uses, and it's power.

As I said, he refers to the left wing NOW wackos as feminazis in a mocking humorous way, and is not the least bit hateful.

He would never disparage anyone for believing in the equality of men and women, since that is something that he, also believes.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Whacko was my word. Feminazi is Rush's, and I'd like you to please show me where I said one word about Franken let alone that he was hateful.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003

The problem was the point of the thread.