America Is Waking Up!, you say?
I nominate that Air America Radio pick up Ray Taliaferro. Keep him in the overnight spot, for all I care, replacing the repeats of Franken or Randi Rhodes. Perhaps, as suggested here, he’s not exactly at the pinacle of intellectual debate, and queasily a bit too in league with the DNC hierarchy, but talk radio is entertainment and the right-wing hosts have transformed the medium into a clearinghouse of partisan yahooism anyways — if Air America turns into nothing more than clearinghouses for DNC talking points, it’s just a mirror image of the relationship the RNC has with its elaborate echo-chamber and message amplifier…
He’s on at 1 in the morning beamed from San Francisco’s 810 AM. This is one of those stations that pumps up its frequency during the night to bounce all over the ionosphere, so there’s a good chance that just about anyone on the West Coast will be able to pick it up.
He’s chirpy. Ridiculously chirpy, strumming together whatever collection of favorable Kerry news and unfavorable Bush news that he can assimilate.
“America Waking up” he begins the broadcast, “and it feels good.”
The phrase has shifted slightly within the past week, though to… “America is now AWAKE!”
It’s the theme of his show.
In a literal sense, this is untrue… it’s the graveyard shift, but nevermind. He continues on.
More impressively, and more entertainingly, is how he responds to opposing callers. An example goes like this:
Caller: Hi. I just want to know what the format change of your show will like if Bush wins the election? Will you still be bashing the president, or will you be supporting him?
Ray: Let me ask you this…
Caller: No. You always answer a question with a question.
Ray: Sir. Let me ask you a question.
Caller: No. I need to know if you’ll be supporting the president or what the format of your show will be if he wins re-election.
Ray: Sir… Sir…
(Continues like this, shifts slightly as we approach a hard, pre-set -commercial break to “We can carry this over to the other side of the break, but if we had been able to discourse intelligibly, you’d have my answer by now.”
Comes back from the break.
Ray: Now, the caller is gone, but the question remains: Would you be support Adolf Hitler, because he was duly elected? I do not support leaders just because they were elected.
On the other hand it’s good to know that you support John Kerry, because you believe in supporting presidents that were elected — and therefor cannot support George Bush who was not elected — who was selected.
See… this Republican is supporting John Kerry. America is Waking Up!
…
Or, we get something like this:
Caller: How can anyone support John Kerry. He himself admitted that he committed war crimes.
Ray: So, you’re saying that John Kerry told the truth.
Caller: Yes, that he committed war crimes!
Ray: So, you’re saying that since John Kerry told the truth that you are supporting John Kerry! America is waking up! We’re throwing the LIARS out and replacing them with the truth-tellers!
John Kerry… he told the truth.
And, on and on it goes… unsure whether I’m nodding in agreement or laughing at the phony self-aware distortions of whatever point of reference the caller is coming from.