One of my favorite blogs, Powerline Blog, has been keeping tabs on various media sources as they chronicle liberal talk radio network Air America’s ongoing woes with debt and scandal.

Scott Johnson of Powerline Blog had an interesting post up just this morning. Here’s a piece of it:

Brian Maloney has the latest installment of the Air Ameriscam saga: “Panhandling next?” In a message early this morning, Maloney wrote: “Air America’s now resorting to begging for money from listeners. Don’t miss your chance to get an Air America bumper sticker before it shuts down for good!”

I’ll admit, if Air America folds tomorrow, I wouldn’t shed a tear or offer up a moment of silence. I might smile a little, though. I’ll let you know what I do when Air America finally closes its doors.

And make no mistake, they will close their doors. They were doomed from the start.

And not because liberal talk radio cannot do well in this country. There are MANY examples of liberal radio hosts who do very well. Michael Moore, for example, and Alan Colmes.

In truth, Air America was doomed from the start because it is a product of institutional thinking; something which comes quite naturally to many liberals. These liberals saw a massive, conservatively dominated, radio market, assumed that it was all planned and coordinated by conservatives operating cooperatively, and decided to do the same thing.

The only problem with that whole assumption, and the actions which flowed from it was that it was not true. In fact, the conservative radio market grew up gradually, with Rush Limbaugh leading the way in the 80’s and others who were inspired by his success following his lead soon after.

Now, about 20 years later, conservatives dominate this medium. But all of those conservative hosts built their shows up from scratch, with quite a few of them having already worked in the radio industry for decades.

They honed their style, their approach, built their audience, and generally rose up through the ranks by finding ways to draw their own audience. Some liberals followed suit and have been successful in exactly the same way.

But then you have the creation of the monolithic “Air America.” This was a company that was created on the assumption that conservative radio was an institution, not a competitive industry. So they created this institution to compete with what they thought was a conservative institution and, of course, they are failing miserably.

Institutions in general struggle in hypercompetitive markets like radio. In smaller, less competitive markets, where choices are limited, they do just fine. But, overall, in a national market, where only the strong survive and consumers decide who wins and who moves on to new careers, they just can’t compete.

When Air America finally folds, will it spell the end for all their on-the-air talent? I doubt it. The ones who have built an audience will likely just venture out on their own and continue doing what they were doing before; probably with a few tweaks to better meet audience demand. And, before very long, they’ll likely find out they’re doing far better on their own than they ever could have done as part of a monolithic orgnization like Air America.

As for the others, they’ll move on to new careers, or back to old ones. Who knows, though, perhaps the Air America concept will inspire more young liberals to move into radio. If so, then I wish them well.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Well, two fascinating — yet not fascinating — events taking place here in DC this week. First, Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, a man whose intellect and knowledge of the law wowed even his harshest critics, was given an “up” vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here is an interesting comment from Paul of Powerline Blog:

The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 13-5 in favor of recommending the confirmation of Judge Roberts. The vote among Demoratic members was three in favor (Leahy, Kohl, and Feingold) and five against (Biden, Kennedy, Schumer, Feinstein, and Durbin). The Democratic “no” vote on the 18 member Committee exceeds the number of Republican votes, Senate-wide, against Justice Ginsburg.

Not that anyone is shocked. Actually, Roberts received more Democratic votes than I had anticipated. Democratic excuses for “no” votes were legion, but, by far, one of the weirdest excuses was given by Dianne Feinstein of California who commented to the press that Judge Roberts had not talked enough about what kind of husband and father he is.

Say what?!

Are we back in the 1960’s again? Are employers allowed again to question potential employees regarding their families? Can companies bring in the “significant other” for a sit-down to talk about their counterpart? That used to happen you know.

What if the nominee (as may very well be the case before too long) had been a woman and a male Republican Senator had said something like this? I’m thinking feminists would immediately call for that senator’s resignation. And for good reason.

Oh, and, speaking of the 60s, Cindy Sheehan arrived in Washington for a weekend of anti-war protests. The SUVs carrying her and other Gold Star parents of lost service men and women arrived near the Capitol yesterday, at which time Cindy did a couple of symbolic things that had been preplanned for her by the professional protesters who travel the globe to speak out against war, globalism, capitalism, and anything else that sounds like it might be fun to protest.

They sported signs with the ever-familiar peace-sign, sang 60s war protest songs, chanted anti-war slogans, etc. Ms. Sheehan’s entourage is quite a bit smaller these days, but the liberal press still seems to love her.

All-in-all, they were just one Joan Baez short of a full rally!

I’ll stop there. I don’t want to make fun of Ms. Sheehan. Ultimately, she is a woman whose grief allowed her to become a willing object for a cause which dishonors the memory of her son, and every other man and woman who has died in the service of their country.

And Ms. Sheehan, as well as the other Gold Star parents accompanying her, are angry for just one reason… They’ve chosen to believe a lie. The lie being, of course, that their beloved child died for no reason.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

But, for now, the professional protesters will do everything in their power to keep the Cindy Sheehans of the world angry in the hopes of using it to power their movement. I think part of the mindset of the anti-war movement is that, an unpopular war is a war not worth fighting.

I wonder if there ever has been a “popular” war? Beyond that, I wonder if anti-war protesters know that one of the most unpopular wars in American history was the American Revolution?

I wonder if they would really even care if they did know.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com