Liberal & loving it: Al Franken & Air America.

Full disclosure: I am married to a Republican. Learning his political affiliation was a bitter blow, fifteen years ago, when I'd just fallen in love, but I am inured to the knowledge by now. It is some comfort that he has grown more liberal over time, and by dint of avoiding most political discussion, we've kept our household harmonious. His habit of purchasing large articles of furniture on eBay, in fact, has been far more problematic.

And then again, there are the rants. A natural-born curmudgeon, my husband often veers into conservative diatribes, fulminating against high tax rates, or loose immigration policies, or multicul-turalism, or New York City zoning restrictions, or any number of GOP bugaboos. My mild liberal rebuttals never seem to stanch these philippics, and when we go to visit his family, the situation gets worse. My in-laws are even more conservative than my husband, and they rant too. There was the Thanksgiving dinner given over to extolling the merits of gas-guzzling SUVs ... but I digress.

The point is, I never knew liberals could rant--never knew, that is, until I tuned into Air America Radio. Launched with high hopes in late March, Air America is the new liberal talk-radio network now airing on a limited number of stations, including outlets in New York; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; and Burlington, Vermont; and also on satellite radio (visit www.airamericaradio.com for the most up-to-date list, or to listen online). It boasts a cheeky line-up of opinionated shows, from the antemeridian Morning Sedition (pace, NPR) to Saturday night's ultra-cool Bring the Noise, hosted by rap artist Chuck D; to the commuter-hour fume-fest wrangled by the abrasive Randi Rhodes, whose accomplishments include provoking Ralph Nader to the point that he hung up on her, on Air America's very first day.

But the network's most notable asset is comedian Al Franken, the Saturday Night Live alumnus whose book of left-wing punditry, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, has been a bestseller. Franken hosts a weekday show whose very name, The O'Franken Factor, is a gibe at his conservative nemesis, Bill O'Reilly of The O'Reilly Factor. Similarly goofy political taunts surface on the show itself, which to date has exulted in such jokes as "The Right-Wing Non-Lie of the Day," a recorded sound bite by a conservative icon like Rush Limbaugh announcing, say, the day's weather.

But Franken and sidekick Katherine Lanpher's jokes segue into what can only be described as rants, directed, needless to say, against the Bush administration and its arrogance, duplicity, incompetence, environmental record, inability to navigate the English language--well, suffice it to say that I have become a minor O'Franken Factor addict. Taking a downright literary approach to the culture wars, Franken asserts that humor can serve as a weapon. Asked by one caller whether mocking Republicans was not like waging war with a wet noodle, Al replied, "I like to use what they say against them. I think it's jujitsu."

The other Air America offerings can be less disarming. When a caller to Randi Rhodes's show proposed that the Religious Right be dubbed "The American Taliban," the host retorted, "Except Islamic fundamentalists put their money where their mouth is. They pray five times a day. That's commitment!" In general, the network's staff has so far proved better at working up a righteous fury than at producing seamless, listenable radio. The tirades can be leaden and repetitive; casual chatter between cohosts occasionally feels slack and aimless; and some of the non-Franken jokes reach for a humor they can't quite attain. (Why, Majority Report cohost Janeane Garofalo wondered, do people always talk about tumors the size of grapefruits, and never about grapefruits the size of tumors?)

The shows still have glitches, such as sign-offs in which the hosts find they can't announce future guests because they don't have the information in front of them. Still, in an era of media monoliths and high-tech artifice, when Clear Channel Communications owns 1,200 radio stations across the country, Air America's snafus are rather refreshing. The network sounds like the scrappy underdog it is--a bunch of people putting on a radio show, not a mirage engineered by a greedy conglomerate. Even the awkward range of commercials feels refreshing. On established radio networks, the ads are so slickly produced that they become in some way invisible, insidiously filtering straight into your subconscious. By contrast, Air America's weird mix of public-service announcements, weight-loss pitches, and ads for niche products (an environmentally friendly Internet service) calls attention to itself and its own commercialism--you can picture the advertising director tugging at his hair, desperate to accept something, anything, in return for moolah.

But the new network's chief merit, in my opinion, lies in demonstrating that liberals can rant. Since tuning in, I personally have found it much easier to rail against the exploits of George W. and his ilk. "Did you read that New York Times Magazine cover story about clean-air standards?" I demanded of my husband the other day. "Isn't it outrageous what this administration has done to the environment?"

"You know, you're starting to rant a lot," he remarked mildly. "If I go talking like that around here, I get in trouble."

True, I reflect, as I set out to dust a recent eBay purchase, but of course my husband's ranting isn't part of a bold new experiment to reclaim the air waves for the people. Air America is aimed at revitalizing liberalism, and I feel revitalized. And, as Franken said the other day, I am sick and tired of apologizing for being reasonable.