The political left has long decried the partisan hackery of conservative talk radio as little more than a group of angry, disaffected men shouting at the converted. And with good reason. Hosts like Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly regularly hold forth to legions of fellow travelers — and no one else — and, as such, feel little need to make any pretense toward being fair, balanced, or, many times, even correct.
The arrival of Air America Radio in March 2004 was supposed to begin to tip the balance in the other direction, if only slightly, while serving as a way for Democrats to finally have a national voice on the radio. And while by and large it has succeeded — it’s now carried on 64 stations nationwide and preaches its liberal gospel to millions of listeners — with that success comes a price. In order to maintain its listeners, it has to do much the same thing as conservative radio — reinforce the worldviews of the true believers tuning in.
In a segment of the “Al Franken Show” that aired on Friday, Franken and Salon.com and New York Observer columnist Joe Conason teamed up to “interview” Ed Klein, the author of the factually challenged The Truth About Hillary, an anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton tome that makes Kitty Kelly’s 2004 book The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty look like a puff piece by comparison.
Klein’s book has been pilloried by both the left and right, and for good reason. In addition to the revolting allegation that Chelsea Clinton’s conception came as a result of Bill Clinton raping his wife, it also alleges that Hillary is a lesbian, despite the fact that Klein can find no evidence that she ever engaged in any sexual relationship with a woman — or has ever wanted to.
As conservative columnist John Podhoretz wrote of the book last week:
This is one of the most sordid volumes I’ve ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn’t have to suffer through another word … Everything in this book that matters has been written before, and better. Everything else in it shouldn’t have been published.
But on to the “Al Franken Show” interview.
Proving that conservative windbags have nothing on their liberal counterparts, Franken and Conason used the segment as little more than a back-and-forth between the two of them (with co-host Katherine Lanpher gamely — if unsuccessfully — trying to make her voice heard above the din of Franken’s ego.) The sorriest aspect of the whole episode was not the smackdown they gave Klein — he deserved everything they threw at him and more — but the fact that they had him dead to rights, and blew the whole thing by barely letting him speak.
While listening to the exchange, we were reminded of the “Daily Show” segment called “Great Moments in Punditry” where host Jon Stewart has children read transcripts from various political talk shows. A good example of this came when Franken and Conason pressed Klein about his misleading depiction of what became known as “Filegate” (a 1996 scandal where security officials in the White House were accused of improperly requesting and receiving FBI files on White House employees. In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray determined that there was no credible evidence of any criminal activity, and exonerated Hillary Clinton completely.) Read ’em and weep:
Franken: But you’ve been going on, you’ve been going on like, like, ah, talking in interviews saying, “Like Nixon, Hillary has used FBI files against her enemies.” Now, that’s a very serious charge.
Klein: How about the, how about the, the, um, Internal Revenue Service —
Conason: Don’t change the subject, Ed.
Franken: Oh, wait a minute. I asked you — let’s address —
Klein: Why can’t we talk about various —
Franken: Because I want you to —
Klein: — organs of the government?
Franken: I want you to answer —
Conason: Because he can’t answer the question, that’s why.
Franken: Because I want you to answer one question at a time. “Like Nixon, Hillary has used FBI files against her enemies.” I think that’s a very, very serious charge. Would you characterize that as a serious charge?
Klein: I certainly would.
Franken: Yeah.
Klein: And I would say that there are many publications who have said the exact same thing.
Conason: Name one that has any, any, any —
Klein: The New York Times, for one.
Franken: Said that, no, it never —
Klein: The Washington Post, for two.
Franken: Baloney!
Conason: The New York Times? You mean William Safire wrote that? Is that who you’re talking about? ‘Cause he had no evidence for it, either.
Klein: Well, you think — you think Safire’s a congenital liar –
Conason: I do. I think he — I’ve said it many times in print.
Klein: [laughing]
Conason: He said a lot of things about Hillary Clinton that were totally wrong. He predicted that —
Franken: You know what, let’s move on to something —
Move on to something else? But … Klein never answered the question! In fact, he barely had a chance to utter more than a brief phrase. That’s pretty much how the entire interview went; Franken and Conason would call Klein on an inaccuracy, bat him around a bit, talk amongst themselves, and Klein would attempt to stutter a noncommittal response before they would cut him off and move on.
We’re not sure what to be more disappointed by — the fact that they had Klein on the facts but let him off the hook, or that we yet again witnessed the sad, sloppy product Americans have come to accept as their media at work.
Conason and Franken are smart guys. It’s time for them to recognize that instead of elevating the national discourse, they have merely become the left’s version of the caustic right-wing jabberfests that they claim to hold in such contempt.
–Paul McLeary
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.