If you haven't yet read the transcript of Ralph Nader's interview on Randi Rhodes' Air America Radio show yesterday, please go ahead and read it now. I'll wait.
Done? OK, am I the only one who thinks "on the one hand, this is terrible, but on the other, it feels great"?
I think Randi did a great thing here - and most of us aren't used to this kind of conversation. Sure, she didn't engage Nader on an intellectual or even a substantive level. But that's not talk radio, talk radio is about catharting all the stuff that's bugging you and getting it out of your head and onto the air.
Randi articulated something that I've seen many times - usually level-headed people going ballistic whenever Nader's mentioned. I'm sure that large portions of the audience felt that when she was yelling at Ralph, "she's yelling for me, I wish I could yell at Ralph because I hate what he did in 2000 and I can't believe he's going to do it again."
She kept repeating that she wasn't interviewing him, she was angry with him. She didn't have him on the show to ask him about the issues or the campaign or this or that. She had him on the show so she could vent her spleen in his ear and do it in front of an audience of millions.
Sure, it's not exactly responsible journalism, but it's not really a journalism format here, it's the mean streets of talk radio. In fact, it's a lot like the blogosphere - would Nader get any better treatment from Atrios or Kos?
And that's why in the final analysis, I think that this interview will be a watershed event. Randi took all of that unfiltered, righteous anger that everyone's feeling and came right out with it, no apologies or anything. She got MAD. And reading it is a total blast. More and more people are yearning for that blast this year, and that's one big reason why everyone's flocking to the blogs, because you can't get that blast from the nightly news. You can only get it from the blogosphere - and a few local media outlets - and now, Air America.
Welcome to the moment!