Attn: Air America

I'm sorry, but I just can't listen to Al Franken. I know, I know, he's new to this live radio stuff, but still, he should be able to utter consecutive complete sentences. Not all the time, the lingua franca does not demand that much discipline. But occasionally, at least. And he just can't. He stutters. He rambles. He launches into sentences that even my 6th grade English teacher Mrs. Mulkern couldn't diagram. And she was a diagraming animal!

Now I hear that Al's sidekick Katherine is bailing out. The announced reason is a book deal. Riiight. She's just getting out while she can. She knows that their show is just too painful to listen to, no matter how invested the listener is in their point of view.

 Look, we need some erudite progressives on the radio. No question. But Al ain't it, no matter how much I love the big lug. Time toinvest in someone else.

In Santa Cruz we had a guy named Eric Schoeck who was great (save, perhaps, for an unnatural insistance on balance). I think he went off to Chicago or something. Somebody find him or somebody like him who can conduct a cogent interview and describe a point of view without getting lost or relying too much on the assumed agreement  of the listener.