Anybody else catch the debut of Air America yesterday? Now that Tony Kornheiser's radio show has ended, my talk radio regimen has been set adrift -- Diane Rehm and Kojo Nnamdi are hilariously creaky and mellow, respectively, but I can only listen to people natter on about Medicare reform so many times before having retirees fight to the death thunderdome-style starts to sound reasonable.

So I tuned into Air America wanting to make it a habit. Unfortunately, I forgot to do so until partway through the afternoon, putting me in the middle of the Randi Rhodes Show. It was everything you'd hope it wouldn't be -- an unfunny, shrill yenta whining endlessly about George W. Bush. I realize a liberal radio network needs a unique bag of tricks, but the conservatives really have got all the best ones already. Exhaustively listing policy missteps is just not going to elicit the kind of visceral reaction that Limbaugh and his ilk can get by talking about Hillary's unquenchable thirst for adulterous three-ways with Susan McDougal and Vince Foster's murdered corpse.

Hopefully Al Franken's show will prove more entertaining than the insufferable Rhodes, but frankly I have doubts. The radio format lends itself to broad strokes, not nuance -- convincingly portraying liberal positions over mass media is tricky for even the most skilled communicators. The fact that the Air America network consists of a handful of underpowered AM stations and is supported by ads featuring Larry King hawking Ester-C does not inspire confidence that they'll be around long enough for the hosts to find their legs. Baiting O'Reilly is one thing; coming up with 3 daily hours of effective and non-repetitive radio is another.