No, We Won't Shut Up

A stark difference between conservatives and liberals: Liberals genuinely believe in Voltaire's most quoteable quoth, "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." Conservatives don't.

You know it if you've ever heard Bill O'Reilly's masterful interviewing technique. You know it if you've ever tried to attend a Bush rally with a "No Blood For Oil" bumpersticker on your car. And, you know it if you've been paying any attention at all to the conservative blogorama lately.

Michelle Malkin and her lot have been making a bunch of hay over a nonstory and the media's "failure" to cover it. You see, it seems that Evan Cohen, the former CEO of Air America Radio, was, how shall we put it, "shady." This is obviously a big story that the liberal media is ignoring completely. Right?

Waitaminute. Didn't HBO have this entire documentary called Left of the Dial? And wasn't the thesis of said movie pretty much that Evan Cohen was a shady dealer? That he was talking out of his ass when he said he had enough venture capital to float AAR for as long as three years? That after three weeks, AAR was defaulting on payroll and health insurance, and that shortly thereafter, Cohen got out of dodge and was divorced from the company two months after the first broadcast?

So, here's the "scoop": The New York Department of Investigation is looking into whether hundreds of thousands of dollars were illegally transferred from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, a nonprofit organization in the Bronx, to Air America Radio during Cohen's ever-so-brief tenure there. Bloggers and even Tony Blankley's editorial page are painting it as the network preying on children, a ridiculous characterization on its face. Cohen was a shady dealer and a bad businessman who apparently made more than one horrible business decision. Air America Radio is not the White House, however, and instead of promoting Cohen for his incompetence, he was summarily drummed out.

No, the maelstrom the conservatives are attempting to create over this nonissue isn't about conservatives' overreaching concern for respect of the law, nor is it out of heartfelt compassion for the children. They're making hay out of this simply because they cannot stand the fact that Air America Radio is on the air at all.

From Franken's first broadcast, they've been predicting its failure. And, true, it almost failed, but not because there's no market for it. It almost failed because the guy running the business was a douchebag. But the network is growing, now with 67 terrestrial affiliates and an exclusive deal with XM Radio that should cement its survival.

To conservatives, though, there is no room for other ideas. You're either a blind, unquestioning adherent to the, um, "philosophy" of Ayn Rand, or SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

Air America Radio did not partake in thievery from children; that assertion is ridiculous, mean-spirited, and meant to hush a voice that's been needed for years. The Gloria Wise mess will certainly be moderated adequately, and these fine liberal voices will continue to be heard.