Holiday -- sorry, Bill O'Christmas -- vacation is over. Monday morning will have the megamouths more than ready to take back the Lords of Loud seats from unlistened to, exaggerated drama-queens and notso best-ofs. The broadcast guys and gals will choppin' at the bit to get to the real business of demeaning Dems and putting a wedge between Americans. And they'll be more than ready. Rush, Sean, Glenn and the wannabes who received the gift of an overwhelming Republican defeat will spend the next couple weeks building up the momentum so that January 20th will kick off at two, four or more years of blaming the new President and Democrats in power. You think tearing apart every word and move by President Obama won't be a helluva lot more fun than the defending of the Bush debacle? It's exhausting trying to nail the powerless Democats for the demise of America. Behind closed mikes, they'd admit that blaming the recession on a president-elect was a contortion of logic that even the Velvet Fog of talk radio, Mark Levin, probably found a bit unweildy.
Not that they didn't all try. As Mencken was purported to say, "you will never lose money underestimating the American people." If you want to double your winnings put your money on the Factor Folks.
O'Reilly who will soon be retiring (i.e. radio failure) from the radio waves so that he can spend more time with his TV Factor family will again push his independent fairness. Perhaps Michael Smerconish, sometimes an O'Reilly fill-in, is the only other "conservative" host who says he's objective. Difference is, Smerconish is the only one of the two who many times actually is. Bill's task will be headier than the rest. He'll not only face a Democratic juggernaut, he'll have to swallow the reality of his worst nightmare...
Senator Al Franken.
He's good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, he's got votes enough to have nipped incumbent Norm Coleman in the race for the Minnesota senate seat.
So fun.
First Bill loses his hilarious attempt to sue for slander over Franken's book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, sending Al's books sales and bank account into the stratosphere, then he dismisses Franken's run for Senate as "no chance," which had to send some undecideds into the Franken corner. And now he's faced with six... that's right... six years of trying to come up with different ways to try and smear Franken. While the other talkers admittedly relish the opportunity to attack their opponents, Bill's ever-clumsy attempts at trying to appear balanced, are fueled only by hate and his bitterness at never being accepted by the big-boy's club at the networks. The result just ends up as a bonanza for Keith Olbermann who'll need very little original writing or research to fill his "Worst Person of the Day" segment.
Meanwhile, across the dial, expect the next two weeks to be full of insincere wishes for President Obama's success along with a heaping helping of Ann Coulter. The Lean Queen of Mean will be pimping her newest screed, Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America, and the broadcast-right will be more than happy to supply Annie with plenty of oxygen to fuel her precious prose.
Talk radio and TV. That, Mr. Cavett, is entertainment.
Steve Young is the author of Great Failures of the Extremely Successful and blogs at the appropriately named: steveyoungonpolitics.com