James Wolcott on Al Franken's dittohead Friend, Mark Luther . .

Wolcott, Vanity Fair's media critic very neatly sums up how I feel about Al's buddy Mark: Here: http://www.jameswolcott.com/

I don't listen that often to Al Franken's midday show on Air America. It's too phlegmatic and low energy for my taste. But low energy is better than no energy, which is what Franken's dittohead friend Mark Luther drags to the broadcast. I don't know if Dittohead Mark is on every day with Al, but he seems to be on every day that I listen, put there just to annoy me. Dittohead Mark may be Al's friend, but he never caught a rabbit and he ain't no friend of mine or anyone who appreciates good radio and a modicum of intelligence. Worse, every time Mark appears, it means we're subjected to soundbites from Mark's idol Rush Limbaugh, chunks of triumphalist snorting and chortling that are the reasons I spare myself listening to Rush in the first place.

Today, Al was playing choice cuts of Rush's idiotic, morally debauched rationalizations for torture at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. A pointless exercise, since Dittohead Mark thinks any criticism of the military is picking out the negative instead of accenting the positive. He insisted, practically demanded, that instead of emphasizing the occasional bad thing the military's doing in Iraq--you know, like wiping out entire wedding parties--Al should come up with one positive item a day from Iraq. And not be sarcastic about it either, Mark added. At which point I would told Mark to open a high window and go fly. . . So this is where we are in 2004. Conservatives not only dictate the terms of debate from their side, but dictate how the other side should conduct itself (i.e., like eunuchs). Liberals would never bother pestering Rush or Ann Coulter to acknowledge one positive achievement of liberalism or feminism a day, because they know they'd only get a dismissive get-lost in return. But conservatives have no hesitation in lecturing liberals on how to discuss the war in Iraq, even though all of the power in Washington is now concentrated in Republican hands and liberal Democrats haven't the slightest input into the decision-making process.Al should have told his dittohead friend that it's too damned late to be sprinking sugar on the mound of corpses mounting in Iraq, but instead he persisted in this exercise in futility, trying to persuade someone who's unpersuadable, winkle a mind that's proudly, defiantly clam-shut. It really is liberal masochism trying to find common ground with someone who believes liberals barely deserve to occupy the same earth. Dittohead Mark might concede a minor point here or there, but he's never going to budge on the big dumb positions his hero Rush holds dear, and using his powers of reason on a sensibility so inert is a waste of Al's breath, and a waste of the listener's time.

The guy is brilliant and super funny.

I think I even heard Luthor admit that Rush isn't very honest, but it's the general overall feeling of Rush that he likes. I mean, if your idol Rush is not honest, how can you trust your overall impression of Rush?

He should go back to writing books and doing small comedy spots, he is a bore on the radio in my opinion. The weakest show on Air America IMO.

And I agree that as a comic, Franken is a better TV guy. The comedy bits just aren't very funny; he should quit trying to do humor and stick to the interveiws, some of which have been quite good. Wolcott is absolutely right about Mark Luther, who is an idiot and a waste of air time. I think Franken's intent is to show how stupid it is to worship Rush, but it's all just annoying.