An Air American Girl

By Andrew Varnon, Valley Advocate. Posted June 11, 2005.

It's 5:18 a.m. in New York City on Wednesday, May 11. In a sound studio on the 41st floor of the high-rise at 3 Park Avenue, Rachel Maddow is working her way into the second segment of her early morning show on Air America Radio. She stands while she talks, leaning against the desk and holding a page that she's reading from in one hand and a pen in the other hand. "Now, every day here at The Rachel Maddow Show," she says,

"We poke a sharp stick at the soft, white underbelly of the right-wing scheme machine, giving you a little peek at the right-wing playbook for privatizing, polarizing and paving the United States of America. Today's underbelly story is kind of a big-picture look at the overall right-wing approach to the social safety net. Right? The idea that the government can help where free market forces fail. Where there's some social contract to turn to if you're sick, or if you are unlucky or if you are fortunate enough to live beyond your working years and actually retire."

Maddow relates the news that a federal judge recently ruled that United Airlines could default on its employee pension plan, throwing it into the lap of the federal government. With 134,000 employees affected, the United Airlines pension default is the largest in the past 30 years, perhaps ever. With US Air already having defaulted on its employee pensions, Maddow sees the beginning of a trend that doesn't bode well for American workers, at least in the airline industry. Still looking down at her script, she points a finger at Chris, the sound engineer, who plays a sound clip that Maddow had asked him to queue up during the break. In the clip, a representative of the flight attendants' union signals her displeasure at the ruling and says her union will continue to fight it in court.

Then, Maddow turns to her analysis:

"It's one thing to think about how the employees of United and US Air are being screwed by the companies that made these promises to them, but it's another thing to think about the right-wing playbook here -- alright? -- the way that this thing fits into the overall right-wing plans for the social safety net."

"So if the companies aren't doing it any more and the government isn't doing it any more -- at least if the Republicans get their way -- then who's taking care of your health insurance and your health care needs and your retirement? Well, you are, alone. On your own. The Republicans want an individualistic, every man for himself, eat the poor, capitalist, for-profit system, because that's best for business, that's best for people with money. They want to shift the risk -- right, because risk is what the social safety net is really all about -- they want to shift the risk from the government to you."

"Now, the Democrats, I think, need to start articulating this basic fact, start talking about their different approach to this issue, because I think people accept that the role of government generally -- it's not controversial to say -- is to take on some of the risk where some of the individuals can't manage it, right? To take on some of the risk where you are disadvantaged because of your age, because of ill health, because of being unlucky."

Maddow has dropped her script now and she's going on feeling. Chris, the sound man, brings in background music, a driving dancehall beat. The music begins to rise, signaling that the end of the segment is approaching.

"There are ways in which we can't live as beasts in an asocial environment, right?" Maddow says. "There's a way in which we come together for the collective good to support one another. When we're down on our luck or when we get old." According to Maddow, the Republicans are going about this the wrong way, creating a giant crisis as "an excuse to shred these programs that create the social safety net." The right way, Maddow says, is to try to find a way to get at the root of the problem of rising medical costs and to try to make them more affordable. "How's that for a Democratic program? Are we still looking for one? It's 27 after."

Right on time. Chris cuts to the commercial break.

The Rachel Maddow Show is billed as Air America Radio's front page. Launched on April 14, it is one of the newest programs on the liberal talk network, a network that many predicted wouldn't last beyond the 2004 election. The show stars Rachel Maddow, who joined the year-old network as part of the ensemble cast of Unfiltered with comedienne Lizz Winstead and rapper Chuck D. When Air America Radio reshuffled its programming in April, bringing on notorious daytime television host (and former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio) Jerry Springer's radio program, Unfiltered got the axe. Winstead got the boot, Chuck D. took a weekend music show, but Maddow was moved into the station's leadoff spot, captaining her own hour-long program of rapid-fire news and analysis. Air America Radio has garnered a lot of buzz for its big-name celebrity hosts like Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, which has also earned the radio network its share of criticism for its big splash strategy. If Air America was designed to be a quick knockout punch that would deflate the power of Rush Limbaugh or help defeat George W. Bush at the ballot box, it's a double failure. But if there is a long-term future for left-leaning talk radio in America, Air America will have to blend its big-name talent with a system for bringing up new talent from the grassroots. A sign that this may be happening is Rachel Maddow, who vaulted to Air America Radio from her position as morning show host for WRSI in Northampton.

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