(And also because he's running for Norm Coleman's Senate seat in 2008.)

Doggone it, people like him.

Good for Thom, he rocks! :-)

I'll miss him. Even without Katherine Lanpher (with whom he'd developed quite a good chemistry) I appreciated the way he brought the funny along with the passion.

I hope he runs for Senate. I hope he wins. That would make the subject matter of his book Why Not Me? rather ironic.

But he'd be a corker of a Senator.

I've always enjoyed Thom Hartmann for his passion and his thought process. Clear thinker, clear speaker. He will be a much better voice for the true progressives in the Country than Franken.

Few people are as well equipped to serve the public discourse as Hartmann. I am happy that others will have a chance to hear him!

I got a chance to meet Al Franken and walk a few hundred yards with him through the same backhall that Richard Perle had walked only weeks before. I told him about it and said that having him there after Perle was like an exorcism - like lifting a curse. Al Franken repeated Richard Perle's name slowly and bitterly, then said, "What a f*cker."
That was a funny moment - at least it made me laugh - but I also thought while I was walking there with him that he had real courage to speak out like he does. I mean there were a lot of people around at one point... I just felt even being close to this guy was sort of dangerous. Imagine if you had Bill O'Reilly stirring up the right wing against you, so I was impressed with Al Franken for his bravery.
I also love him as a comedian. When he went to Iraq and appeared for a huge group of American soldiers, his first line was, "Anyone here from out of town?" 6 words in and he had already gotten a huge laugh. At the performance I saw, he did a world class Rush Limbaugh impression right at the beginning and the crowd just relaxed. He's a huge talent.
Now, on the other hand, one of my best academic things was getting a 760 on the Math SATs in 11th grade. I didn't even take the test again my senior year.
My pride in that was really hurt when I read Al Franken got a perfect 800 on his Math SATs. That sort of makes me like him a lot less. In fact, disregard the first part of this. I now hate Al Franken.

Franken will make a great senator. I can't wait to watch him go after Coleman. 'Ol Norm is already taking a few Gordon Smith-esque steps to the left. Especially on the war. That said, I don't think Norm will be ready for Al.

As for Hartmann...

*Ugh*

Al was entertaining. Thom just isn't. Listening to him, I feel like I'm in a college lecture where the prof is just reading from a textbook. I guess he's great for the true-believers, but we're going for hearts and minds, people.

Erin Hart should have had an AA show long ago. She'd dance circles around Hartmann.

You have a point there. I enjoyed Thom but he can get a bit dry, and he's way too nice to insane people sometimes (MHAO).

Look on the bright side...maybe we'll finally get Mike Malloy back, if they can make room in the evening sked for him.

Al Franken's leaving Air America,...

Leave out the Air then we've got news.

Otherwise, yawn, who cares? No one listens to the network anyway. No one I know does, anyway.

(With apologies to Pauline Kael.)

Heya rr.

Fact: Air America is SOARING past KXL in the Arbitron ratings! KOPJ is now a Top Five station in Portland, jumping 20 or so spots in two years.

Fact: KXL is plummeting down the ratings ladder, two or three rungs at a time, in a race to the bottom.

Try www.oregonmediainsiders.com or pdxradio.com for latest Arbie numbers.

Or call KXL and ask 'em yourself. They are easy to understand, once you get past all their crying and moaning.

No one listens to the network anyway. No one I know does, anyway.

Maybe you should get some new friends.

JR,

No, thanks.

But thanks for being concerned.

(check out irony and my parenthetical statement some time)

Daphne,

Greetings, we come in peace!

I tried to check out the Arbitron ratings for KOPJ but couldn't find it.

Thom's great!

Heya rr. Here's alink to r-and-r!

K-P-O-J is now the 6th rated radio station in Portland, before they subscribed to Air America they were... 26th.

http://tinyurl.com/235okq

And the reason KPOJ's ad rate is so high, is that they kill KXL in the key 25-54 demographic of college-educated people with money, while Larsy is still aiming at the Depends crowd, on their way back to get that GED.

Someday.

Franken is going to the land of irrelevance where his pumpkin head Rosie O'Donnell look alike azz belongs!!!

Q. If Gopher from the Love Boat (Fred Grandy) can be a Congressman, why not a former SNL cast member?

A. Governing requires a different skill set than sniping.

One of these days, LIARS, * POW ! POW ! *POW*POW*POW* !!!, two in the head, three in the heart. As we say in Joysey.
Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom.
Punish the Right-Wing LIARS, By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted January 31, 2007.

And for Thom, people are talking the talk ... Thom Hartmann to Replace Al Franken on rescued Air America Radio, by Rob Kall
... taking names who's walking the walk.

In the final analysis, maybe, it boils down to the essential common denominator: Rash Lamebrain is a big fat idiot. Liars Larson is a big fat idiot.

And the rest are either with 'em, or against 'em ... hands? ... show of hands, please? ... hands? ... anyone? ... anyone? ...