That said, Rush Limbaugh’s worst day is better than Air America’s best, not just because I’m more likely to agree with the content, but because it doesn’t suck.

In announcing today on its website that it is going off the air and filing bankruptcy, Air America, good liberals — excuse me, progressives —  that they are, blame their demise on everything but themselves.

The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America’s business. This past year has seen a “perfect storm” in the media industry generally. National and local advertising revenues have fallen drastically, causing many media companies nationwide to fold or seek bankruptcy protection. From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry’s long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times.

Yep, must be why all those conservative talkers are going off the air, too.

Those companies that remain are facing audience fragmentation as a result of new media technologies, are often saddled with crushing debt, and have generally found it difficult to obtain operating or investment capital from traditional sources of funding. In this climate, our painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week, but ultimately fell short of success.

Translation: investors know we suck.

With radio industry ad revenues down for 10 consecutive quarters, and reportedly off 21% in 2009, signs of improvement have consisted of hoping things will be less bad. And though Internet/new media revenues are projected to grow, our expanding online efforts face the same monetization and profitability challenges in the short term confronting the Web operations of most media companies.

Does this mean that their web operations are going down, too? Looks like it. The bankruptcy announcement is the only thing on the home page.

Through some 100 radio outlets nationwide, Air America helped build a new sense of purpose and determination among American progressives. With this revival, the progressive movement made major gains in the 2006 mid-term elections and, more recently, in the election of President Barack Obama and a strongly Democratic Congress.

Laws have changed for the better thanks to this revival…..but all the same our company cannot escape the laws of economics.

Why would they make this concession? The policies they advocate regularly assume that the whole country can avoifd the laws of economics.

(H/T: HotAir.)

UPDATES (1//21/10): Michelle Malkin:

Sen. Franken hasn’t lobbied for a bailout, as far as we know. But don’t breath a sigh of relief yet. They’re still swinging the Fairness Doctrine noose. When they can’t compete in the marketplace, the Left will use the power of government to squash their competitors.

And no on can accuse Professor Jacobson of being understated. At least not here.

“A very calm and understated manner.”

Got that? That’s the new standard for political debate; whatever you say in a calm and understated manner must not be alarming, and thus people must not act as if they are alarmed, no matter what it is.

This notion of an overblown reaction to understated remarks merely continues the stupid emphasis (by both left and right) on means rather than ends, form rather than substance, and the idiotic principle of proportionate response.

While administration flacks may not be going over-the-top in the way that Democrats at large, and especially the lunatic left, did over the last eight years, the velvet fist is the perfectly predictable result of adding “the Chicago Way” to the mix by electing as president a total unknown with exceptionally thin skin from the nation’s most politically corrupt city. How is it understated to say, as David Axelrod did last Sunday, that Fox News is not even a news organization and should not be treated as such by other news organizations? It’s just another way of saying that the single television news organization that doesn’t regularly suck the president’s dick must be shut out for that reason. Is it somehow less offensive or threatening because he said it calmly?

Theblogprof has some fun ridiculing the MSM for being taken in by the real fake protesters (or is it the fake real protesters?) at the healthcare townhalls. (Trust me, neither “real fake” nor “fake real” is an oxymoron in this case.)

While the MSM does, as the good professor notes, have egg on their faces, it’s of little good if no one sees it, and no one will. Denial always works for the MSM.

I’m reminded of a scene in the 1967 movie A Guide for the Married Man, in which Robert Morse, through a series of vignettes about other men, schools Walter Matthau in how to cheat on one’s wife without being caught. In one vignette, the guy is caught — red-handed, when his wife returns home to find him in their bed with another woman. Does he panic? Beg forgiveness? Claim it’s not what it looks like? None of the above.

He denies. Caught red-handed, he denies. Denies, denies, denies. His exchange with with his wife goes something like this:

Wife (upon catching her husband in bed with another woman): “Oh, my God!”

Husband (as the other woman rolls out of bed and starts getting dressed, and he pulls on his trousers): “What?”

Wife: Who is she?!?

Husband: Who?

Wife (pointing): Her!

Husband: Who?

Wife: Her!

Husband (as the other woman walks out of the house): Who?

Wife: Her! Her! Her!

Husband (as the other woman drives away in a cab): Who?

Wife: That woman who was in bed with you and is now driving away in that taxi!

Husband: Whatever are you talking about?

In the end, the wife thinks she must be going nuts and doesn’t believe her own eyes. That, my dear professor, is an awfully large part of he American public, which is also the answer to your exit question.

Think they’ll stop complaining now that the white face is gone? Nah, me either.

UPDATE: I changed the original Joker image to include the “Socialism” caption. I’m still catching up  on my  reading about this, and didn’t realize the caption was part of the original artwork. Speaking of catching up on my reading, Allahpundit had some terrific commentary on the absurdity of finding racism in so many criticisms of Obama:

[The WaPo column] reminds me of when McCain’s “Celebrity” ad debuted and the left went on a three-day bender trying to top each other with ever more inventive theories about the alleged racial subtext. It’s a parlor game for progressive nerds: Take any conservative attack on Obama, assume racism, and then connect as many dots as you need to in order to get from point A to point B. Here it’s Obama = Joker; Joker = terrorizes city; terrorizing cities = stereotype of blacks; ergo, Obama = stereotype of blacks. It’s like “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” but with political benefits.

UPDATE #2: Yikes! Fixed a typo that might have left the wrong impression. “They’ll” used to be “they’s,” which approximated the Amos & Andy style of speech.

Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway in Mad Men

Stacy McCain’s Rule 5 standard, Christina Hendricks — who plays bombshell secretary Joan Holloway on Mad Men — makes the following disclosure in the August 2009 Redbook magazine:

We have to ask: Are you a natural redhead?

I’m a natural blonde. I’ve been dyeing it red for more than 20 years. I’ve always felt like I was a natural redhead — like I was an imposter as a blonde.

Can’t see it. At all.

She looks absolutely stunning in the photos, but those small internet pics don’t do her justice. I know because my wife, a huge Mad Men fan, was kind enough to tear out the Redbook pages for me before she threw the magazine out. Ain’t my wife a peach?

UPDATE (7/22/09): Stacy McCain links from a post at Taki’s Magazine, giving me a Chris Matthews-like thrill from the resulting traffic spike, which illustrates a successful application of Rule 1: Shameless blogwhoring.

I emailed McCain a link to this post last night. And I didn’t even have to ask for a link. It pays to know a man’s weaknesses.

Thanks, Stacy!

UPDATE #2 (7/22/09): And thanks again! McCain links from his blog, too. Traffic spike grows larger. Thrills up both legs now:

(FYI, the smaller spike is from the last Rule 5 Sunday.)

UPDATE #3 (7/23/09): This is getting really, really fun. I thought yesterday’s traffic was good, but today’s is through the roof. I think the Wordpress line graph illustrates it better than the Sitemeter bar graph:

Skepticrats traffic for last 30 days

I am running out of appendages for thrills to run up. Thanks again, Stacy!

Now, if I can just write something clever that makes people want to stick around . . .

Peggy Noonan used her Friday column in the Wall Street Journal to throw some dirt on Sarah Palin’s grave. It’s vintage Noonan: airheaded, dripping with condescension, and completely missing the point. No serious conservative needs to hear anything from Noonan except her groveling apology for being so horribly wrong about Barack Obama, who she energetically supported for president.

I really wonder what happened to Noonan. Obviously, her transfomation hasn’t been nearly as drastic as that of Ariana Huffington. But she used to be a quite eloquent defender of “big idea” conservative principles and Reagan conservatism. Now she’s . . . what? Writing for writing’s sake, I think, to string together flowery words that roll off the tongue, and picking the nearest available target.

Which would explain why she fell under Obama’s spell. It would appear she engaged in her previous defense of Reagan convservatism because the principles involved allowed her to write and speak eloquently. Obama gave her the chance to do that last election cycle. Who will it be the next?

UPDATE (7/12/09): Stacy McCain offers a reasonable explanation for Noonan being unimpressed with Palin — that Palin is a lightweight compared to Reagan when he came on the presidential scene — that would have led me to cut Noonan a break . . . until McCain points out that on that basis, Noonan should have been equally unimpressed with Obama. McCain’s theory makes me think all the more that Noonan signed on to Obama for the lofty rhetoric.

Baldwin’s credentials are questionable… but Al Franken is no slouch. He’s Harvard educated and one of his first duties will be as a committee member for the confirmation hearing of Sonia Sotomayor next week.

Alec Baldwin is shocked — shocked! — that a member of the media could be so elitist:

So Franken fits the mold for Cafferty because he went to Harvard? What other schools does Cafferty approve of as breeding grounds for office holders in America? What other professions does Cafferty believe should be excluded from holding office?

Uh, Alec? Where have you been the last several years? Your party is all about elitism. Wake up!

Oh, and from the Weekly Standard blog: “Alec Baldwin attacked Jack Cafferty today with a level of invective he usually reserves for his own daughter.”

Sue them, bankrupt them, ruin their lives, destroy their careers, shut down their blogs and other propaganda outlets, get ‘em locked up wherever possible. Kick them in the teeth again and again, until they howl in pain from the gutter they roll in. Scorch the very earth under their feet. Unleash pure hell on them, and make every single day of their lives a horror and a misery — just as they did to you, just as they’ve done to so many other decent men and women who have the temerity to disagree with their anti-American ideal of what this country should be. Liberal asswipes have gotten away with this sort of thing for far too long.

And here he was yesterday:

And for the rest of us, attack them we must. We must leave no stone unturned when it comes to Democrat Socialists at every level of government and their bought and paid-for media whores; we should mete out to them, measure for measure, the same vicious vitriol that they hurl at us. We should plow them under, bury them, and salt the earth over their heads. We should go after every last one of them — from Obama on down — not with open hearts and hands, but with clenched fists and hard-hearted ruthlessness.

It will never be enough merely to defeat them; we must destroy them utterly, with every means we can possibly find to use, fair or foul. From here on out, the question should never be: is this polite? Is this decent? Does this make us more like them than we’re comfortable being? Rather, it should be: is this effective? Does it lead us to victory? Does it assure that, when they smear and vilify us, they know there will be a heavy price to pay for it?

The stakes here are way too high to pull our punches in the name of supposedly fighting fair; the stakes are our country, our freedom, and likely enough, our very lives. Anyone who thinks these things not worth fighting hammer and tongs for ought to step aside until the dust settles.

I’m with him all the way, as long as he is not advocating throwing around lies and frivolous ethics charges. With the abundance of corruption in politics, we shouldn’t need either. But I’m all for exposing skeletons in the closet, as long as they are real skeletons.