On Radio, More Laughter From the Left

Miller got her start on a Buffalo music station -- "being funny for 20 seconds between the songs" -- which led to a show in her blue-collar suburb of Lockport. She bounced around different markets -- a syndicated television show lasted three months in 1995 -- still hosts "I've Got a Secret" on Oxygen and is in talks with CNN about a satire show. During the Clinton years, the Los Angeles Times reported, Miller drew complaints about being mean by depicting Monica Lewinsky as a mooing cow, Linda Tripp as an elephant and calling Ken Starr a "horndog."

But only since Jones Radio Networks began distributing Miller's program last fall has she seemed to catch fire. With bits and impressions from her "voice guy" Jim Ward, Miller ridicules the administration -- from "Baghdad Bush" to John Bolton's mustache -- with undisguised glee. Miller generally has no guests, though the likes of Howard Dean and Barbara Boxer have made brief appearances.

Watching Fox with Miller makes clear where she gets her material. Hannity teases the next segment by saying Rep. Charles Rangel "compared the war in Iraq to the Holocaust -- did he really mean it?"

"They always pose questions like that: 'Is Hillary the spawn of Satan, and should she be burned at the stake?' "

Miller is amused when Hannity, listening to Rangel insist that the Bush administration "preplanned" a "preemptive strike" against Saddam Hussein, declares: "There's no such evidence that exists, and you know that." The congressman tries to offer some, which Hannity dismisses as talk about "black helicopters."

Says Miller: "He just starts talking over them or laughing or slamming his notebook up and down while people are talking. I'm continually amazed that Democrats go on there."

Why does she spend so much time deconstructing Fox hosts, to the point of constantly chiding O'Reilly for selling "no spin" mugs and jackets? When prodded, she admits she admires their skills as broadcasters.

"I'm sure they get that we're promoting their shows," Miller says. "O'Reilly is laughing all the way to the bank."

Alter vs. Ailes

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter took a satirical swipe at Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes in the magazine, writing that if Watergate happened today, the "former Nixon media adviser" would ban the word in favor of the logo "Assault on the Presidency."

Now Alter writes on HuffingtonPost.com that "Mr.-Dish-It-Out apparently can't take it. . . . I heard that his stooges were out peddling a story to the press that I was guilty of a conflict-of-interest and should have disclosed in my column that I twice unsuccessfully sought employment at Fox News and now do part-time work under contract to NBC News and MSNBC." Ailes, he says, "assumes his adversaries are patsies who will be easily cowed into silence."

Ailes says Alter asked him for a commentator's job several years ago but balked at being identified as a liberal when Ailes told him "I can't pretend you're a straight journalist." He says that he was just a 28-year-old aide in Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign with "no editorial input" and that in his nine years at Fox, "I've never deleted a word, a phrase, a story." Unlike Newsweek and the Koran incident, he adds, Fox hasn't just issued a major retraction.

Alter reminded Ailes in a letter that the column was satire, asking if he really believed "that MSNBC -- which apparently can take a joke better than Fox -- would pose as its question-of-the-day: "Firebombing Brookings: Good Idea or Not?' "

The Non-Crossfire

Tucker Carlson, who makes his MSNBC prime-time debut tonight, says he doesn't plan to book partisans who recite talking points.

"Because the analysis is by definition stilted," says Carlson, who felt locked into a left-right format at CNN's recently deceased "Crossfire." While he is "very conservative," he says, "I am not interested in having the show be an echo chamber for my views." On his 9 p.m. program, "The Situation," says Carlson, "there's going to be a lot of disagreement, but no nastiness at all. I don't like that. On my PBS show for a year, I never barked at a single person."

Carlson says the show, which will open with two radio yakkers, conservative Jay Severin and liberal Rachel Maddow, will offer a fast-paced series of stories with a countdown clock.

Soul Man

"The Washington Times yesterday inadvertently published a photograph of D.C. City Administrator Robert C. Bobb misidentified as the late soul singer Marvin Gaye." -- Wednesday's Washington Times.