Janeane Garofalo loses.

Her Air America program has been a long thread of facile partisan canards. Her usual drole, doubt-everything deadpan has been swapped for a much-less-compelling “Republicans are evil” refrain. She even used the phrase “corporate media.”

Yeah, yeah, it’s the first night, but they’ve opened with a flurry of publicity, and knowing that this may be their moment in the spotlight before dimming into obscurity, they might have taken the trouble to procure actual content. There’s been a mishmash of decently high-profile guests — Bill Maher, Atrios, Ben (of Ben & Jerry), Dave Chappelle — but the conversation hasn’t stepped beyond slinging mud at conservatives. Not even news peg mud (e.g. “Can you believe they smeared Dick Clarke?”) — generic mud (e.g. “They’re corporate whores!”).

I haven’t had a good experience with talk radio, unless it’s This American Life or Sound Portraits. Somehow, even though it’s just the first night, I already have deep doubts about Air America raising the level of discourse on the medium.