It's a familiar story of good and evil. A new boss comes into a company, and immediately fires minorities, replacing them mostly with whites, hoping to earn more money for the venture capitalists backing the takeover. Liberal journalists normally rush in to condemn the heartless racist capitalists. Unless, of course, we are talking about Air America, the astonishingly heavily—publicized leftist talk radio network. Suddenly, liberal Omerta kicks in.

The new network's flagship New York station is the semi—eponymous WLIB. Until the Air America venture capitalists grabbed hold of its broadcast signal, WLIB—1190 AM had a logo which proudly featured its role in "serving New York's Black community."  Afro—Centric programs, such as Imhotep Gary Byrd's "Global Black Experience" show developed a loyal, if evidently not terribly profitable, audience.

Faster than a New York Democrat abandoning Senate ambitions to make way for Hillary, WLIB's Caribbean—themed music programs must make way for Minnesota white boy Al Franken. Isn't that what Afrocentrists commonly call 'White Skin Privilege?' If  such cries of anger have been uttered, they have not yet made their way to any publications of which I am aware.

If Clear Channel radio had similarly gutted longstanding minority programming , you could count on papers like the New York Times denouncing them for 'putting profits above people,' or similar blather. But those dogs aren't barking in this case.

An even more intriguing case may well be unfolding in the Bay Area, as dependably left—leaning, Bush—hating a major market as can be found outside of France. Despite countless articles and press releases indicating that San Francisco listeners would be among the lucky few able to pick up Air America on their car radios at the network's launch, there is still no local radio station feeding Frankentalk to left—thinking masses.

Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle, as we noted yesterday, managed to publish a major article about the so—called news that the network was launching without a Bay Area station.  The headline breathlessly announced, 'Bay Area must wait two weeks.'

The body of the article revealed that although the contract had been signed, current station employees had not yet been told of the change. The very sensitive Mr. Evan Cohen, venture capitalist/chairman of the board of Air America, wanted to let the employees learn of their presumptive joblessness from their company, before putting its news in the hands of eager reporters for the Bay Area's uniformly left—leaning press.

Industry gossip now has it that the lucky station to be converted to the Frankentalk format is none other than Berkeley's own WTVM—AM 1400, a station completely unknown to this Berkeley resident until today. That's because WTVO's existing programming is primarily in the Chinese and Korean languages. Both communities are thriving enclaves around here, working hard and living the American Dream. But I guess their need for a radio outlet for news and programming representing their own cultures is outweighed by the need of Berkeley's leftists for another media outlet reflecting their own views.

Although WTVM's signal is only 1000 watts strong (big 'blowtorch' stations such as San Francisco's KGO emit 50,000 watts of electromagnetic radiation to reach every corner of the regional market), I was able to receive its signal just fine. But there is some doubt as to the ability of listeners in other parts of the Bay Area, such as Silicon Valley to get their fix of Janeane Garofalo and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Air America.

WTVM's general manager Harvey Stone confirms that talks are underway, but that no agreement is official, yet. So we'll have to wait awhile before we can see the classic joke punchline updated for the Bay Area radio scene: 'New Radio Network Launched; Poor, Minorities Hardest Hit.'