What do you do if you're a left wing newspaper, and you have hyped—to—the—limit a leftist propaganda venture, which goes on to become a disaster? Admit that you were wrong? Not if you are the Minneapolis Star—Tribune, perennial contender for the title of worst major daily newspaper in America.

The Strib today (hat tip: Power Line) slathers on additional layers of hype, this time with rosy hues of warmth and good cheer for the 'rocky' start ('lift off' in Stribonics — see, we're really going into orbit) of Air America. The severe problems are just 'a glitch.' Where others see scandal, failure, embarrassing ineptness, and unprofessionalism, the plucky propagandists in Minneapolis see mere teething pains of an infant destined to grow into a strapping adult.

Virtually every critical appraisal of Air America's broadcast product has been scathing, and it has been an unmitigated business disaster, unable to meet its payroll on time, firing top management, changing hands twice, closing ad sales offices, losing key affiliates, and causing General Motors to demand that they stop running their pre—paid advertising. Yet somehow writer Deborah Caulfield Ryback manages to stuff the first 60 words of the article with 'good' (3 times!), 'relaxed,' 'warm,' 'basked,' and 'looking up.'

Pravda never did better than this, in reporting news of a failed harvest, chock full of images of cheerful peasants dedicated the international solidarity of the working class, under the dedicated leadership of Comrade Stalin.

The article even manages to quote Al Franken, author of a book titled Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them, 'It turned out there wasn't as much money as Evan said there was,' without ever bringing—up the L—word. If the CEO didn't lie, exactly what did he do? Miscount? How is this all that different from Enron?

Okay, they may be down to exactly one major market, but we are instructed that Air America is the greatest success ever on the internet. How do we know? Well, on the incredibly—hyped opening day of the network, it was claimed that 80,000 people tuned—in to the internet feed. I was one of them, because I wanted to hear for myself what I had read about umpteen times in the New York Times (including a cover story in the Sunday New York Times Magazine — the single most prominent play available in all of newspaper journalism). In Stribonics, this translates into

Experts say its Internet presence —— drawing as many as 80,000 listeners an hour at http://www.airamericaradio.com—— is unparalleled.

Nice of them to provide a link, isn't it?

Maybe Air America is getting better. I don't know, since I have never made the effort again to link to their internet feed. So far, they are not on the air in the San Francisco Bay Area, even though they have claimed from the start that they would be soon. If and when their claims ever turn out to be true, I will occasionally listen—in on my car radio on the way to the grocery store, because I like to see what the left has to offer, whenever I can, and when the duration won't be more than a couple of minutes.

In the meantime, I can always check the Minneapolis Star—Tribune to find out what the left wing propagandists are up to.