Air America Radio seemed rather unimpressed by the Zarqawi story out of Iraq this morning. I caught some of the opening minutes of the Stephanie Miller show today. They were playing clips of the Rose Garden Bush remarks and just mocking his accent. "He's extra-twangy today," mocked Miller. The show's impressionist started doing Bush in a William Buckley-esque Connecticut accent, implying the Texas talk is all phony.

Then they began joking "we're auditioning for a new boogey-man," as if Zarqawi was a phantom in a closet. (A caller later suggested Simon Cowell host the boogey-man auditions.) By 9:15, the show shifted back to automatic pilot, mocking Gary Bauer's appearance on Fox with John Gibson on opposition to "gay marriage." (They also mocked Tony Perkins on the same subject on Hardball.)

Miller also suggested at one point that perhaps the picture of Zarqawi's corpse might reveal "smoke from dry ice," as if the U.S. was suspiciously delaying their victory for ultimate political gain?

UPDATE: I popped in the car to get lunch and sample some Al Franken on Air America. It's good to know he still knows who the Real Enemy is. At 12:45 he was interviewing Joseph Minton, the author of "Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly." (Apparently, O'Reilly has mangled the history of a World War II atrocity in interviews with Gen. Wesley Clark.)

For the 1 PM hour, Franken promised to discuss the corruptibility of congressional appopriations committees with David Sirota, and then on to the "wonderful wise-ass poetry of Calvin Trillin," who pens political verse for The Nation magazine.

UPDATE 2: On the commute home, I tuned in Randi Rhodes at 6 PM Eastern. Hoo boy. She was saying Zarqawi was our boy, someone we protected in the no-fly zone from Saddam Hussein, and then used as an excuse for war. A few minutes later, she complained it was a "sick, psychotic" day for news, and said the rulers of America were "imperialistic, hegemonistic....dictators."

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.